with Elisa Casi-Eberhard and Allison Koester
Revise & Resubmit, Journal of Accounting Research
We examine how government financial assistance affects competition beyond its direct beneficiaries. Using data on U.S. federal, state, and local government assistance, we find that greater assistance to competitors is associated with a 12.2% decline in non-recipient firms' financial performance and a 5.1% reduction in market share. These effects are more pronounced among financially constrained firms and are concentrated in grants and tax-based assistance rather than loans. Our findings highlight the competitive spillovers of targeted fiscal interventions.
with Allison Koester
We examine whether government environmental financial assistance improves corporate environmental performance, using more than $48 billion in U.S. subsidies and detailed facility-level data. We find that assistance is associated with lower pollution intensity for non-toxic chemicals, fewer regulatory violations and environmental incidents, and increased innovation. However, we find no comparable improvements for the most harmful types of pollution. The benefits are primarily driven by loans rather than grants or tax incentives, highlighting the importance of subsidy design.
with Regi Kusumaatmadja
Draft available upon request
We investigate how government financial assistance affects both the scope and direction of corporate innovation. Using data on U.S. public firms, we find that assistance expands patenting and technological breadth, while shifts toward frontier technologies emerge more gradually. These changes are primarily driven by R&D-related grants, with weaker effects from tax credits and loans. We also find that part of the increase in innovation comes at the expense of closely competing firms, suggesting competitive spillovers from government support.
with Elisa Casi-Eberhard and Kim Alina Schulz
We examine how heightened uncertainty over access to skilled immigration affects internationally mobile workers and whether labor demand moderates their response. We exploit the increase in administrative scrutiny of the U.S. H-1B program beginning in 2017 and compare two closely related professional labor markets, audit and tax, that were similarly exposed to the immigration-policy shock but faced different demand conditions. Using individual career histories, we identify professionals likely to depend on the H-1B program based on where they obtained their first degree and how long ago they started their first U.S. job. Following the tightening, visa-exposed audit professionals become significantly more likely to leave the United States relative to audit professionals past the visa window. We find no corresponding increase among visa-exposed tax professionals, whose skills experienced a contemporaneous demand shock following the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act; the difference between the two occupations is statistically significant. As H-1B scrutiny subsequently recedes, the gap between visa-exposed tax and audit professionals disappears. Our preliminary evidence suggests that uncertainty over immigration access can affect the mobility of specialized foreign talent, but that strong demand for workers’ skills can mitigate these effects.
with Øyvind Thomassen
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, 2027 (forthcoming)
We examine how local charging infrastructure affects electric vehicle adoption using detailed Norwegian car registration data from 2010 to 2023. We find that adding 100 normal chargers within 5 km of a buyer's residence increases the probability of EV adoption by approximately 0.6 percentage points, while 100 fast chargers increase it by 3 percentage points. Our findings highlight the importance of complementary infrastructure in shaping the adoption of cleaner technologies.
with Øyvind Thomassen
Energy Economics, 2025
We evaluate the effectiveness and welfare implications of Norway's fiscal incentives for electric vehicles, using car registration data, vehicle prices, and tax rules. We find that removing the EV purchase-tax exemption would have reduced the EV market share from 66% to 25% in 2021 and increased emissions from newly sold cars by 167%. Despite substantial forgone tax revenues, the exemption is welfare-enhancing even before accounting for the environmental benefits of reduced emissions.
with Øyvind Thomassen
Transportation Research Part D, 2025
Using representative survey data from approximately 23,000 Norwegian households, we examine the relationship between political preferences and electric vehicle ownership. We find that EV adoption is substantially lower among individuals with more nationalist and traditional political preferences, while economically right-leaning preferences are associated with higher EV ownership, even after controlling for socioeconomic and geographic characteristics.