"The Effects of Rent Control Expansion on Tenants, Landlords, and Inequality: Evidence from San Francisco"
with Rebecca Diamond and Tim McQuade
American Economic Review, Vol.109, No.9 (September 2019)
Published version, Final draft (March 2019)
Media: WSJ, NYT, Economist, CNBC, Freakonomics Radio, NPR, Bloomberg, Stanford GSB
Research Briefs: Brookings, Cato
"Which Landlords Pay for Rent Control? Heterogeneous Landlord Response to San Francisco’s Rent Control Expansion"
with Rebecca Diamond and Tim McQuade
AEA Papers and Proceedings, Vol.109, (May 2019)
[Published version] [Final draft (February 2019)] [Appendix]
"The International Empirics of Management"
with Daniela Scur, et al.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol.121, No.45 (November 2024)
"The Effects of High-skilled Firm Entry on Incumbent Residents" Rej & Resubmit at American Economic Review, Under revision using LEHD data
with Rose Tan
Claire and Ralph Landau Prize for the Best Student SIEPR Discussion Paper 2021
Best Student Paper (Honorable Mention) at Urban Economics Association North American Meeting 2020
Using 391 high-skilled firm entries in the U.S. from 1990–2010, we estimate the effects of the firm entry on incumbent residents’ consumption, finances, and mobility. We compare outcomes for residents living close to the entry location with those living far away while controlling for their proximity to potential high-skilled firm entry sites. We find high-skilled incumbents, especially homeowners, benefit. Low-skilled incumbents on average benefit less. For a representative firm entry with 1000 new employees entering a metropolitan area with a population of 1.1 million, the aggregate welfare benefit across all incumbents is an annual equivalent of $25 million. Low skilled renters living within 10 minutes from the entry bear the largest costs.
Presented at: The Pennsylvania State University (Smeal), USC (Price), University of Utah (David Eccles), University of Pennsylvania (Wharton), University of Notre Dame, UNC (Kenan–Flagler), USC (Marshall), California State University–Fullerton, National University of Singapore (Real Estate), UCLA (Anderson), NYU (Furman), Washington University in St. Louis, University of Hong Kong, City University of Hong Kong, National University of Singapore (Business School), UNC Working Group on Economic Development, MFA 2023, AREUEA National Conference 2022, AREUEA-ASSA Conference 2022, Quantitative Spatial Economics Junior Workshop 2021, NBER Summer Institute: Urban/Real Estate 2021, UEA North American Meeting 2020
Funding: Shultz Graduate Student Fellowship in Economic Policy, Stanford Center for Computational Social Science Research Award
Media: Kenan Institute, UNC Affordable Housing Symposium Discussion with Matthew Kahn
"Mortgage Lock-in, Lifecycle Migration, and the Welfare Effects of Housing Market Liquidity" Under Review
with Kristopher Gerardi and David Zhang
We develop a novel search and matching model to study the effects of mortgage lock-in across geographic areas and over household lifecycles. We find that younger home buyers are more affected by mortgage lock-in because of a higher baseline level of mobility, disrupting their pattern of moving to higher-quality neighborhoods. We estimate a model of seller-buyers bargaining with endogenous migration across markets. We find that without mortgage lock-in, time on market on average increases by 9% and house prices decline by 10%, with larger effects in high-income areas and superstar cities and larger welfare effects among younger borrowers.
