JOB MARKET PAPER:

Partisan Climate Action, Utility Interests, and Policy Choice in the U.S. Power Sector [Working paper]

This paper investigates how U.S. gubernatorial partisanship and electric utility interests jointly shape the adoption and stringency of three widely used electricity-sector climate policies: greenhouse gas cap-and-trade, emissions standards, and renewable portfolio standards. Using panel data for 48 states over 29 years, this study applies difference-in-differences and regression discontinuity designs that exploit within-state partisan alternation and quasi-random variation from close gubernatorial elections. The results indicate that Democratic governorships associate with higher probabilities of policy adoption and greater stringency than Republican ones. However, these partisan effects attenuate in states with fossil-intensive utility capacity and strengthen in renewable-rich states, particularly for discretionary and mandatory renewable portfolio standards. This work extends the empirical political economy literature by comparing instrument choice and stringency across three major electricity-sector climate policies and by evaluating how utility sector composition and reelection incentives moderate or amplify partisan influence. The findings highlight that electricity-sector decarbonization strategies need to account for both environmental externalities and the local political-economic conditions that shape feasible policy options.

PEER-REFEREED JOURNAL ARTICLES:

Policy interactions and electricity generation sector CO2 emissions: A quasi-experimental analysis, Energy Policy, Volume 198, 2025, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2024.114434 

This paper evaluates the static and dynamic effects of four national climate and energy policies—carbon tax, emission trading system (ETS), renewable energy auctions, and feed-in policy—on reducing CO2 emissions per capita in the electricity generation sector. Using a panel of 109 countries over 30 years, this study applies difference-in-differences (DID) and synthetic DID methods to exploit policy timing, income level, and geographic variations. Results show that while most static policy interactions may not reduce emissions, some reductions are observed when combined carbon pricing and renewable policies. The dynamic interactions of ETS may have contributed to CO2 emission reductions in countries that adopted them, conditional on economic development and governance. Carbon pricing and feed-in policies could mitigate CO2 emissions by promoting renewable energy supply and reducing carbon intensity. Using a quasi-experimental approach, this study contributes to the empirical literature on the effects of four key policy interactions on CO2 emissions in global electricity generation. The findings highlight the need for tailored policy combinations to decarbonize the electricity generation sector, considering each country's specific circumstances, such as development level and governance.

WORKING PAPER:

Carbon Rebates and Electricity Spending: Insights from Manitoba and Quebec in Canada (with Grant Gibson, Ekaterina Rhodes and Jordi J. Teixidó) [draft coming soon]

This paper assesses the impact of Canada’s federal carbon rebate, a universal transfer introduced in 2019, on real household electricity expenditure across income groups in Manitoba. Leveraging confidential Survey of Household Spending micro‑data for 2003–2021 (approximately 35,000 observations) and a doubly robust difference‑in‑differences design, the study compares Manitoba—subject to federal carbon pricing and lump‑sum rebates—with Quebec, which implemented carbon pricing without such rebates. The rebate may have raised average real electricity expenditure in Manitoba modestly relative to Quebec, with larger short‑run increases among lower‑income households. These distributional patterns may imply a rebound in consumption or improved affordability for liquidity‑constrained families without additional electricity-sector emissions, as both provinces rely on predominantly clean power. This paper contributes to the evolving empirical literature on how universal carbon rebates affect electricity expenditure patterns across income distributions using a quasi-experimental approach. The findings underscore the importance of assessing the impact of rebate policies on affordability, particularly as lower-income families may face comparatively higher electricity expenditures during the clean energy transition.