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I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, at the University of Maryland, College Park.
I am an energy and environmental economist. Much of my research focuses on interacting market distortions in U.S. energy markets. My work studies market power in U.S. coal transportation, and analyzes the extent to which decreasing coal markups may lead to incomplete pass-through of a carbon tax. I am currently working on a project that expands this analysis to the three-way bargaining problem between coal mines, railroads, and power plants.
I also work at the intersection of environmental and development economics, focusing on the economics of energy access and wholesale electricity supply. My research estimating the impacts of rural electrification finds that India’s flagship rural electrification program in India has yielded underwhelming economic benefits. A separate project shows that consumer blackouts stem from India’s wholesale electricity sector—specifically, utilities’ discretion in their quantity of wholesale power purchases.
In addition, my research focuses on the intersection of energy, water, and agriculture. A recent working paper combines (i) detailed electricity data for California farmers, (ii) detailed technical audits for 12,000 agricultural groundwater pumps, (iii) high-frequency measurements of groundwater depth, and (iv) satellite-derived measures of crop cover—-in order to estimate how changes in the cost of pumping groundwater impact both agricultural groundwater use and cropping decisions. Current extensions of this project include estimating how temperature-induced irrigation impacts groundwater resources, and estimating how the Federal Crop Insurance Program influences farmers’ crop choices.