I am an Associate Professor in the School of Economics at Drexel University. My research focuses on macro/labor and environmental economics and has been published in journals such as Quantitative Economics, Journal of Monetary Economics and Review of Economic Dynamics.

Fields: Macro-Labor, Environmental

Contact: tlp64 [at] drexel [dot] edu

With Ledo in Silverton, CO

All Research Macro-Labor Environmental Other Topics

Work in progress

Agricultural Technology and Deforestation in Pre-Industrial Economies

Abstract

Global forest cover was in steady decline for millennia prior modern industrialization. This paper studies how technological progress in agriculture shaped long-run forest cover in pre-industrial societies. I begin by developing an equilibrium bio-economic model to analyze how agricultural productivity influenced land allocation decisions and forest cover in the presence of limited trade and Malthusian population dynamics. I show that while early agricultural innovations may have spared forests, beyond a threshold further advances necessarily expand cultivation and accelerate deforestation. I test these predictions using high-resolution Holocene forest reconstructions from fossil pollen data. Exploiting variation in the timing of the First Agricultural Revolution, I find that early adoption led to a sustained 25% per-millennium decline in forest cover relative to later adopters. In a complementary case study focusing on the introduction of the three-field rotation system in medieval Europe, I show that the system caused an immediate 20% reduction in forest cover followed by a long-run decline of 50%. Together, these results indicate that agricultural innovation was an important driver of global deforestation in the pre-industrial era.

Air Pollution and Demand for Environmental Spending
[Under review]

Abstract

The political feasibility of sustained climate policy depends on whether deteriorating environmental conditions generate durable public support for environmental spending. To assess this, I link daily EPA air quality data with restricted-use General Social Survey interviews from 2000-2023 to study how physical exposure to air pollution and information exposure from local air quality advisories shape support for government spending on environmental protection. I document three main results. First, in ordered logit regressions with rich individual, economic, and geographic controls, recent exposure to elevated PM10 concentrations is positively associated with support for greater environmental spending, while exposure to PM2.5 and ozone has no detectable effect. Second, in a regression discontinuity design exploiting federal AQI advisory thresholds, a deterioration from “Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups” to “Unhealthy” causes a 21 percentage point increase in the share of respondents reporting that the government spends too little on environmental protection. Third, both effects fade within one month, with no persistent shift in support detectable thereafter. These findings suggest that deteriorating environmental conditions may not generate sufficiently durable public support to sustain long-run government spending on environmental protection, including the climate mitigation and adaptation programs typically funded through these channels.

Sowing the Seeds of Environmentalism: How the Civilian Conservation Corps Shaped Environmental Careers Across Generations
[Work in progress]
Soil, Bright-Leaf Tobacco and the Intergenerational Transmission of Wealth in Antebellum North Carolina and Virginia (w/ Bryce Stucki)
[Work in progress]
Demographic Correlates of Humanizing Media Coverage of Homicide: Evidence from Three National Newspapers (w/ Emily Ocasio)
[Substantial revision in progress. Previous draft available here.]

Publications

The Impact of Non-Competes on Wages and Job Tenure: New Evidence from NLSY Data (w/ Bart Hobjin and Andre Kurmann)
American Economic Review, P&P (May 2026)

Abstract

Non-compete agreements (NCAs) are pervasive even in low-wage labor markets, yet most evidence relies on variation in enforceability rather than NCA incidence. Using longitudinal data from the NLSY97, we study how signing an NCA affects wage trajectories and job tenure. Exploiting complete work histories and applying a clean-controls local projections difference-in-differences design, we find a striking divergence: NCAs are associated with significantly slower wage growth for low-education workers over four years, but faster wage growth for high-education workers. Effects on job tenure are imprecisely estimated for both groups.

Destabilizing Search Technology
Journal of Monetary Economics (July 2024)

Abstract

Modern job search technologies enable job seekers to monitor the arrival of newly posted vacancies. This paper conceptualizes search as a monitoring decision and shows that monitoring technologies give rise to a novel source of strategic complementarities in search and can thus lead to potentially destabilizing multiplicity of equilibria. The model provides a theory of belief-driven fluctuations in labor supply that can permanently shift the path of the economy, and offers an explanation for persistently weak wage growth despite low unemployment during the recovery from the Great Recession.

