I am a dual degree candidate for PhD in Political Science and a Master's in Statistics at the University of Michigan.

My research primarily focuses on the politics of inflationary surprise, using methodological approaches that incorporate causal inference and formal modeling.

My current research project explores the role of identity and economic class in shaping political preference.

Other academic areas of interest are probability theory and econometrics.

Working Papers

1. 1. Economic Origins of Exclusionary Attitudes
   Abstract Request
   A wave of recent empirical studies has causally demonstrated that negative income shocks can encourage exclusionary political preferences, yet the theoretical mechanisms underlying this attitudinal shift remain underexplored, and the existing evidence draws exclusively from Western democracies. To address the theoretical gap, I develop a structural model to study this attitudinal shift as a strategic interaction. I posit that exclusionary attitudes are voters’ utilitarian responses to negative income shocks, which they seek to compensate for through group status, and that the magnitude of this response is shaped by group size and post-shock welfare interventions. To enrich existing empirical studies, I replicate analogous findings of this attitudinal shift in the setting of inter-religious group dynamics in Indonesia between 2014 and 2015 by leveraging instrumental variable research design. This evidence also demonstrates that the behavioral shift occurs primarily among individuals from majority group and non-welfare beneficiaries.
2. 2. Endogenous Central Bank Reform in Autocracies
   Abstract Request
   Existing studies suggest that autocracies with a higher degree of Central Bank Independence (CBI) perform relatively better in managing inflation compared to their peers. Even when the CBI does not contribute to mitigate inflation, the question remains as to why this reform was implemented in the first place in autocracies. The current literature predominantly attributes the reform to external pressures, yet its domestic origins remain largely unexplained. Building upon literature on authoritarian politics and bargaining theory, I demonstrate that the level of CBI across autocracies is an equilibrium consequence of the internal power struggle between the dictator and their ruling coalition. I argue that the dictator introduces the CBI as a strategic initiative to expand their personal power from an initially weak bargaining position. I show that dictators personalize their regime through the reform when their ruling elite coalition is capable of collective action, but personalizing by weakening this monetary institution when their ruling coalition is fragmented. I corroborate this claim and its mechanism on a sample of autocracies in the post-war global economy. Cross-validation through parameteric and semiparameteric inferences on this sample yields supportive evidence on this counterfactual claim. Multiple validation checks also show that this empirical finding is robust.