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4 unexpected findings about COVID-19 deaths
Obesity rates, poverty rates, and pollution may not correlate with COVID-19 deaths after all. But public transportation does.
Jul 15, 2020
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Christopher Knittel
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Christopher Knittel is the George P. Shultz Professor and a Professor of Applied Economics at the MIT Sloan School of Management.
Prior to MIT Sloan, Knittel taught at the University of California, Davis, and at Boston University. His research focuses on industrial organization, environmental economics, and applied econometrics.
Knittel is an associate editor of The American Economic Journal— Economic Policy, The Journal of Industrial Economics, and the Journal of Energy Markets. His research has appeared in The American Economic Review, The Review of Economics and Statistics, The Journal of Industrial Economics, The Energy Journal, and other academic journals. He also is a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research in the Productivity, Industrial Organization, and Energy and Environmental Economics groups.
Knittel holds a BA in economics and political science from California State University, Stanislaus; an MA in economics from the University of California, Davis; and a PhD in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
http://knittel.world
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Publications
"Exporting Global Warming? Coal Trade and the Shale Gas Boom."
Knittel, Christopher R., Konstantinos Metaxoglou, Anson Soderbery, and Andres Trindade. The Canadian Journal of Economics. Forthcoming. CEEPR Working Paper.
"Subsidizing Fuel Efficient Cars: Evidence from China's Automobile Industry."
Chen, Chia-Wen, Wei-Min Hu, and Christopher R. Knittel. American Economic Journal: Economic Policy. Vol. 14, No. 4 (2021). CEEPR Working Paper. Online Appendix.
"Machine Learning from Schools about Energy Efficiency."
Burlig, Fiona, Christopher R. Knittel, David Rapson, Mar Reguant, and Catherine Wolfram. Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists Vol. 7, No. 6 (2020): 1181-1217.
"Racial and Gender Discrimination in Transportation Network Companies."
Ge, Yanbo, Christopher R. Knittel, Don MacKenzie, and Stephen Zoepf. Journal of Public Economics Vol. 190, (2020): 104205. SSRN Preprint.
"The Short-run and Long-run Effects of Covid-19 on Energy and the Environment."
Gillingham, Kenneth T., Christopher R. Knittel, Jing Li, Marten Ovaere, and Mar Reguant. Joule Vol. 4, No. 7 (2020): 1337-1341.
"What Does and Does not Correlate with COVID-19 Death Rates."
Knittel, Christopher R. and Bora Ozaltun, MIT Sloan Working Paper 6140-20. Cambridge, MA: MIT Sloan School of Management, June 2020.
Recent Insights
MIT Sloan Experts
Why the environmental impact of COVID-19 could outweigh short-term benefits
The COVID-19 pandemic has reduced CO2 and local air pollutant emissions, but what are the longer-term effects on the environment?
Oct 13, 2020
Media Highlights
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WBUR (Audio)
Why our high electric bills might be hurting our climate change goals
Radio Boston talks with MIT's Prof. Chris Knittel about how our high electric bills are hurting our battle against climate change.
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The Boston Globe (Opinion Piece)
Your electric bill shouldn't be so high. Here's how to fix it.
"Charging the right price for electricity is good economics and will allow Massachusetts to meet its climate goals more cheaply."
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Reuters
Fact Check – EIA's 'days of supply' figure does not show that the United...
The United States would have that number of days of diesel fuel left [only] "if all of our oil refineries stopped making fuel today."
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Reuters
US, UK economists back Russian oil price cap in letter to Yellen
Profs. Simon Johnson, Christopher Knittel, and Robert S. Pindyck recommend a price cap on Russian seaborne oil deliveries.