Research

Job Market Paper

Payments for Ecosystem Services and Water Quality in the Midwest U.S. [Draft forthcoming]

Working Papers

Short-Term Impact of the Trade War on U.S. Agricultural Commodities Futures Prices [Draft upon request]
Abstract: This study investigates the short-run effects of the U.S.-China trade war on U.S. agricultural futures prices, focusing on five primary commodities: soybeans, corn, wheat, rice, and oats. Initiated in early 2018 by President Trump, the trade war resulted in substantial tariffs imposed by both countries, severely impacting the U.S. agricultural sector. To mitigate farmers’ losses, the U.S. government introduced $28 billion in trade aid packages for farmers. This paper utilizes daily futures price data for these grains from 2004 to 2020 and comprehensive supply and demand factors. Due to the non-stationarity of the data, first-difference regressions are employed to quantify the price effects of tariffs and government payments. The findings indicate that a 25% Chinese tariff on U.S. soybeans led to a significant decrease in soybean and wheat futures prices, highlighting the severe short-term impacts of trade barriers on agricultural markets. Additionally, the analysis reveals that the massive trade aid payments had mixed effects on futures prices, challenging the assumption that such payments would not further distort the market.

Publications

Yu, Shuo*, Nicola Falco, Nivedita Patel, Yuxin Wu, and Haruko Wainwright. “Diverging climate response of corn yield and carbon use efficiency across the US.” Environmental Research Letters 18, no. 6 (2023): 064049. Journal Version Replication

Work in Progress

Designing Insurance under Climate Change with Francis Annan and Sagar Saxena [Model development stage]

Optimal SWD Management in Michigan and North Carolina Blueberry: A Dynamic Structural Model with Unobserved Heterogeneity
with Miguel I. Gómez, Philip Fanning, Rufus Isaacs, Sergio Puerto Gonzalez, and C.-Y. Cynthia Lin Lawell. Master's Thesis Version [Model development stage]

Sitting Solar on Farms
with Sara Johns [Data analysis stage]

Paying Smallholder Farmers to Increase Carbon Sequestration by Changing Agricultural Practices: Evidence from Odisha
with Aprajit Mahajan and Sayantan Mitra. [Piloting completed, full RCT to start in 2025]

Cover Crop Detection in the Midwest with Satellite Data with Kangogo Sogomo, Yanghui Kang, Lawson Connor, Brookie Guzder-Williams, and Timothy Bowles. [Model development stage]

Harmonizing Soil Carbon Science and Policy to Meet Climate Goals
with Pranjal Dwivedi, Micah Elias, Allegra Mayer, Charlotte Kwong, Anna Abramova, Tyler Anthony, Tibisay Perez, Vrashabh Kapate, Sangcheol Moon, Jacqueline Gerson, and Whendee Silver. [Writing stage]

Other Writings

Yu, Shuo, Haruko Murakami Wainwright, Benjamin Runkle, Colby Reavis, Michele L. Reba, and Nicola Falco. “Quantifying ET and Carbon Fluxes at Crop Scale by Integrating AmeriFlux and Remote Sensing Data.” In AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts, vol. 2020, pp. GC119-0010. 2020. link