Job Market Candidates in 2026/2027
Economics & Econometrics
Jianchen Guo (Currently: Ph.D. Student and Teaching Assistant, Institute of Economics and Econometrics, University of Geneva)
Job Market Paper: Farmland Transfer, Structural Changes and China's "Labor Reservoir"
paper | abstract
I develop a tractable quantitative general equilibrium model with farmland institutions and urban labor market frictions to study how the creation of a farmland transfer market shapes structural change in China. I show that the market weakens the agricultural sector’s function as the country’s ”labor reservoir”, reducing its capacity to absorb workers displaced by trade shocks. This effect operates through land rental adjustments, which lower the elasticity of urban labor supply. Quantitative results indicate that the impact is substantial, leading to higher urban unemployment and greater welfare losses from such shocks. The paper also identifies other unintended labor market consequences that may arise, clarifying their underlying mechanisms and elucidating the conditions under which they may be triggered. Overall, the paper underscores that reforming rural land institutions should be an endogenous process, which accounts for the critical interactions between the distortions in the farmland and urban labor markets.
References:
Professor Monika Mrázová
Professor Frédéric Robert-Nicoud
Professor Marcelo Olarreaga
Professor Weidi Yuan (Nanjing University)
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Niklas Schoch (Currently: Postdoctoral Researcher, Institute of Economics and Econometrics, University of Geneva)
Job Market Paper: Climate Policy, Industry Concentration and Technology Adoption: Taxes, Subsidies, and Rebates
paper | abstract
Decarbonising heavy industry is a key challenge for climate policy. To reduce emissions, the European Union explicitly identifies the adoption of green technologies that lower emission intensity as a major avenue. This paper investigates which policies can incentivise an efficient decarbonization of the heavy industry sector. I develop a dynamic model of imperfect competition and endogenous production technology upgrading, using recent developments in the modelling of dynamic continuous investment choices. A carbon tax alone leads to inefficient outcomes and a suboptimally low uptake of green technologies. The reason is that a carbon price low enough to avoid excessive output contraction and loss of market share to imports does not trigger sufficient investment in green technologies. In contrast, combining a tax with either an adoption subsidy or an output-based rebate increases domestic welfare. To quantify these effects, I estimate the model for the French cement industry, using a novel dataset that combines administrative data with handcollected firm announcements on the low-carbon investments following the recent escalation of the EU Emissions Trading System carbon price. Compared to the optimal carbon tax alone, a suitablecombination of a tax and an adoption subsidy increases domestic welfare by up to 4.8% (and reduces emissions by 5.1%), and an output-based rebate tied to an efficiency benchmark can yield a domestic welfare gain of up to 8.5% (and reduces emissions by 14.9%). Once a carbon border adjustment extends the carbon price to imports, the gain from a subsidy largely vanishes, and that from an output-based rebate falls to 2.1%.
References:
Professor Johannes Boehm
Professor Stefan Pollinger (Sciences Po Paris)
Professor Mar Reguant (IAE-CSIC and Barcelona School of Economics)
Professor Gautam Gowrisankaran (Columbia University)
