Economic Research

Microsimulations

Macroeconomic Agent-Based Model

A macroeconomy simulated with two types of software agents: households that decide whom to buy from and work for, and firms that decide headcount, wages, and prices. This is a Lengnick model, which shows that even without exogenous shocks, recessions can just emerge from economic agents temporarily failing to coordinate with each other. View on Github

Agent-Based General Equilibrium Model

An agent-based model of a general bilateral exchange problem of any A agents and any N goods. This model uses boundedly rational agents, in the sense that the agents iteratively make trades without knowing the optimal quantities that maximize their utility. It can obtain a decentralized, numerical solution to a general equilibrium problem. View on Github

Modeling the Distributional Impact of Treating Employer FICA Taxes as Employee’s Taxable Income

I coded a reform in PolicyEngine’s microsimulation model for a client. The proposal would exempt Social Security benefits from taxation, while treating the employer’s share of Social Security and Medicare taxes as additional taxable income for employees. We model its impact on federal deficits and inequality. View on PolicyEngine

Working Papers/Works in Progress

The Problem With Historical Instrumental Variables

Many instrumental variable papers that identify treatment variations over long time periods are misspecified. I use difference equations, VAR representations, and Monte Carlo simulations to demonstrate this. I also propose a remedial two-stage-least-squares specification to correct for bias. Read more

The Causal Effect of Regulation on Economic Growth: Evidence From the US States

I wrote a paper with Patrick McLaughlin on using state age to estimate how increasing regulation causally affects growth. This project leverages the QuantGov project’s State RegData.

How Complex Has the Tax Code Become? A Measure Derived from Tax Liability

I construct a direct empirical measure of tax code complexity that encompasses the incidence of all federal and state taxes and the utilization of all deductions and credits. View on Github

Learning What We Like

A model of preference discovery with Alex Tabarrok.

I investigate whether various Social Security programs, in conjunction, provide additional value of risk insurance per dollar that is overlooked by separate evaluations of each program. I am using Health and Retirement Study panel data to examine how much the beneficiaries of retirement and disability income payments overlap.

How Monopolistic is iMessage?

To what extent does iMessage confer a monopolistic advantage to Apple? I estimate how much the service changes the demand elasticity for iPhones.

What Is the Cause of Interest Rate Volatility in Interbank Markets?

I demonstrate that contrary to conventional wisdom, interest rate volatility in Hong Kong isn’t caused by liquidity crunches subsequent to initial public offerings.

Income Mobility and Regulation: Evidence from Canadian Immigrants

Using a panel of measures of immigrant mobility from Statistics Canada and a shift-share instrument, we measure how much liberalization affects immigrants’ economic outcomes. With Vincent Geloso and James Dean.

Public Writing

Most U.S. Government Borrowing Just Pays for More Borrowing

Nearly 40 percent of U.S. government debt today was issued just to cover interest on previous debt, and this problem is poised to worsen as recent borrowing accrues interest and Congress further cuts revenue. Read more