Ozgen Kiribrahim-Sarikaya

Ozgen Kiribrahim-Sarikaya

Ph.D. candidate in Economics

Arizona State University

Biography

I am a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Arizona State University. My research focuses on topics in environmental, energy, labor, and urban economics using a variety of applied microeconomics and macroeconomics tools.

In my job market paper, I evaluate the heterogeneous welfare effects of place-based environmental regulations that improve local quality of life by reducing air pollution, while simultaneously affect local labor market conditions.

I will be on the job market for the 2024-2025 academic year.

Interests

  • Environmental and Energy Economics
  • Labor Economics
  • Urban Economics

Education

  • PhD in Economics, 2025 (Expected)

    Arizona State University

  • MA in Economics, 2020

    Bogazici University

  • BA in Economics, 2017

    Bogazici University

Job Market Paper

Place-Based Environmental Regulations and Labor Market Dynamics

Place-based environmental regulations target pollution-intensive sectors in polluted areas. These regulations can improve local quality of life by reducing air pollution, while simultaneously reducing labor demand. I develop a framework to study the heterogeneous effects on worker welfare, considering changes in pollution exposure, sectoral and spatial labor distribution, and unemployment. I focus on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regulation of ozone and fine particulate air pollution during the 2000’s. First, I develop a triple-difference estimator to measure the employment effects on college-educated and non-college-educated workers. I find that, on average, regulation decreased employment by 7.6% among non-college-educated workers and by 3.6% among college-educated workers. However, these average treatment effects vary substantially depending on the intensity and type of regulation. I use this causal evidence to develop empirical moments that serve to identify key parameters of a new general equilibrium search and matching model with endogenous worker location choice and pollution exposure. I use the model to evaluate the welfare effects of regulation in North Carolina. I find the effects differ by worker skill level and geographic location. Low-skill workers in regulated areas experience notable welfare losses. I show these losses can be mitigated by improving labor mobility across sectors and areas.

Working Paper

Distributional Effects of Residential Solar Subsidies

The residential solar market has grown significantly in the past decade due partly to falling prices and government subsidies. However, this growth has been driven by high-income households, leading to inequality in the distribution of subsidies. In this paper, we investigate how household income affects demand for residential solar systems and the distributional effects of renewable energy tax credit policies. We estimate a dynamic model of solar adoption using novel household-level data on hourly energy consumption, prices, household income, and solar panel installation for utility company customers in the Phoenix, AZ, metropolitan area from 2013 to 2017. We find that the household’s sensitivity to the system cost decreases as income increases. While low-income households are more sensitive to reductions in the system cost, high-income households are more likely to receive the full benefit of a non-refundable tax credit due to their higher tax liability. Specifically, making the tax credit refundable would increase the take-up rate among low-income households by 16%, with no effect on high-income households. Finally, our counterfactual analysis demonstrates that targeted policies designed to allocate 40% of total benefits to lower-income groups can enhance equity in solar adoption while increasing total solar production by 2% compared to nonrefundable policies. Our findings highlight the importance of designing subsidy programs that effectively balance distributional equity and overall efficiency.

Teaching

Average instructor rating: 6.4/7

Instructor

Microeconomics Principles, Summer 2023 & 2024

Syllabus

Download PDF

Teaching Assistant (Selected)

Public Economics, Environmental Economics, Intermediate Microeconomic Theory

Contact

  • okiribrahim@asu.edu
  • Department of Economics, W.P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University, PO Box 879801, Tempe, AZ 85281