Presented at: The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, WFA 2025, Pre-WFA Summer Real Estate Research Symposium 2025, NFA 2025, MFA 2025, AEA 2025, Colorado Finance Summit 2024, University of Toronto Financial Economics Conference 2024
Media: Brookings
"Identifying Agglomeration Spillovers: Evidence from Grocery Store Openings" Under Review
with Yang Chen, Qianyang Zhang, and Xiang Zhang
We provide the first large-scale causal estimates of demand-side agglomeration spillovers in the non-tradable service sector, leveraging data on 851 grocery store openings across the United States between 2019 and 2022. We combine a convolutional neural network with propensity score matching to identify credible counterfactual opening sites and compare business outcomes between actual and counterfactual locations. Grocery store openings increase foot traffic to nearby businesses within 0.1 miles by 23.4 percent within 6-12 months, with spillovers decaying sharply beyond this radius. The effects are strongest for wholesale and retail establishments and hospitality services, and are substantially attenuated after COVID-19--from 42.7 to 14.6 percent--consistent with a trip-chaining mechanism. Grocery anchors also reshape the local business landscape: within 0.1 miles, establishment growth rates rise by 7.0 percentage points and employment growth rates by 8.8 percentage points, averaged over the first three post-entry years. Decomposing establishment growth rates, the effect is accounted for by higher entry and fewer exits.
Presented at: UEA European Meeting 2024, Online Spatial & Urban Seminar 2024, NBER Summer Institute: Real Estate 2023, AREUEA-ASSA Conference 2023, Eastern-FA 2023, RERI Annual Conference 2023, AREUEA National Conference 2023, CICF 2023, UEA North American Meeting 2023
Funding: Real Estate Research Institute (RERI) funding
"Impact of Institutional Owners on Housing Markets"
with Caitlin Gorback and Zipei Zhu
Since the Great Recession, single-family rental and private-equity investors have transformed U.S. housing markets. Using housing deeds from 2010–2022, we show that these investors grew rapidly and clustered geographically. Exploiting variation from the pre-existing built environment and falling management costs, we instrument for their market share. A one-standard-deviation (average) increase in local shares raises prices by 1.05 (0.21) p.p. and rents by 1.68 (0.43) p.p. These averages conceal temporal heterogeneity: prices and rents fell pre-pandemic but rose amid the scramble for space. As investor expansion displaced owners, rents and prices declined, suggesting lower homeowner amenities.
Presented at: University of Toronto (Rotman), USC (Marshall), Baruch College (Zicklin), University of Colorado Boulder (Leeds), U.S. Department of the Treasury, The Federal Reserve Board of Governors, The Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, SFS Cavalcade 2025, AREUEA-ASSA 2025, Stanford SITE for Housing and Urban Economics 2024, Cornell Real Estate Symposium 2024, SF Fed-UCLA conference on housing, financial markets, and monetary policy 2024, UEA North American Meeting 2024, Pre-WFA Summer Real Estate Research Symposium 2024, 2nd Annual Conference on Market-Based Solutions for Reducing Wealth Inequality, CICF 2024, ITAM Finance Conference 2024, RERI Annual Conference 2024, UT Austin Finance Brownbag
Funding: Real Estate Research Institute (RERI) funding, McCombs Research Excellence Grants
Media: Real Estate Research Institute (RERI) Webinar, NPR Planet Money Podcast, McCombs News and Magazine, Under Review Substack (topic area summary), Cal Matters
"The Numbers Game: Signaling Effects of Pricing Formats in Housing Bargaining" In preparation for resubmission
with Haaris Mateen, Ye Zhang, and Tianxiang Zheng
We provide large-scale evidence on how listing pricing formats serve as signals that shape bilateral bargaining in high-stakes markets. Using nationwide transaction-level and offer-level housing data, and guided by a model combining costly and cheap-talk signaling, we show that price formats provide signaling benefits in the housing market. We find that charm prices ($349,900) function as cheap-talk signals that accelerate sales with modest price concessions; round prices ($350,000) signal low informativeness, trigger aggressive counteroffers, and generate efficiency losses. Overall, pricing strategies reveal private information about sellers’ asset valuations and liquidity positions, influencing market equilibrium in high-stakes bargaining.
Presented at: Duke (Fuqua), University of Colorado Boulder (Leeds), Atlanta Fed, AFA PhD Student Poster Session 2025, India Management Research Conference 2024, 17th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Behavioral Finance & Economics, Yale Junior Finance Conference 2023, AREUEA-ASSA Conference 2024, Stockholm School of Economics Finance Brownbag, University of Houston Finance Brownbag, Columbia Experimental Design Workshop 2023.
