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I am a postdoc at the University of Chicago and a researcher at Statistics Norway.
Papers:
Papers:
Green Waste: (Mis)allocation of Green Investment Subsidies. (Job Market Paper)
with Ingvil Gaarder, Tom Meling and Magne Mogstad.
Abstract: We test for and measure misallocation of public subsidies for green investment projects in private firms. The context of our study is a major green investment subsidy program in Norway over the period 2012–2022. Combining a model of optimal subsidy allocation with detailed data on project-level carbon emissions and subsidy amounts for both marginal and inframarginal investment projects, we find that policymakers could have achieved the same level of carbon emission reductions with 59% less expenditure. Leveraging unique data on both ex-ante expected and ex-post realized carbon emission reductions for each project, we isolate two distinct sources of misallocation: Prediction errors and intentional over-allocation to specific, favored green technologies and sectors.
Unemployment Insurance and Worker Reallocation. (Revise & Resubmit, American Economic Review) (Former Job Market Paper, 2022-2023)
with Michael Simmons.
Abstract: Does Unemployment Insurance affect how employed workers search for new jobs? We provide novel evidence by combining administrative data on the universe of Norwegian workers and firms with a regression kink design. A marginal increase in benefits lowers job-to-job transitions, increases unemployment incidence, and lowers future earnings. These effects are stronger for workers with higher predicted unemployment risk and align with job search models where workers systematically move towards safer jobs. In an equilibrium job search model calibrated to match these empirical effects, employed workers’ responses account for 45 percent of the net fiscal costs of a marginal benefit expansion.
Presentations: Nordic Summer Symposium in Macroeconomics (August 2022), Society of Labor Economics (SOLE) May 2023, EEA-ESEM (August 2024)
Transaction Sequencing and House Price Pressures. (Accepted, Management Science)
With Plamen Nenov, Espen Moen and Artashes Karapetyan.
Abstract: We use a unique data set of individual transaction histories from Norway to show that temporary shocks to the buyer-to-seller ratio (or market tightness) caused by the transaction sequence decisions of moving homeowners – whether to buy first and then sell or vice versa – impact house prices. Using a novel shift-share IV design motivated by a simple theoretical model, we estimate that a 1 percentage point increase in the aggregate buy-first share causes house prices to increase by around 0.5 percent, time-to-sell to decrease by around 5 percent, and market tightness to increase by around 12 percent more in a local housing market that has a one standard deviation higher share of locally moving owners. Our empirical strategy allows us to estimate an elasticity of price to market tightness of around 0.1 and an elasticity of matching with respect to buyers of 0.6.
Corporate Bankruptcy and Labor Market Insurance..
with Andreas Kostøl and Matthew C. Merkle.
Abstract: Standard models of labor market frictions often assume that separations occurpassively following negative firm-level shocks. However, emerging evidence indicatesthat workers undertake anticipatory job search to insure against the costs associated withlayoff, implying that income risk information can affect both the incidence of layoffs andthe costs of distress. In this paper, we assess the employee costs of bankruptcy - a salientfirm-level shock. To this end, we use random assignment of bankruptcy judges as aninstrument for liquidation, and administrative records on employment and earnings toestimate the causal effects of bankruptcy on worker mobility and income. We find thatliquidation reduces earnings by 24 percent over five years, despite one-fourth of affectedemployees exiting beforehand. Worker reallocation varies substantially across labor mar-ket conditions and firm wage levels, with greater reallocation from high-wage firms, par-ticularly during strong labor market conditions. Using a structural model of job search,we find that workers value the insurance provided by job search at approximately fifteenpercent of their annual salary.
Make it or break it: Corporate Bankruptcy and Management Careers.
with Andreas Kostøl and Kasper Roszbach.
Abstract: The extent to which a corporate bankruptcy can shift the career trajectory of managers has important implications for high-skilled labor markets but has proven difficult to measure. By combining an instrumental variable approach with the random assignment of judges who differ in their propensity to liquidate firms, this paper offers novel evidence for small and medium-sized business CEOs’ careers. We show that these CEOs, when displaced in bankruptcy, are 30 pp less likely to remain in the executive labor market, experience a temporary fall in labor earnings, and a persistent, near elimination of capital income. However, displaced CEOs are quickly re-employed and move to better-paying firms, although often in lower-ranked positions. Taken together, our evidence shows that CEOs can make or break their careers due to bankruptcy events that are outside their control. We explore heterogeneity in effects and find that bankruptcy is most detrimental for longer-tenured CEOs and when a case is petitioned during times at which bankruptcy rates are low. Our findings are consistent with models of firm-specific human capital and statistical discrimination, where the labor market uses bankruptcy as a (negative) signal of managerial ability.
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