On the Inefficiency of Non-Competes in Low-Wage Labor Markets (w/ Bart Hobijn and Andre Kurmann)
Economica (February 2024)

Abstract

We study the efficiency of non-compete agreements (NCAs) in an equilibrium model of labour turnover. The model is consistent with empirical studies showing that NCAs reduce turnover and average wages for low-wage workers. The model also predicts that, by reducing turnover, NCAs raise recruitment and employment. We show that optimal NCA policy: (i) is characterized by a Hosios-like condition that balances the benefits of higher employment against the costs of inefficient congestion and poaching; (ii) depends critically on the minimum wage; and (iii) alone cannot always achieve the constrained-efficient allocation—a result that also holds for optimal minimum wage policy—yet with both policies, efficiency is always attainable. To guide policymakers, we derive a sufficient statistic in the form of an easily computed employment threshold above which NCAs are necessarily inefficiently restrictive, and show that employment levels in current low-wage US labour markets typically exceed this threshold. Finally, we calibrate the model and show that Oregon's 2008 NCA ban for low-wage workers increased welfare modestly (by roughly 0.1%), and that if policymakers had also raised the minimum wage to its optimal level conditional on the enacted NCA ban (a 30% increase), then welfare would have increased more substantially—by over 1%.

Anticipated Productivity and the Labor Market (w/ Sanjay Chugh and Ryan Chahrour)
Quantitative Economics (July 2023)

Abstract

We identify the main shock driving fluctuations in long-horizon productivity expectations, consistent with theories of TFP news. The identified shock induces strong comovement patterns in output, consumption, investment, employment, and stock prices even though TFP does not change significantly for more than 2 years. A labor search model in which wages are determined by a cash-flow sharing rule, rather than the present value of match surplus, matches the observed responses to the news shock. The model also matches the empirical patterns of vacancies, labor force participation, hours, and job-finding rates. The proposed wage rule is consistent with empirical responses of wages to both anticipated and unanticipated productivity changes.

Down the Rabbit Hole: Habit-formation in Internet Use among Unemployed Workers
Economics Letters (June 2022)

Abstract

This paper tests for habit-formation in leisure-related internet use (LIU) using time-diary data from a panel of unemployed workers. Drawing on insights from the consumption-habit literature, I use a model of intertemporal time allocation to derive a test for habit-formation in leisure activities. The data reveal strong evidence of habit-formation in LIU among the Generation-X age cohort. With the exception of reading, I find no evidence of habit-formation in offline leisure.

Wage Offers and On-the-job Search (w/ Dan Bernhardt)
Canadian Journal of Economics (May 2022)

Abstract

We study the wage-setting problem of an employer with private information about demand for its product when workers can engage in costly on-the-job search. Employers understand that low wage offers may convey bad news that induces workers to search. The unique perfect sequential equilibrium wage strategy is characterized by: (i) pooling by intermediate-revenue employers on a common wage that just deters search, (ii) discontinuously lower revealing offers by low-revenue employers for whom the benefit of deterring search fails to warrant the required high pooling wage and (iii) high revealing offers by high-revenue employers seeking to deter aggressive raiders.

The Discouragement Rate: An Index of Discouragement-Induced Hardship
Applied Economics Letters (September 2021)

Abstract

In 1979, the Levitan Commission identified discouragement as one of three main sources of economic hardship, and recommended the development of an index to measure the extent of the problem. Over 40 years later, no such index exists. This letter proposes an index of discouragement-induced hardship and documents its evolution over time and across demographic groups.

Learning and Job Search Dynamics during the Great Recession
Journal of Monetary Economics (January 2021)

Abstract

Krueger and Mueller (2011) document that search effort declined with unemployment duration during the Great Recession. I show that variation in past effort explains this decline. Furthermore, job offers increase subsequent effort. These facts are inconsistent with standard models of search. I introduce a model of sequential search in which workers are uncertain about the offer arrival process and learn through search. Evolving beliefs influence search through two competing channels: the opportunity cost of leisure and the option value of unemployment. Estimation of the model indicates that learning provides a strong account of job search dynamics during the Great Recession.

Misallocation and Productivity Effects of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff (w/ Eric W. Bond, Mario Crucini, and Joel Rodrigue)
Review of Economic Dynamics (January 2013)

Abstract

Using a newly created microeconomic archive of US imports at the tariff line level for 1930–1933, we construct industry-level tariff wedges incorporating the input–output structure of US economy and the heterogeneous role of imports across sectors of the economy. We use these wedges to show that the average tariff rate of 46% in 1933 substantially understated the true impact of the Smoot–Hawley (SH) tariff structure, which we estimate to be equivalent to a uniform tariff rate of 70%. We use these wedges to calculate the impact of the Smoot–Hawley tariffs on total factor productivity and welfare. In our benchmark parameterization, we find that tariff protection reduced TFP by 1.2% relative to free trade prior to the Smoot–Hawley legislation. TFP fell by an additional 0.5% between 1930 and 1933 due to Smoot–Hawley. We also conduct counterfactual policy exercises and examine the sensitivity of our results to changes in the elasticity of substitution and the import share. A doubling of the substitution elasticities yields a TFP decline of almost 5% relative to free trade, with an additional reduction due to SH of 0.4%.