About

Dr. James Archsmith is an assistant professor of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of Maryland. His expertise includes energy economics, environmental economics, industrial organization, and applied econometrics. His current research focuses on evaluating the costs and environmental impacts of regulations in electricity generation, automobile fuel economy standards, and programs promoting electric vehicle adoption, aiming to promote effective and low-cost environmental policies. Dr. Archsmith holds a PhD from the University of California, Davis, earned in 2018, a master's degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, obtained in 2011, and a BSNRE from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, in 1999. His work involves assessing emissions reduction policies considering short-run adjustment costs and estimating unit commitment costs in wholesale electricity markets.

Research topics

• Economics
• Business
• Computer Science
• Marketing
• Environmental economics
• Transport engineering
• Industrial organization
• Public economics
• Econometrics
• Market economy
• Microeconomics
• Automotive engineering
• Engineering
• Finance

Selected publications

• Replication Data for: A Hedge Fund in Your Garage: Automobile purchases under gasoline price uncertainty

  Open MIND · 2026-01-28

  dataset1st authorCorresponding

  Replication code and publicly available data for this paper

  DOI

• A Hedge Fund in Your Garage: Automobile Purchases Under Gasoline Price Uncertainty

  Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists · 2026-02-12

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• You Don't Know? Pump it Up: Consumer Beliefs and Gasoline Price Uncertainty

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2024-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Future Paths of Electric Vehicle Adoption in the United States: Predictable Determinants, Obstacles, and Opportunities

  Environmental and Energy Policy and the Economy · 2022 · 47 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Economics
  • Transport engineering

  This paper identifies and quantifies major determinants of future electric vehicle demand to inform widely held aspirations for market growth. Our model compares three channels that will affect electric vehicle market share in the United States from 2020 to 2035: intrinsic (no-subsidy) electric vehicle demand growth, net-of-subsidy electric vehicle cost declines (e.g., batteries), and government subsidies. Geographic variation in preferences for sedans and light trucks highlights the importance of viable electric vehicle alternatives to conventional light trucks; belief in climate change is highly correlated with electric vehicle adoption patterns; and the first $500 billion in cumulative nationwide electric vehicle subsidies is associated a 7%–10% increase in electric vehicle market share in 2035, an effect that diminishes as subsidies increase. The rate of intrinsic demand growth dwarfs the impact of demand-side subsidies and battery cost declines, highlighting the importance of nonmonetary factors (e.g., charging infrastructure, product quality, and/or cultural acceptance) on electric vehicle demand.

  PublisherDOI

• The Dynamics of Inattention in the (Baseball) Field

  The Economic Journal · 2021-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Future Paths of Electric Vehicle Adoption in the United States: Predictable Determinants, Obstacles and Opportunities

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2021-01-01 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Future Paths of Electric Vehicle Adoption in the United States: Predictable Determinants, Obstacles and Opportunities

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2021-06-01 · 42 citations

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This paper identifies and quantifies major determinants of future electric vehicle (EV) demand in order to inform widely-held aspirations for market growth. Our model compares three channels that will affect EV market share in the United States from 2020-2035: intrinsic (no-subsidy) EV demand growth, net-of-subsidy EV cost declines (e.g. batteries), and government subsidies. Geographic variation in preferences for sedans and light trucks highlights the importance of viable EV alternatives to conventional light trucks; belief in climate change is highly correlated with EV adoption patterns; and the first $500 billion in cumulative nationwide EV subsidies is associated a 7-10 percent increase in EV market share in 2035, an effect that diminishes as subsidies increase. The rate of intrinsic demand growth dwarfs the impact of demand-side subsidies and battery cost declines, highlighting the importance of non-monetary factors (e.g. charging infrastructure, product quality and/or cultural acceptance) on EV demand.

  PublisherDOI

• Attribute substitution in household vehicle portfolios

  The RAND Journal of Economics · 2020 · 21 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Computer Science
  • Economics
  • Business

  Abstract Roughly three quarters of vehicles are purchased into multi‐car households. We study whether households are willing to substitute attributes, such as fuel economy, across vehicles within their portfolio. We develop a novel strategy to separately identify idiosyncratic preferences for an attribute from these within‐portfolio effects. Using the universe of household vehicle registration records in California over a 6‐year period, we find that two‐car households exhibit strong substitution across vehicles when faced with an exogenous change to fuel intensity of a kept vehicle. This effect can erode a substantial portion of the benefit from major policies, such as Cash‐for‐Clunkers.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Attribute Substitution in Household Vehicle Portfolios

  RePEc: Research Papers in Economics · 2020-04-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Household preferences for goods with a bundle of attributes may have complex substitution patterns when one attribute is changed. For example, a household faced with an exogenous increase in the size of one television may choose to decrease the size of other televisions within the home. This paper quantifies the extent of attribute substitution in the context of multi-vehicle households. We deploy a novel identification strategy to examine how an exogenous change in the fuel economy of a kept vehicle affects a household's choice of a second vehicle. We find strong evidence of attribute substitution in the household vehicle portfolio. This effect operates through car attributes that are correlated with fuel economy, including vehicle footprint and weight. Our findings suggest that attribute substitution exerts a strong force that may erode a substantial portion of the expected future gasoline savings from fuel economy standards, particularly those that are attribute-based. Elements of our identification strategy are relevant to a broad class of settings in which consumers make sequential purchases of durable portfolio goods.

  OA PDF

• Air Quality and Error Quantity: Pollution and Performance in a High-Skilled, Quality-Focused Occupation

  Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists · 2018-05-10 · 223 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  We provide the first evidence that short-term exposure to air pollution affects the work performance of a group of highly skilled, quality-focused employees. We repeatedly observe the decision making of individual professional baseball umpires, quasi-randomly assigned to varying air quality across time and space. Unique characteristics of this setting combined with high-frequency data disentangle effects of multiple pollutants and identify previously underexplored acute effects. We find that a 1 ppm increase in 3-hour CO causes an 11.5% increase in the propensity of umpires to make incorrect calls and a 10 μg/m3 increase in 12-hour PM2.5 causes a 2.6% increase. We control carefully for a variety of potential confounders, and results are supported by robustness and falsification checks. Our estimates imply that a 3% reduction in productive output is associated with a change in CO concentrations equivalent to moving from the 25th to the 95th percentile of the CO distribution in many of the largest US cities.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Matthew Neidell

  Columbia University

  26 shared

• Anthony Heyes

  University of Birmingham

  23 shared

• Bhaven N. Sampat

  Arizona State University

  21 shared

• Christopher R. Knittel

  National Bureau of Economic Research

  12 shared

• Kenneth Gillingham

  12 shared

• David Rapson

  5 shared

• Soodeh Saberian

  University of Manitoba

  2 shared

• Erich Muehlegger

  University of California, Davis

  2 shared

Education

• PhD, Economics

  University of California Davis

  2018