Anil Gogebakan
Ph.D. Candidate in Economics | Research Fellow, Smart Prosperity Institute
Ph.D. Candidate in Economics | Research Fellow, Smart Prosperity Institute
Welcome! I am a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at the University of Calgary, with a research focus on international trade, energy and environmental economics. I also serve as a Research Fellow at the Smart Prosperity Institute, where I lead a $30,000 research grant-funded project examining the productivity effects of energy efficiency in Canada. My broader interests include applied econometrics, trade policy, and high-resolution air pollution modeling using InMAP. My work has been published in The World Economy and presented at major international conferences.
Download CVRevisiting Trade and Income in the New Era of Globalization: Distance, Big Boats, and Natural Barriers to Trade
The World Economy, Volume 48, Issue 12, Pages 886–921.
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Abstract: This paper investigates the relationship between international trade and income, exploiting a dynamic distance measure generated by the growth of container ships and Panama Canal capacity. Employing a version of the gravity model, this paper constructs an instrument for trade that accounts for bilateral trade flow differences driven by the Panama Canal and big ships. I exploit the created instrument, given its purely geography-based nature, to estimate the impact of trade on income between 2002 and 2022. This paper finds a trade elasticity of income at 0.4, indicating that a one-dollar increase in trade translates into a 40-cent higher income on average. Compared to earlier studies, this indicates a more pronounced impact of trade on income in the recent era of globalisation.
The Role of Energy Efficiency in Productivity: Evidence from Canada
– Job Market Paper
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Abstract: This paper quantifies productivity loss in Canada from inefficient use of capital, labor, and energy across provinces and sectors. Using annual provincial input-output data for all sectors (2014–2020) and a standard misallocation framework, I decompose the loss into: (i) within sectors; and (ii) within provinces—reflecting interprovincial and sectoral misallocation, respectively. I also quantify each input’s contribution to the gap. Unlike most studies focused on firm-level variation within a single sector, typically manufacturing, I examine the full economy using a novel province-sector framework. Results show the Canadian economy operates 32% and 15% below potential when the interprovincial substitutability parameter is set to 3 and 7, respectively. Optimal sectoral allocation within provinces narrows this loss to 30% and 14%, suggesting interprovincial differences as the main source. Energy, though just 8% of input costs, causes 1–2.5% of the loss. Capital contributes about 1%, while labor is nearly optimally used.
Uneven Gains: The Environmental Justice Impact of the RGGI on Air Pollution and Health
(Joint with Sookti Chaudhary and Linh Pham)
Abstract: This paper examines the distributional impacts of carbon cap-and-trade programs, using the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) program in the U.S. northeastern states as a quasi-natural experiment. First, using power-plant level data from 2000 to 2019, we evaluate the indirect effects of the CO2 cap set by the RGGI on local air pollutants such as nitrogen oxides (NOx) and sulphur dioxide (SO2). Our empirical approach employs a difference-in-differences (DiD) strategy with heterogeneous treatment effects to preserve the differential impacts of the program across individual power plants. Next, based on the estimated plant-level pollution reductions from the DiD model, we investigate the differences in emissions across various locations, to identify the environmental justice (EJ) effects of the cap-and-trade program. Specifically, we feed the DiD results into a high-resolution intervention air pollution model (InMAP) to analyze the variations in pollution reduction amounts among different demographic groups across fine-grained areas (1 km x 1 km), aggregated to the census tract level. We find significant variation in how the program affects emissions across power plants, leading to uneven health benefits, with avoided deaths varying by regions.
I have extensive experience teaching and assisting in both undergraduate and graduate-level economics courses. Notably, I have served as a course Instructor at the University of Calgary and have supported several graduate-level courses as a Teaching Assistant.
Download a full version of my academic CV including education, work experience, grants, conferences, and skills:
Download CV (PDF)Email: anil.gogebakan@ucalgary.ca