Curriculum vita

Curriculum vita

• Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2018-2024
• Economics
• B.S., University of Chicago 2011-2015
• Math, Economics, Chinese

• University of Virginia
• Assistant Professor, Department of Economics 2025 –
• Stanford Digital Economy Lab
• Postdoc 2024-2025
• Uber
• Data Scientist, Ubernomics 2017-2018
• AQR Capital Management
• Research Analyst 2015-2016

• 1. Toward an understanding of the economics of apologies: evidence from a large-scale natural field experiment (with Ben Ho, John A. List, and Ian Muir), The Economic Journal, 2022.

  ▸ Abstract
  We use a theory of apologies to analyze a nationwide field experiment involving 1.5 million Uber ridesharing consumers who experienced late rides. Several insights emerge. First, apologies are not a panacea: the efficacy of an apology and whether it may backfire depend on how the apology is made. Second, across treatments, money speaks louder than words - the best form of apology is to include a coupon for a future trip. Third, in some cases sending an apology is worse than sending nothing at all, particularly for repeated apologies. For firms, caveat venditor should be the rule when considering apologies.

• 1. Optimal monetary policy under menu costs (with Daniele Caratelli)

  ▸ Abstract
  We analytically characterize optimal monetary policy in a multisector economy with menu costs and show that inflation and output should move inversely following sectoral shocks. That is, after negative shocks, inflation should be allowed to rise, and vice versa. In a baseline parameterization, optimal policy stabilizes nominal wages. This nominal wage targeting contrasts with inflation targeting, the optimal policy prescribed by the textbook New Keynesian model in which firms are permitted to adjust their prices only randomly and exogenously. The key intuition is that stabilizing inflation causes shocks to spill over across sectors, needlessly increasing the number of firms that must pay the fixed cost of price adjustment compared to optimal policy. Finally, we show in a quantitative model that, following a sectoral shock, nominal wage targeting reduces the welfare loss arising from menu costs by 81% compared to inflation targeting.



• 2. Transformative AI, existential risk, and real interest rates (with Trevor Chow and J. Zachary Mazlish)

  ▸ Abstract
  We study how financial market prices can be used to forecast the likelihood of transformative artificial intelligence. Transformative AI is a double-edged sword: while advanced AI could lead to rapid economic growth, some researchers argue that superintelligence misaligned with human values could pose an existential risk to humanity. Theoretically, we show that either possibility would predict a large increase in long-term real interest rates, due to consumption smoothing. We then use rich cross-country data on real rates and growth expectations to show that, contrary to other recent findings, higher long-term growth expectations do indeed cause higher long-term real interest rates.



• 3. Reexamining optimal policy in the New Keynesian “liquidity trap”

  ▸ Abstract
  I make five conceptual points about optimal monetary and fiscal policy at the zero lower bound (ZLB) in representative agent New Keynesian models, using the simplest possible version of such a model.
  1. Monetary policy is typically described as facing a time consistency problem at the zero lower bound; but if ZLB episodes are a repeated game rather than a one-shot game – as is empirically realistic – then the time consistency problem can be easily overcome by reputational effects.
  2. The ZLB is not special, in terms of the constraint it creates for monetary policy: an intratemporal rigidity, such as the minimum wage or rent control, creates exactly the same kind of constraint on monetary policy as the intertemporal rigidity of the ZLB.
  3. Austerity is stimulus: in the representative agent New Keynesian model, fiscal stimulus works through the change in government spending. Promising to cut future spending – committing to austerity – has precisely the same effect on inflation and the output gap as a decision to raise spending today.
  4. Fiscal stimulus can be contractionary, when targeted heterogeneously: if fiscal spending is targeted at certain sectors, this can in fact lower inflation and deepen the output gap.
  5. Fiscal policy faces a time consistency problem at the ZLB, just as monetary policy does.
  Overall, I suggest that – in this class of models – the power of monetary policy at the ZLB has been underrated, and the power of fiscal policy has been overrated.



• 4. Overreaction and forecast horizon (with J. Zachary Mazlish)

  ▸ Abstract
  We use survey data on macroeconomic expectations, across 89 countries and going back to 1989, to establish four facts about how forecast biases depend on the time horizon of the forecast. The data cover average expectations and horizons from 0 to 10 years. (1) Expectations underreact at a horizon of one year or less. (2) Expectations overreact at horizons of two years or more. (3) Expectations are “too extreme” at all horizons. (4) Overreaction and over-extremity increase with forecast horizon. These four patterns hold across advanced and emerging economies, and across multiple macroeconomic variables. They are inconsistent with several popular models of overreaction, where the degree of overreaction is independent of forecast horizon. Finally, although long-term expectations exhibit stronger overreaction, it is short-term expectations that are most strongly associated with fluctuations in GDP, investment, and the stock market.

• Open Philanthropy AI Worldviews Contest, first prize 2023
• Global Priorities Fellowship (Global Priorities Institute) 2022-23
• Emergent Ventures Grant (Mercatus Center) 2021-22
• WCEG Doctoral Grant (Washington Center for Equitable Growth) 2021-22
• Humane Studies Fellow (Institute for Humane Studies) 2021
• Oskar Morgenstern Fellow (Mercatus Center) 2021-22
• Avanessians Fellowship (MIT) 2018-2024
• Phi Beta Kappa (UChicago) 2015
• Becker-Friedman Institute Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Service (UChicago) 2015

• 2025: San Francisco Fed; Touro Law; Hong Kong Institute for Monetary and Financial Research; HKU Business School; UC Berkeley; Richmond Fed


• 2024: University of Virginia; Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance; Office of Financial Research (US Treasury); Global Priorities Institute (Oxford); Carnegie Mellon University – Tepper; Midwest Macro Spring (Richmond Fed); Euro Area Business Cycle Network Conference (Mannheim); Southern Economic Association


• Pre-2024: Global Priorities Institute (Oxford); Equitable Growth conference 2022; Economics Graduate Student Conference 2021 (WashU); Advances with Field Experiments 2019 (UChicago); AEAs 2018; Universite Paris-Sud; Advances with Field Experiments 2017 (UChicago)

Referee: Journal of Political Economy, Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, Journal of Monetary Economics, National Science Foundation, The Yale Law Journal, Macroeconomic Dynamics

• Last updated: March 2025