RESEARCH
Works in Progress
[JMP, Submitted]
+/- Abstract
When voters approve a policy that raises the price of a good they regularly buy, they trade off pocketbook costs against the policy’s social benefits. I introduce a revealed-preference strategy combining market purchases (Nash equilibrium) and votes (Lindahl equilibrium) to disentangle egotropic (use) and sociotropic (non-use, public-good) values, applied to California's Proposition 12 (2018) which banned caged-egg sales. Non-use value accounts for at least 59% of voter benefits ($9 of $15 per year). Instrumenting for cost reveals economically significant pocketbook sensitivity masked by omitted-variable bias in standard estimates, reconciling pocketbook and sociotropic motives as components of the same preferences.
Wildfire Zoning and Heterogeneous Responses to Wildfire Events: Evidence from the California Housing Market
(with Matthew Wibbenmeyer)
+/- Abstract
Do wildfires alter local demographics? Employing event study and difference-in-differences strategies, we study the effect of 192 large wildfire events (2016-2018) on nearby house transaction prices and quantities to identify heterogeneity in real estate market responses across Fire Hazard Severity Zones (FHSZ) mapped by the state in 2011. We find that post-wildfire sellers in "very high" FHSZ have significantly lower incomes than before, whereas post-wildfire sellers outside of any FHSZ (non-FHSZ) have the same income levels as before. Meanwhile, post-wildfire buyers have lower incomes than before regardless of zone. Controlling for house characteristics, home prices in "very high" FHSZ are unaffected by a nearby fire, however the types of homes sold in these areas after a fire are of a significantly lower quality relative to before. In contrast, home prices in non-FHSZ areas decrease after a nearby fire by more than 14 percent and remain low for at least a year, but the quality of homes sold in these areas remains the same as before. We rationalize these findings by calibrating a model of seller/buyer behavior that incorporates decreasing relative risk aversion and treats wildfires as information shocks.
No Ethical Consumption Under General Equilibrium? Evidence from the US Meat Market
(with Christoph Semken)
+/- Abstract
Many consumers engage in ethical consumption, altering their consumption choices so as to mitigate their personal contributions to negative externalities such as climate change, animal welfare, or pollution. But do individual consumption choice have any impact on overall externalities in a competitive market? In this paper, we estimate the effect of consumption changes on externalities in general equilibrium for the U.S. meat market. We derive sufficient statistics based on the demand and supply cross-price elasticities of all goods with externalities. We estimate the cross-price elasticities using home scanner data and farmer surveys, respectively, and derive the effect of ethical meat consumption on animal welfare. We further show that the effect on other externalities can be estimated using bounding assumptions on substitution patterns. Using such assumptions, we additionally estimate the effect of ethical meat consumption on overall greenhouse gas emissions
Peer-Reviewed Publications
(with Carl Meyer and Zach Freitas-Groff)
European Economic Review, 2026
Media coverage: Vox
(with Sharon Pailler, Jon McFadden, Sharon Raszap, Zach Raff, Kevin Kuruc)
Food Policy, 2025
(with Alex Hoagland)
Contemporary Economic Policy, 2018
Other Work
(with Ethan Ligon)
GiveWell "Change Our Mind Contest" Honorable Mention, 2022
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