I am a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at New York University (NYU).
Research Interests: Macroeconomics, Asset Pricing, Labor Economics
Email: dql204@nyu.edu
CV/Resume
Education
- Ph.D. in Economics, New York University, 2026 (Expected)
- B.A. in Economics and B.S. in Mathematics, University of Chicago, 2017
Job Market Paper
1. Belief Distortions and Unemployment Fluctuations
Abstract PDF
This paper studies unemployment fluctuations when expectations deviate from a rational benchmark. By using survey forecasts, I decompose time-series and cross-sectional variation in job filling rates. Under subjective beliefs, hiring is driven by predictable errors in cash flow expectations, while discount rates play a minor role. In contrast, rational expectations assign a dominant role to discount rates. Survey measures of the user cost of labor are acyclical, indicating more rigidity under subjective beliefs. The findings suggest that belief distortions can amplify unemployment fluctuations: over-optimism about cash flows during expansions leads to future disappointment, which suppresses labor demand during recessions even as perceived labor costs remain persistently high.
Publications
2. Media Sentiment and International Asset Prices
(with Samuel Fraiberger, Damien Puy, and Romain Ranciere)
Journal of International Economics, 2021, 133(C): 103526
Abstract PDF DOI Working Paper Code and Data
Media: IMF Blog IMF Research Perspectives
We investigate the relationship between media sentiment and international equity prices using a new dataset of 4 million news articles published between 1991 and 2015. Three key results emerge. First, news sentiment robustly predicts future daily returns around the world. However, we find a sharp contrast between the effect of local news and that of global news: whereas local news optimism (pessimism) predicts a small and transitory increase (decrease) in local equity returns, global news sentiment has a larger impact on returns that does not reverse in the short run. Second, news sentiment affects local prices mainly through the investment decisions of foreign—rather than local—investors. Third, large variations in global news sentiment predominantly happen in the absence of new information about fundamentals, suggesting that movements in global sentiment capture variations in investors' sentiment. Taken together, our findings illustrate the key role played by foreign news and investors' sentiment in driving local asset prices.
3. Demand Conditions and Worker Safety: Evidence from Price Shocks in Mining
(with Kerwin Charles, Matthew Johnson, and Mel Stephens)
Journal of Labor Economics, 2022, 40(1): 47-94
Abstract PDF DOI Working Paper Code and Data
Media: Yale Insights
We investigate how demand conditions affect employers' provision of safety---something about which theory is ambivalent. Positive demand shocks relax financial constraints that limit safety investment but simultaneously raise the opportunity cost of increasing safety rather than production. We study the US metals mining sector, leveraging exogenous demand shocks from short-term variation in global commodity prices. We find that positive price shocks substantially increase workplace injury rates and safety regulation noncompliance. While these results indicate the general dominance of the opportunity cost effect, shocks that only increase mines' cash flow lower injury rates, illustrating that financial constraints also affect safety.
4. Small and Vulnerable: Small Firm Productivity in the Great Productivity Slowdown
(with Sophia Chen)
Journal of Financial Economics, 2023, 147(1): 49-74
Abstract PDF DOI Working Paper Code and Data
We show that the TFP growth of European micro, small, and medium-sized firms (SMEs) diverged from large firms after the global financial crisis. The average postcrisis TFP growth of medium-sized, small, and micro firms was, respectively, 1.1, 2.9, and 5.4 percentage points lower than that of large firms. This SME productivity gap is larger for firms with more severe credit supply shocks. The gap is partially attributable to a larger postcrisis reduction in intangible capital at SMEs than at large firms. Horseraces suggest that SME indicators are more robust and more powerful predictors of postcrisis TFP growth than other indicators.
5. 280 Characters to Employment: Using Twitter to Quantify Job Vacancies
(with Boris Sobol, Manuel Tonneau, Samuel Fraiberger, and Nir Grinberg)
Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media, 2024, 18(1), 1477-1489
Abstract PDF DOI Code and Data
Accurate assessment of workforce needs is critical for designing well-informed economic policy and improving market efficiency. While surveys are the gold standard for estimating when and where workers are needed, they also have important limitations, most notably their substantial costs, dependence on existing and extensive surveying infrastructure, and limited temporal, geographical, and sectorial resolution. Here, we investigate the potential of social media to provide a complementary signal for estimating labor market demand. We introduce a novel statistical approach for extracting information about the location and occupation advertised in job vacancies posted on Twitter. We then construct an aggregate index of labor market demand by occupational class in every major U.S. city from 2015 to 2022, which we evaluate against two sources of official statistics and an index from a large aggregator of online job postings. We find that the newly constructed index is strongly correlated with official statistics and, in some cases, advantageous compared to statistics from job aggregators. Moreover, we demonstrate that our index can robustly improve the prediction of official statistics across occupations and states.
