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.

I am on the 2025-26 job market.

Email: nnyou@umich.edu

Working Paper

Beyond Population Growth: How Fertility Shapes Household Carbon Footprints

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 where household carbon footprint increases with the number of children at a decreasing rate. Using instrumental variables based on twin births and same-sex sibling composition with U.S. Consumer Expenditure Survey data (2004-2023), I find that an additional child increases household carbon emissions by only 10-15% of average per-capita emissions. This small effect emerges fromeconomies of scale through two channels. First, while energy and food 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. To facilitate the interpretation of these results, I use a stylized household consumption model to decompose the impact of an additional child. Back-of-the-envelope calculations using empirical estimates suggest that ignoring household composition leads to a 24% overestimation of lifetime emission reductions resulting from fertility decline. Meanwhile, decarbonization can achieve far larger reductions (36–61%) in lifetime emissions compared to the household composition effect. These results underscore the importance of considering household composition in climate policy design, particularly for carbon pricing and fertility-related interventions.

Works in Progress

Family Correlations in Household Carbon-Intensive Expenditures

Vulnerable Transitions: How Droughts Undermine Renewable Energy Integration

Transmission for Climate Adaptation: Power Outages during Hurricanes (with Jessica Lyu)

Policy Work

The U.S. Economic Outlook (2024 Q3-Q4, 2025 Q1-Q4)

Teaching

Intermediate Macroeconomics (Fall 2023, Winter 2024)

Introduction to Macroeconomics (Fall 2021, Winter 2022, Fall 2022, Winter 2023)