Research

Working Papers:

Low-Carbon Technology Imports and Environmental Pressure in Sub-Saharan Africa

• Studies whether imports of low-carbon technology products reduce environmental pressure in Sub-Saharan Africa. 

• Combines local projections with a Bartik shift-share instrument based on pre-period exposure to major exporters to estimate the effects of low-carbon technology imports on territorial CO2 emissions and ecological footprint growth. 

• Finds that low-carbon technology-import shocks increase territorial CO2 emissions and aggregate ecological footprint over medium horizons in Sub-Saharan Africa, but in an OECD sample, the corresponding responses are negative. 

• Findings are robust using a gravity-based instrument.

• IMF Working Paper Link

Inflation, Growth, and Poverty: New Evidence on Nonlinearities from Recent Global Data

• Uses a panel smooth transition regression to estimate nonlinearity between inflation, growth, and poverty

• Using recent data, identifies an inflation rate threshold on growth at about 7%, much lower than previously estimated

• Identifies nonlinearity between inflation and poverty where adverse effects on poverty are larger at lower levels of inflation

Geopolitical Risk Shocks and Inflation Dynamics: Evidence from Egypt and Tunisia

• Estimates how global and domestic political risk affect inflation in Egypt and Tunisia using a Bayesian VAR framework.

• Shows that geopolitical risk shocks are inflationary in both countries with stronger and more persistent effects in Egypt and that domestic political risk have deflationary effects in Tunisia, especially around the Arab Spring period.

• Uses disaggregated CPI data to show that risk shocks affect sectors differently and uses exchange rate and money supply data to analyze the transmission effects of government policy.

• Under review at the Emerging Markets Review

Remittances under Geopolitical Risk: Global Shocks and Domestic Need

• Estimates the effects of geopolitical and country-specific political risk on remittances using linear local projections and a regional leave-one-out instrumental variable.

• Finds that global geopolitical risk reduces remittance inflows and country-specific risk increases remittance inflows.

• Finds that remittances moderate the adverse relationship between domestic risk and consumption.

• Under review at World Development.

Introduction to Digital Currencies: A Macroeconomic Experiment

• Tests consumer interactions between three different currency options, a physical, fiat currency, a private, digital currency, and a Central Bank Digital Currency, in different inflationary environments.

• Pilot was completed in April 2024 using the Behavioral Economic and Situational Testing Lab at West Virginia University.

New Keynesian Economics in an Open Economy: A Literature Review

• This is a literature review expanding on New Keynesian Theory in an open economy environment

Expanding Growth Models to Include Human Capital: A Literature Review

• This is a chronological literature review incorporating human capital into popular macroeconomic growth models