Working Papers
6. Zombies on the Brink: Evidence from Japan on the Reversal of Monetary Policy Effectiveness
(with Gee Hee Hong and Deniz Igan)
BIS Working Paper No. 987, 2022
Abstract PDF Working Paper
How does unconventional monetary policy affect corporate capital structure and investment decisions? We study the transmission channel of quantitative easing and its potential diminishing returns on investment from a corporate finance perspective. Using a rich bankfirm matched data of Japanese firms with information on corporate debt and investment, we study how firms adjust their capital structure in response to the changes in term premia. Investment responds positively to a reduction in the term premium on average. However, there is a significant degree of cross-sectional variation in firm response: healthier firms increase capital spending and cash holdings, while financially vulnerable firms take advantage of lower long-term yields to refinance without increasing investment.
7. Inflation and Labor Markets: A Bottom-Up View
(with Sophia Chen, Deniz Igan, and Prachi Mishra)
IMF Working Paper No. 220, 2024
Abstract PDF Working Paper
U.S. inflation surged in 2021-22 and has since declined, driven largely by a sharp drop in goods inflation, though services inflation remains elevated. This paper zooms into services inflation, using proprietary microdata on wages to examine its relationship with service sector wage growth at the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) level. We estimate the wage-price pass-through with a local projection instrumental variable model that exploits variation in labor market tightness across MSAs. Our findings reveal a positive and significant relationship between wages and price growth, with a lag. This suggests that the effects of tight labor markets are persistent and may influence the pace of progression toward the inflation target.
8. Divergence in Post-Pandemic Earnings Growth: Evidence from Micro Data
(with Sophia Chen)
IMF Working Paper No. 222, 2024
Abstract PDF Working Paper
We analyze post-pandemic labor earnings using employer-employee data and find that earnings grew faster in counties with tighter labor markets and with greater access to loans through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), with the impact of PPP loans especially pronounced in areas with tighter labor markets. This divergence in earnings growth is particularly large for lower-paid, nonmanagerial workers, and those employed in smaller firms. Both wage increases and additional hours worked contributed to the overall growth in earnings. These findings align with a labor market competition framework, where tight labor markets reduce earnings disparities. Access to credit further strengthens the competition by relaxing firms’ financing constraints.
9. Can Social Media Reliably Estimate Unemployment?
(with Samuel Fraiberger, Nir Grinberg, Boris Sobol, and Manuel Tonneau), 2025
Abstract PDF
Digital trace data holds tremendous potential for measuring policy-relevant outcomes in real-time, yet its reliability is often questioned. Here, we propose a principled yet simple approach: capturing individual disclosures of unemployment using a custom large language model and post-stratification adjustment using inferred user demographics. We show that our methodology consistently outperforms the industry's forecasting average, and can improve the predictions of U.S. unemployment insurance claims, up to two weeks in advance, at the national, state, and city levels at both turbulent and stable times. The results demonstrate the potential of combining large language models with statistical modeling to complement traditional survey methodology, and contribute to better-informed policymaking, especially at turbulent times.
Work in Progress
10. The Geography of Life Cycle Wage Growth, 2024
Abstract PDF
This paper uses representative large-sample household surveys to document that life cycle wage growth varies substantially across areas within the United States. Wages grow more over the life cycle in richer Combined Statistical Areas (CSA) with higher income per capita. For example, after 20 years of experience, the average worker's wage is about 90.2% higher in Washington, DC, the richest area in the sample, but only by 66.1% in El Paso, TX, the poorest CSA in the sample. These geographic disparities persist even after conditioning on educational attainment groups. A counterfactual accounting exercise suggests that differences in educational attainment plays only a modest role by accounting for about 13.1\% of the differences in experience-wage profiles. The result is consistent with theories in which workers in poor areas accumulate less human capital on the job, or stronger search frictions in poor areas prevent workers from climbing the job ladder.
Teaching
Applied Statistics & Econometrics I-II (Master’s)
Teaching Assistant, NYU, 2021–2023
Professors: Banani Nandi, Bruce McNevin, Elena Goldman
Intermediate Macroeconomics (Undergraduate)
Teaching Assistant, NYU, 2020
Professor: Jess Benhabib
