• The Local Employment Effects of Pollution Abatement Infrastructure Investments (March 2026, submitted) 

Presentation scheduled at  2026 UCOWR/NIWR Annual Water Resources Conference

Large-scale environmental regulations and infrastructure mandates are often criticized as costly, yet evidence on their potential to generate local economic co-benefits is scarce. This paper estimates the local labor-market effects of the Clean Water Act (CWA) Construction Grants Program using a county-level staggered difference-in-differences design exploiting variation in the timing of first grant-assisted construction starts. Initiating construction raises construction employment by approximately twenty jobs per county-year over the first two post-treatment years, with accompanying increases in establishments and wages. Effects are disproportionately concentrated in smaller counties, indicating that the local impact of federal infrastructure spending depends on the size of the receiving economy. I also find significant responses in total employment and per-capita personal income, consistent with spillovers beyond the construction sector. Overall, the results show that environmental infrastructure investment can also generate short-run local economic gains.

• How Partisanship Shapes Economic Expectations: Evidence from the 2025 U.S. Tariff Announcement (July 2025, joint with Jorge Hirs-Garzón and Yoon Joo Jo, submitted) 

Presented at Yonsei University*, KDI*, Bank of Korea*, Texas A&M University*, CEPR* , NTxEC 2025

We study how households update their beliefs about the economic effects of tariffs following the April 2, 2025, policy announcement (“Liberation Day”). Using experimental evidence, we document substantial disagreement in subjective economic models—driven primarily by political affiliation rather than demographic characteristics. Providing politically neutral, research-based information leads to changes in expectations: information about the near-complete pass-through of tariffs to consumer prices induces upward revisions in inflation expectations, particularly among Democrats, while information on the employment effects of tariffs leads to increased unemployment expectations, mainly among Republicans. Despite these revisions in macroeconomic beliefs, support for the administration’s economic policy remains unchanged. Our findings highlight the role of partisan alignment in shaping responses to policy announcements and new information.

• Effects of Monetary Policy on Household Expectations: The Role of Investing Households (December 2024, submitted) 

Presented at MEG 2024, SNDE 2025, Texas A&M Macro Mini-Conference 2025 (poster)

Holding stock investments can incentivize households to monitor monetary announcements due to their impact on stock prices. This study examines how stock-investing households adjust their inflation expectations in response to monetary shocks. Using individual-level survey data from the U.S., I find that investors raise their short-term inflation expectations following a monetary expansion, in contrast to non-investing households. Additionally, investor households increase their non-durable consumption after an expansionary shock, unlike non-investors. These findings indicate that holding stock investments motivate households to adjust their expectations and consumption in response to monetary policy shocks, aligned with its intended effects.