"How Housing Search and Bargaining Unfold: Evidence from Offer-Level Data" Revise & Resubmit at Real Estate Economics
with Haaris Mateen and Ye Zhang
We study the microstructure of the U.S. housing market using novel offer-level data. We empirically test key predictions from existing theories and find substantial support for core mechanisms. However, we also uncover patterns unexplained by these models, particularly involving listing prices, housing atypicality, and buyer entry and time-on-market. We further document the importance of non-price bid characteristics in predicting sale prices. Lastly, using a new measure of seller concessions, we find sellers capture surplus early in negotiations, while successive listing price revisions gradually shift surplus toward buyers. Overall, our paper significantly informs future theory development in housing search and bargaining.
"How Housing Supply Expansions Reshape Cities" [25 min NBER Economics Analysis of Regulation Presentation]
with Marco Giacoletti and Matthijs Korevaar
Best Paper Award, Housing Lab / Finance Ideas “Developments in the Dutch Housing Market” seminar, November 2025.
We study a large-scale policy relaxing residential land supply constraints near major Dutch cities in the mid-1990s. Land allocation was determined centrally and was unrelated to pre-policy local market dynamics. Using administrative data, we explore effects on housing, mobility, and labor markets. New supply attracted high-income individuals, primarily from nearby high-income neighborhoods, where house prices decreased. New supply also increased local employment in surrounding areas, especially in high-earning occupations. We develop a rich quantitative spatial equilibrium model and show that the impact of relaxing supply constraints on housing markets and welfare crucially depends on job reallocation and on in-migration flows.
Presented at: London Business School, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, NC State (Poole), ASU Sonoran Winter Finance Conference 2026, FSU-UF-UGA Critical Issues in Real Estate Symposium 2026, MFA 2026, Notre Dame Housing Economics Conference 2026, Rocky Mountain Urban and Real Estate Conference 2026 (scheduled), Baruch-NUS Real Estate Conference 2026, AREUEA National 2026 (scheduled), NBER Economic Analysis of Regulation 2026
"Remote Work, Financial Frictions, and Office Valuation in Spatial Equilibrium"
with Xinle Pang and Max Yang
We study how remote work and tighter financial conditions reshape the long-run value of U.S. office assets using micro-geographic data. We estimate tract-level office supply elasticities and build a spatial equilibrium model that links firms’ input choices, workers’ location choices, and office developers’ financing constraints. The model explains the observed flight to quality: as remote work raises productivity, office demand shifts toward high-productivity locations, while financial frictions amplify price gaps and limit new construction. Using the model’s rent predictions, we estimate long-run reversion values. In Manhattan, model-implied prices are 30–50% below pre-pandemic levels, suggesting that office valuations have not yet fully adjusted to the new spatial and financial equilibrium.
Presented at: MFA 2026, FIRS 2026 (scheduled), EFA 2026 (scheduled), Baruch-NUS Real Estate Conference 2026, AREUEA National 2026 (scheduled)
"Generative AI and Entrepreneurship"
with Abhinav Gupta, Elena Simintzi, and Yifan Sun
This paper studies how Generative AI (Gen AI) is reshaping the U.S. startup ecosystem. Exploiting the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, we show that startups with greater pre-release Gen AI task exposure reduced employment within two quarters, primarily among junior and implementation roles. Displaced workers experienced longer unemployment spells and moved to lower-paying but less exposed jobs. Conversely, exposed startups increased productivity, scaled faster, and accelerated through financing rounds. Venture capital shifted toward frequent, smaller investments, boosting new firm formation. Overall, Gen AI catalyzed a reallocation of resources, shrinking incumbent startup employment while raising new firm entry, leaving aggregate startup employment unchanged.
