I am a Ph.D. Candidate in Politics at Princeton University, a Graduate Affiliate of the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance, and a Graduate Fellow with the Princeton Sovereign Finance Lab. My research examines how international economic changes linked to climate change and public finance shape domestic political institutions and behavior. More broadly, I study the political economy of climate change, government finance and sovereign debt, and natural resources.
I have extensive teaching experience in international relations and quantitative methods at both the graduate and undergraduate level, including co-organizing the R for Public Policy course at Princeton Junior Summer Institute (2022-24). I previously worked in the AidData Research and Evaluation Unit, where I conducted geospatial impact evaluations of development projects and oversaw the AidData Geocoding team. I have earned degrees from Washington University in St. Louis (A.B. Economics) and Princeton (M.A. Politics).
Dissertation Project: "Global Economic Change and Domestic Political Responses"
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My dissertation project investigates how diverse political actors respond to economic disruptions rooted in climate change and trade. In one chapter, currently under review, I investigate how governments respond to permanent, negative shocks to oil revenues. Building on the resource curse literature, I theorize that enduring oil price declines impose fiscal constraints on distributive policies of governments, forcing them to strategically invest in improving state effectiveness. The project links the resource curse literature to the clean energy transition and leverages the 2010 shale oil revolution as a natural experiment to show that rather than retrenching or liberalizing in the face of long-term oil price declines, governments instead pursue limited institutional reforms.
A second chapter, co-authored with Fiona Bare and Vincent Heddesheimer, examines how firms respond to business risks and opportunities from climate change. This paper has been conditionally accepted for publication at the American Journal of Political Science. We develop a theory of firm lobbying behavior grounded in the distinct policy solutions relevant to various types of climate exposure. Using firm-level data from earnings calls and lobbying disclosures, we show that firms are more likely to engage in lobbying when they perceive climate-related business opportunities, not just risks.
The final chapter investigates voting responses to labor market disruptions from trade and climate change. While past work links employment in directly exposed industries (e.g., import-competing or fossil fuel sectors) to voting behavior, I argue that broader community-level effects are rooted in material harms experienced through indirect labor market exposure. This study challenges the view that such effects are purely identity-based, showing that indirect exposure still results in meaningful economic disruption—and political consequences—for workers in adjacent industries. This research has implications for the design of compensation and transition policies.
[details]
A second chapter, co-authored with Fiona Bare and Vincent Heddesheimer, examines how firms respond to business risks and opportunities from climate change. This paper has been conditionally accepted for publication at the American Journal of Political Science. We develop a theory of firm lobbying behavior grounded in the distinct policy solutions relevant to various types of climate exposure. Using firm-level data from earnings calls and lobbying disclosures, we show that firms are more likely to engage in lobbying when they perceive climate-related business opportunities, not just risks.
The final chapter investigates voting responses to labor market disruptions from trade and climate change. While past work links employment in directly exposed industries (e.g., import-competing or fossil fuel sectors) to voting behavior, I argue that broader community-level effects are rooted in material harms experienced through indirect labor market exposure. This study challenges the view that such effects are purely identity-based, showing that indirect exposure still results in meaningful economic disruption—and political consequences—for workers in adjacent industries. This research has implications for the design of compensation and transition policies.
Published Research and Working Papers
* denotes dissertation papers
Climate Exposure Drives Firm Political Behavior: Evidence From Earnings Calls and Lobbying Data*, with Fiona Bare and Vincent Heddesheimer. (Forthcoming at the American Journal of Political Science)
Energy Transitions and Political Transformation: Evidence from the Shale Oil Revolution*. (Working Paper)
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Selected Works in Progress
Indirect Labor Market Disruption and Voting Behavior: Evidence from the 2014 Oil Price Crash in Norway*.
Access to Sovereign Credit Markets and Trade Policy, with Layna Mosley.
Resource Curse in Reverse? Local Political Effects of Transitions from Fossil Fuels, with Alex Gazmararian.
Are Corporations People? Explaining Public Support for Special Interests, with Fiona Bare, Alex Gazmararian, and Vincent Heddesheimer.
The Effects of IMF Programs on Deforestation, with James Raymond Vreeland.
Satellite Imagery for Political Scientists.
Teaching Experience
(All experience listed is as a teaching assistant)
POL 574: Quantitative Analysis IV (Spring 2025) This graduate-level, advanced methods course introduces students to the frontier of empirical text-as-data methods, with a focus on applications in political science.
POL 392: American Foreign Policy (Fall 2024) This undergraduate course analyzes the formation and conduct of foreign policy in the United States, focusing particularly on the causal role of the international system, public opinion, and the media in driving America’s foreign policy.
POL 396: International Organizations (Spring 2024) This introductory course surveys the network of major international organizations and introduces undergraduate students to the political factors driving participation in, and behavior of, international organizations.
POL 504: Text As Data (Fall 2023) This graduate-level methods course trains students to be practitioners of textual methods, spanning from the foundations of text-as-data to cutting-edge machine learning methods for analyzing text.
Software Packages
stylest2: An R package for estimating speaker distinctiveness, with Arthur Spirling and Leslie Huang.
Available on CRAN.
Other Research
Prospects for Venezuelan Debt Restructuring: A Trump Bump. 2025. (PSFL Policy Brief 25-1)
How Do Governments Respond to Persistently High Commodity Prices. 2024. (PSFL Policy Brief 24-2)
Landmine Clearance and Economic Development: Evidence from Multispectral Satellite Imagery, Nighttime Lights, and Conflict Events in Afghanistan, with Ariel BenYishay, Rachel Sayers, Kunwar Singh, and Madeleine Walker. (Revise and Resubmit at the Journal of Development Economics)
Highway to the Forest? Land Governance and the Siting and Environmental Impacts of Chinese Government-Funded Road Building in Cambodia
Christian Baehr, Ariel BenYishay, and Bradley Parks
Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Vol 122(1), 2023.
Linking Local Infrastructure Development and Deforestation: Evidence from Satellites and Administrative Data
Christian Baehr, Ariel BenYishay, and Bradley Parks
Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, Vol 8(2), 2021.
Is it possible for infrastructure not to hurt forests? 2021. (The First Tranche)
How Cambodia’s program to strengthen local governance built roads and saved lives. 2019. (The First Tranche)
Building on a Foundation Stone: The Long-Term Impacts of a Local Infrastructure and Governance Program in Cambodia. 2019, with Ariel BenYishay, Bradley Parks, Rachel Trichler, Daniel Aboagye, and Punwath Prum. (Stockholm: Swedish EBA, AidData, and Open Development Cambodia)
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