I am a Ph.D Candidate in the Department of Politics at Princeton University. I am also a graduate affiliate with the Niehaus Center for Globalization and Governance and a Graduate Fellow with the Princeton Sovereign Finance Lab. You can find a copy of my CV here.
My dissertation project analyzes the effects of international economic changes related to climate change and trade on domestic institutional development and the political behavior of domestic actors. More broadly, I study the political economy of climate change and government finance. My interests also include the politics of sovereign debt, the political economy of natural resources, and the impact of foreign aid interventions on human development and the environment.
I have extensive teaching experience spanning international relations and quantitative methods. At Princeton, I have assisted in instruction for PhD-level coursework in quantitative analysis and text-as-data and multiple undergraduate courses in international relations. I co-organized the R for Public Policy course for the Princeton Junior Summer Institute from 2022-24. I previously designed and taught courses in introductory and advanced statistical programming and political methodology at William & Mary.
Previously, I was an analyst for the AidData Research Lab at William & Mary, where I conducted geospatial impact evaluations of development projects and also managed the AidData Geocoding team. I earned a A.B. in Economics from Washington University in St. Louis and an M.A. in Politics from Princeton University.
Dissertation Project: "Global Economic Change and Domestic Political Responses"
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 third 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
Climate Exposure Drives Firm Political Behavior: Evidence From Earnings Calls and Lobbying Data (Conditionally Accepted at the American Journal of Political Science)
With Fiona Bare and Vincent Heddesheimer.
Energy Transitions and Political Transformation: Evidence from the Shale Oil Revolution (Working Paper)
Electoral Effects of Insurance Market Intervention: Evidence from California Wildfire Moratoria. With Hanno Hilbig and António Valentim. (Working Paper)
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 Vreeland.
Satellite Imagery for Political Scientists.
Teaching Experience
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.
Policy Writing and Prior Research
Prospects for Venezuelan Debt Restructuring: A Trump Bump (PSFL Policy Brief 25-1)
How Do Governments Respond to Persistently High Commodity Prices (PSFL Policy Brief 24-2)
Landmine Clearance and Economic Development (Revise and Resubmit at the Journal of Development Economics)
With Ariel BenYishay, Rachel Sayers, Kunwar Singh, and Madeleine Walker.
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).
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).
Is it possible for infrastructure not to hurt forests? (The First Tranche)
How Cambodia’s program to strengthen local governance built roads and saved lives (The First Tranche)