Presented at: Purdue University (Mitch Daniels), Columbia Business School, UT Dallas, NBER Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship 2026, HKUST Finance Symposium 2026 (scheduled), UIC Finance Conference 2026 (scheduled), Maryland AI in Finance Conference 2026 (scheduled), CSEF-CEPR conference on Labor and Finance 2026 (scheduled)
Media: KFBS News & Stories
"Entrepreneur Experience and Success: Causal Evidence from Immigration Wait Lines" [40 min NBER Economics of Talent Presentation]
with Abhinav Gupta and Yifan Sun
Best Paper Award, Summer Research Conference in Finance at ISB 2024
This study examines the causal effect of entrepreneurs’ prior experience on the success of startups. Using variations in Green Card waiting periods within a country as an instrument for the experience of immigrant first-time entrepreneurs, we find that startups with more experienced founders achieve greater success in securing funding, generating patents, and expanding their workforce. The key driver of this success is the larger initial team size, made possible by the founders’ enhanced ability to recruit former colleagues. Our results suggest that each additional year of experience translates into an estimated value of $200,000, highlighting an important factor for policymakers and venture capitalists to consider.
Presented at: University of Cincinnati (Lindner), NC State (Poole), AFA Junior Faculty Mentoring Program workshop 2026, MFA 2026, NBER Economics of Talent 2025, NBER Productivity, Innovation, and Entrepreneurship 2025, AFA 2025, SEA 2025, NFA 2024, Labor and Finance Conference at the Kelley School of Business 2024, 20th Annual Finance Conference at WashU in St. Louis, 17th Annual Meeting of the Academy of Behavioral Finance & Economics, Summer Research Conference in Finance at Indian School of Business 2024
Media: KFBS News & Stories
"Remote Work and Consumer Cities"
with Yichen Su
The rapid adoption of remote work reduced the physical presence of workers in urban centers, weakening cities’ traditional role as centers of production. We highlight that cities’ role as centers of consumption remained robust and, with greater time flexibility from workers, may have grown in importance. We present a stylized model showing that the amenity value premium of dense urban areas can serve as an anchoring force for urban foot traffic despite residential suburbanization. Using detailed mobile-device foot traffic data, we find that while remote work reduced visits to former commuting destinations, it simultaneously increased visits to amenity-rich urban hot spots. Our findings suggest that remote work accelerated the transition of urban centers from commuting destinations to leisure destinations.
Presented at: UIUC, University of Iowa (Tippie), University of Houston Brownbag, ASSA-Econometric Society 2026, RERI annual conference 2026 (scheduled), SOLE 2026 (scheduled), the Bloomberg Center for Cities Research Conference at Harvard University 2025, The Implications of Remote Work Conference at Stanford University 2025, AREUEA National 2025, UEA European 2025, MEA 2025, WEAI’s 100th Annual Conference
"Asymmetric Underreactions and House Price Revisions"
with Ding Jing, Rongbing Huang, Lei Jiang
Larger reductions in house list prices from initial to final listings are followed by greater final-list-to-sales-price declines, whereas list-price increases show no momentum when instrumenting list-price revisions with exogenous monetary policy shocks. The proportion of listing-period visits by buyers with below-list-price budgets and an adverse down-payment policy change before the final listing predict final-list-to-sales-price declines, whereas above-list-price budgets and a favorable policy change do not predict increases. At the neighborhood level, larger initial-to-final-list-price cuts are associated with lower subsequent housing returns. These patterns support a search-and-bargaining model in which sellers underreact more than buyers to negative information shocks.
Presented at: AREUEA-ASSA Conference 2026, FMA 2025, International Review of Finance 2025 Conference on "Real Estate, Household, and ESG Finance"
"Distributional Effects of Adverse Economic Shocks Through Firm Production Networks"
with Turk Al-Sabah
"Who Benefits from Rent Control? The Equilibrium Consequences of San Francisco’s Rent Control Expansion"
with Rebecca Diamond and Tim McQuade
Subsumes the structural model analysis from our original NBER WP No. 24181
"Do CEOs Know Best? Evidence from China"
with Nicholas Bloom, Hong Cheng, Mark Duggan, Hongbin Li
Status: Updated results with the second wave of CEES available upon request. Third wave of survey pending
Research Briefs: VoxChina