YARAN JIN

yaranjin.weebly.com
jinyaran@gmail.com

UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN

Placement Director: Stephen Donald
Graduate Coordinator: Vivian Goldman-Leffler

stephen.g.donald@utexas.edu
vivian@austin.utexas.edu

Office Contact Information

Department of Economics
The University of Texas at Austin
2225 Speedway BRB 2.138, C3100
Austin, Texas 78712

Personal Contact Information

2501 Lake Austin Blvd
Apt L104
Austin, Texas 78703
512-560-1512

Education:
Ph.D. in Economics, University of Texas at Austin
Expected Completion Date: May 2017
Thesis Title: Essays on Environmental Regulations in the Electricity Industry
Thesis Supervisor: Professor Eugenio Miravete
M.Sc. in Economics, University of Texas at Austin, 2014
B.A. in Economics and Finance (with honors), Tsinghua University, 2012
Exchange Student, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Fall 2010
Research and Teaching Fields:
Industrial Organization, Energy and Environmental Economics, Applied Econometrics
References:
Professor Eugenio Miravete
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
512-232-1718
eugenio@eugeniomiravete.com
Professor Thomas Wiseman
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
512-475-8516
wiseman@austin.utexas.edu

512-471-8907
512-475-8510

Professor Stephen Ryan

Olin School of Business
Washington University in St. Louis
314-935-6707
stephen.p.ryan@wustl.edu
Professor Haiqing Xu
Department of Economics
University of Texas at Austin
512-475-8528
h.xu@austin.utexas.edu

Teaching Experience:
Teaching Assistant for Ph.D. courses at UT Austin
Fall 2014 & 2016
Intro to Game Theory (Prof. Thomas Wiseman)
1

Fall 2013
Summer 2013

Mathematics for Economics (Prof. Maxwell Stinchcombe)

Math Camp (Prof. Maxwell Stinchcombe)

Teaching Assistant for masters courses at UT Austin

Spring 2015
Econometric Methods for Evaluation (Prof. Carolyn Heinrich)
Teaching Assistant for undergraduate courses at UT Austin
Summer 2016
Industrial Organization (Dr. Shalah Mostashari)
Spring 2016
Energy Economics (Dr. Michael Sadler)
Fall 2015
Managerial Economics (Prof. Maxwell Stinchcombe)
Summer 2015
Microeconomic Theory (Dr. Wayne Hickenbottom)
Summer 2014
Monetary Theory and Policy (Prof. Mark Thoma)
Spring 2014
Intro to Econometrics (Honors) (Dr. Stephanie Haughton)
Spring 2013
Intro to Macroeconomics (Dr. Beatrix Paal)
Fall 2012
Intro to Microeconomics (Dr. Wayne Hickenbottom)
Honors, Scholarships, and Fellowships:
2012-2013
Departmental Fellowship, Department of Economics, UT Austin
2012
Best Senior Thesis Award, Tsinghua University
2012
Outstanding Graduate Award, Tsinghua University
2009-2011
Scholarships for Academic Excellence, Tsinghua University

Conference Presentations:
2016
11th annual Economics Graduate Students Conference at WUSTL (scheduled)

Research Papers:
The Welfare Gains of Mixed Policy Instruments within Voluntary Emission Cap-and-Trade Programs
(Job Market Paper)
The choice of emission control policy instrument is a crucial economic issue. Instead of investigating the
traditional approaches like intensity standards and technology mandate, this paper evaluates the welfare
consequences of allowing power generating units to self-select between cap-and-trade regulation and intensity
standards. The welfare evaluation focuses on the effects of such mixed policy instruments on emissions,
industry profits and market exit. Using the data from a unique voluntary NOx emission cap-and-trade program
in Texas, I construct and estimate a structural model of power generating units equilibrium choices of policy
instrument, emission abatement and production to recover their abatement costs. With the estimated
parameters, I simulate the equilibrium outcomes under a counterfactual mandatory cap-and-trade regulation.
Results reveal that the mandatory cap-and-trade regulation dominates the self-selected mixture of policy
instruments by increasing industry profits and reducing aggregate emissions. Meanwhile, this increase in
industry profits is not equally distributed across the power generating units. I also document that the
mandatory and mixed policy instruments have no differential effects on market exit.
Research in Progress:
Electricity Transmission Network Congestion and Emission Regulation Effectiveness: Evidence from
2

ERCOT
In the electricity industry, transmission network congestion influences the dispatch order of power generation.
It would also affect the effectiveness of environmental regulations on the power generating units. In the year
2010, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT) changed from zonal market structure to nodal market
structure to manage network congestion. This paper attempts to compare the emissions and emission intensity
of CO2, SO2 and NOx, as well as the fuel efficiency of power generating units in ERCOT before and after this
regulatory change, to investigate the interactions between environmental regulations and electricity congestion
pricing.

Languages and Skills

Languages
Computer Skills

English (fluent), Chinese (native)

MATLAB, STATA, R, Python, C, SQL, LaTeX