Biography
Peter Christensen is an applied microeconomist who studies the intersection of energy/environmental and urban economics to understand how public policy and technological interventions can be used to improve social and environmental outcomes in cities around the world. He directs BDEEP, a research team that combines data science and economic methods at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. He is affiliated with the Poverty Action Laboratory and E2e and has ongoing partnerships with research teams at Zillow, Uber Technologies, and Google. His work has been supported by the US EPA, National Science Foundation, Sloan Foundation, and the Russell Sage Foundation. He holds a PhD and a MESc from Yale University and a BA from UC Davis.
Research Interests
Economics Fields: Energy and Environmental Economics, Public Economics, Urban Economics
Methodological Interests: Data Science and Computational Methods, Digital Field Experiments, Machine Learning in Policy Evaluation
Education
- Ph.D. Environmental and Resource Economics, Yale University, 2015
- M.E.Sc. Yale F&ES, 2009
- B.A. UC Davis, 2004
Additional Campus Affiliations
Assistant Professor, Agricultural and Consumer Economics
David F. Linowes Faculty Fellow, Cline Center for Advanced Social Research, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Assistant Professor, Economics
Assistant Professor, National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA)
Recent Publications
Christensen, P., & Osman, A. (2021). The Demand for Mobility: Evidence from an Experiment with Uber Riders. (IZA Discussion Paper; No. 14179). https://ssrn.com/abstract=3803723
Albouy, D., Christensen, P., & Sarmiento-Barbieri, I. (2020). Unlocking amenities: Estimating public good complementarity. Journal of Public Economics, 182, [104110]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2019.104110
Ang, A., Christensen, P., & Vieira, R. (2020). Should congested cities reduce their speed limits? Evidence from São Paulo, Brazil. Journal of Public Economics, 184, [104155]. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2020.104155
Christensen, P., Sarmiento-Barbieri, I., & Timmins, C. (Accepted/In press). Housing Discrimination and the Toxics Exposure Gap in the United States: Evidence from the Rental Market. Review of Economics and Statistics, 1-37. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_a_00992
Christensen, P. (2019). Suburbs or skyscrapers? The effect of China's leasing market on housing decentralization. Land Economics, 95(4), 557-576. https://doi.org/10.3368/le.95.4.557