Hello!
I am a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at the University of Michigan.
My research is in energy and environmental economics, labor economics, and macroeconomics. I use quasi-experimental methods to study how household and family dynamics influence climate change through consumption pattern changes.
I also regularly contribute to the quarterly U.S. economic outlook at RSQE, an economic forecasting and modeling unit at the University of Michigan.
Email: nnyou@umich.edu
Abstract: While fertility decline's climate implications spark considerable discussion, causal evidence on the fundamental relationship between fertility and emissions remains limited. I examine how household composition, an underexplored aspect in environmental economics, affects carbon footprint through consumption pattern changes. I document a concave relationship between household carbon footprint and the number of children using the U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey. Using instrumental variables based on twin births and same-sex sibling composition, I find that an additional child increases household carbon emissions by only about one-sixth of average per-capita emissions. This small effect emerges from economies of scale through two channels. First, while carbon-intensive expenditures rise with additional children, household consumption sharing makes proportional scaling inappropriate. Second, families with more children substitute away from some carbon-intensive expenditures such as air travel. I formalize the carbon footprint impact of household composition through a household consumption model. Back-of-the-envelope calculations using empirical estimates suggest that ignoring household composition leads to a 22% overestimation of lifetime emission reductions resulting from fertility decline. Meanwhile, decarbonization can achieve far larger reductions (36-69%) in lifetime emissions compared to household composition effects. These results underscore the importance of considering household composition in climate policy design, particularly for carbon pricing and fertility-related interventions.
Abstract: Do carbon footprints run in families? Using sibling pairs from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics from 1999 to 2023, I provide the first estimates of family transmission in consumption-based carbon footprints. I find a raw sibling elasticity of 0.279 for household carbon footprint. That estimate attenuates to 0.160 after controlling for income and education, which shows that family transmission is not simply a byproduct of income persistence. Families transmit not just how much to spend but also what to spend on. Family persistence is stronger for goods and services and weaker for energy, showing that the main channel runs through discretionary categories. Sibling elasticities also vary with age gap, supporting shared-socialization theories of preference formation. Across multiple estimators, carbon footprint persistence remains lower than persistence in income, expenditure, and education.
Abstract: This paper studies whether balancing authorities in the U.S. Western Interconnection can pool drought risk through inter-regional electricity trade. Using hourly generation and interchange data for 35 balancing authorities from July 2018 through December 2025, I estimate how exceptional drought affects generation and net imports. A one percentage point increase in drought coverage reduces renewable generation by 3.4 MWh per BA-hour. Fossil generation rises in point estimates but is not precisely estimated in levels. Net imports increase by 2.4 MWh , offsetting only part of the renewable shortfall. Regional estimates are directionally consistent with incomplete risk pooling. Drought-exposed Southwest and Southeast balancing authorities increase fossil generation and net imports, while the Northwest reduces net imports, but the trade responses are imprecisely estimated. I then develop a simple two-region framework that shows how the value of risk pooling depends on the correlation of drought shocks across regions and on transmission capacity. Taken together, the results suggest that drought risk is not fully smoothed across balancing authorities and that inter-regional transmission is most valuable when shocks are weakly correlated across regions.
Transmission for Climate Adaptation: Power Outages during Hurricanes (with Jessica Lyu)
The U.S. Economic Outlook (2024 Q3-Q4, 2025 Q1-Q4, 2026 Q1)
Intermediate Macroeconomics (Fall 2023, Winter 2024)
Introduction to Macroeconomics (Fall 2021, Winter 2022, Fall 2022, Winter 2023)