Ph.D. in Economics
Indiana University Bloomington
2022 - Present
Economics · Job market candidate
Bonang N. Seoela
Ph.D. Candidate in Economics
Indiana University Bloomington
My research studies how government policies, including environmental regulation, fossil fuel reforms, and labor market policies, affect decisions of firms and workers. I use quantitative and spatial methods to study these questions. Before beginning my doctoral studies, I worked as a labor economist at the Idaho Department of Labor.
Research Interests: International Trade / Environmental & Energy Economics / Quantitative & Spatial Models / Labor Economics
Bloomington, Indiana
Education
M.Sc. in Economics
Boise State University
2020
B.Sc. in Mathematics and Physics
The College of Idaho
2018
International Baccalaureate (I.B.) Diploma
Waterford Kamhlaba UWCSA
2013
Research
Trade, policy, and the spatial economyJob market paper
Environmental Regulation, Firms, and Trade:
Evidence from Mexico’s Air-Quality Programs
How does local environmental regulation affect firms and welfare? I study Mexico’s ProAire programs using linked firm-level data and a quantitative spatial model that accounts for trade, pollution transport, and worker sorting.
[Abstract]
Air quality regulations often target pollution where exposure is highest, creating spatial differences in both compliance costs and environmental benefits. This paper studies one such intervention, Mexico's ProAire air-quality programs, and their effects on manufacturing emissions, firm trade, and consumer welfare. I combine the staggered rollout of ProAire across municipalities from 2011 to 2020 with linked firm-level data. I first show that the decline in Mexican manufacturing emissions intensity between 2005 and 2018 was driven mainly by within-industry technique changes, which account for 88 percent of the reduction. After ProAire adoption, reported CO2 emissions among RETC-reporting firms fall by 11 percent. Trade adjustment occurs primarily through the extensive and intensive margins of exporting. Export entry changes little, export exit rises by 2.8 percentage points, and export sales among continuing exporters fall by 9.5 percent, while imports among continuing importers rise by 18 percent. I then evaluate the welfare implications of spatially targeted regulation through a quantitative spatial model with heterogeneous firms, pollution-intensive production, international trade, atmospheric transport, and worker sorting. I find that ProAire lowers output by 0.07 percent, while welfare rises by 0.099 percent.
Publication
Efficacy of monetary policy in a currency union? Evidence from Southern Africa’s Common Monetary Area
Quantitative Finance and Economics, 6(1): 35-53 · 2022
Read paper ↗Read abstract
The Common Monetary Area (CMA) agreement has effectively granted the South African government sole discretion over monetary policy and implementation in the region. The effectiveness of this arrangement has long been under discussion given the heterogeneity of member countries. This paper uses a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) to examine the efficacy of the interest rate channel in the CMA. Specifically, our analysis uses data from 2000M1-2018M12 to examine how economic output, inflation, money supply, domestic credit, and lending rate spread for each member country respond to shocks in the South African repo rate. The main findings indicate that a positive shock to the South African repo rate has a statistically significant negative impact on economic output and a positive effect on inflation at the 10 percent level for all countries in the CMA. The results also show that money supply, domestic credit, and lending rate spread respond asymmetrically across members countries.
Work in progress
Energy Price Shocks along the Global Supply Chain: The Effects of Fossil Fuel Reforms in Mexico
Draft in progress
Work in progress
Does Minimum Wage Increase Formal Employment? Tax Incentives and Informality at Mexico’s Northern Border
Draft in progress
Teaching
Indiana University Bloomington · Boise State UniversityI have taught international economics with full teaching responsibility and served as a teaching assistant in microeconomics, advanced microeconomic theory, and behavioral economics. My teaching philosophy centers on helping students develop the economic reasoning to evaluate policy questions independently. I guide students through four steps: defining the economic problem, explaining the underlying mechanisms, evaluating evidence, and assessing policy implications.
Accessing INEGI data
A resource for IU researchersIU graduate students and IU-affiliated researchers studying Mexico can request access to data from Mexico’s national statistical agency, the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Geografía (INEGI), through the IU–INEGI agreement, subject to approval.
Beyond economics
A little of life outside researchAway from research, I enjoy spending time with family, cycling, and playing soccer, tennis, and morabaraba.
Cycling
My interest in maps and spatial patterns extends beyond my research. Cycling is one of my favorite ways to experience a city and develop a feel for its geography, and my goal is to cycle in as many cities as possible. So far, my rides have taken me to:
Bemidji, MN · Bloomington, IN · Boise, ID · Buffalo, NY · College Park, MD · Holland, MI · Indianapolis, IN · Long Beach, WA · Mexico City, Mexico · Minneapolis, MN · Morgantown, WV · Owensboro, KY · Sacramento, CA · Springfield, IL · Washington, DC
Minneapolis, Minnesota · 2023
View this ride on Strava ↗
Morabaraba
Morabaraba is a traditional strategy board game widely played in Lesotho and across Southern Africa.
How to play
Instructions borrowed from the linked Morabaraba game . These describe the rules used in that version.
The board
The board has 25 spots where the lines cross: three squares sitting inside each other, joined at the corners and through the middle of each side. The middle lines meet at the centre. Your pieces live on the spots and walk along the lines.
Setup
You each get 12 pieces with your own token so you can tell them apart. Someone is picked at random to go first.
First, you place
Take turns dropping one piece at a time onto any empty spot you like. Keep going until you’ve both placed all 12.
Then, you move
Now the pieces start walking. On your turn, slide one of your pieces along a line to an empty spot right next to it. Tap your piece, then tap where you want it to go.
Mills and capturing
Get three of your pieces in a straight line and that’s a mill. You immediately take one of your opponent’s pieces, any one you like, from anywhere on the board. Nobody is safe. This works while placing and while moving. During placement, even if one move completes two lines at once, you take one piece. In the movement phase, completing two lines lets you take two pieces.
Attacking is compulsory
If you can close a mill on your turn, you must close it. Playing somewhere else while an attack is on the table loses the game. Everyone carries one save per game: the first time you walk past a mill, a notice hands the turn back so you can play it. There is no second one.
Stuck with nowhere to go?
If all your pieces are boxed in, you sit out your turns until a gap opens up. Fair is fair though: once your opponent has made three moves in a row while you’re stuck, their next move has to let you back into the game, if there’s any way to do it.
Winning
Grind your opponent down to two pieces and the game is yours. With two they can never fill a line again, so they can never capture and can never come back, and the game ends right there instead of dragging on. Every piece counts the same. No kings, no queens, no favourites.
Get in touch
Department of Economics · Indiana University Bloomington