Eugene Tan

About

Hello! I study energy and climate economics. My research combines game theory, network economics, spatial analysis, and empirical industrial organization to understand economic behavior and its implications for market and policy design. My research often draws on methods and data from energy systems and industrial ecology.

I am currently a postdoctoral scholar at the University of Calgary. I got my PhD in Sustainable Development at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs.

Curriculum Vitae (Last Updated: October 2026)

Email: eugene.tan@columbia.edu

Job Market Paper

Who Pays for the Last Mile? Connection Charges and the Private Provision of Utility Infrastructure

Abstract (click to expand): Utilities expanding their networks to connect new users typically charge them either a flat fee or a distance-based connection charge. Under the latter, the first user to connect in a neighborhood funds a network extension that lowers their neighbors' connection charges. This externality creates a dynamic private provision game in which neighbors have strategic incentives both to coordinate and share infrastructure costs, and to delay adoption to free-ride on a neighbor's anticipated extension. I reconstruct the expansion of 177 electricity distribution networks in rural Rwanda. Using their evolving geography, I measure and instrument anticipated reductions in distance to grid to estimate how strategic incentives affect adoption and cost incidence. Anticipating a 10% reduction in distance to the grid over the next eight weeks lowers the weekly probability of connecting by 0.91 percentage points, providing evidence of strategic delay. Among neighbors who connect within eight weeks of each other, the share connecting jointly rises from 32% to as much as 81% as they share more infrastructure. Customers with higher willingness to pay choose to connect earlier and pay higher charges, generating an elasticity of realized connection charges to willingness to pay of up to 0.24. Distance-based connection charges therefore create competing incentives for strategic delay and cooperation, while inducing endogenous price discrimination through the order in which customers choose to connect.

Teaching

As Acting Instructor, Columbia SIPA
Economics of Energy (Extraordinary Teaching Award)

As Teaching Assistant, Columbia SIPA
Climate Change Policy and Diplomacy (3x)
Advanced Economic Development
Earth Systems and Environmental Politics
Intermediate Microeconomics
Empirical Analysis of Energy Markets

As Teaching Fellow, Yale University
Ordinary and Partial Differential Equations (2x)

As Teaching Assistant, Colorado College
Air: Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics
Energy: Energetics and Thermodynamics

Miscellaneous

Here is a picture of the best girl ever.

This website design is based on Gautam Rao’s, diffused via Anna Papp and Marguerite Obolensky.