Research

Job Market Paper: Leadership, Gender and Discourse in Monetary Policy: Analyzing Speech Dynamics in the FOMC (SSRN)

Illinois Economics Association Best Graduate Student Paper (2024)

Abstact: Using a novel hand-collected dataset, this paper employs natural language processing and a quasi-experimental approach to investigate the determinants of speech share among members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). First, given the novelty of the data, I describe key correlations between speech share and FOMC members' gender, education, and tenure status. The second section of the paper uses a difference-in-differences approach to examine whether the appointment of Chair Janet Yellen affected the gender gap in FOMC speech shares. I find that the baseline gender gap of 1.2 percentage points narrows to 0.4 percentage points as a result of Yellen’s appointment. Additionally, I find that the expression of opinions in FOMC members’ speeches dropped by 7.7 percentage points overall, with female members decreasing by an additional 2.5 percentage points. Despite these shifts in discourse style, I find that deviations from the Taylor Rule-implied policy rate is significantly correlated with opinion share in the following FOMC meetings. This study provides new insights into how leadership and gender influence the internal dynamics of monetary policy discussions within the FOMC.

Evaluating the Impact of Amazon-Induced Local Demand Shocks on Employment, Housing Prices, and Inter-County Spillover 

Abstact: This paper estimates the short-term effect of Amazon fulfillment centers’ (AFCs) expansion on local employment and housing price at the U.S. county level. It also estimates the spillover effects on neighboring counties. Under a staggered Diff-in-Diff research design, I found that a new AFC increases employment to population ratio by approximately 1.45% points for the treated county and 0.7 % points for neighboring counties. Housing prices remained stable for treated counties while neighboring counties witnessed a 1.7% increase. The results suggest a positive economic return at both local and neighboring county level, revealing the reason why neighboring counties tend to have their own AFC in a couple of years.

Trip Distribution Post-Pandemic and Disparate Impacts of Work from Home on Demands for Transit Services in Chicago: Evaluating Mobility Network Patterns from Mobile Phone Tracing Data (work in progress)

Joint work with Richard Funderburg & Tong Ye

Presentation at the 71st North American Meetings of  the Regional Science Association International, Nov 2024