Sertan Ozsoy

Hello! I am a PhD candidate in Economics at Arizona State University, and I am on the 2026–2027 academic job market.

In my job-market paper, When Does Credit Matter?, I show that entrepreneurs' access to credit and their ability to share risk complement each other in driving economic development. This complementarity is economically significant, and ignoring risk sharing would understate the gains from better credit access.

My research fields are:

Primary: Macroeconomics, Financial Economics
Secondary: Family Economics, Development Economics

You can find my CV here.

Contact: sozsoy@asu.edu

Research

When Does Credit Matter? Uncertainty, Credit Limits, and Firm Leverage (2026) - Job Market Paper

Abstract: Countries differ in their level of financial development, which affects the ability of entrepreneurs to both access credit and share risk. These two margins can play different and complementary roles. When risk-averse entrepreneurs can share more of their risk, they invest and borrow more, which raises the value of better credit access. In this paper, I demonstrate the importance of this complementarity in two ways, first analytically in a simple model of entrepreneurs facing a borrowing limit and risk-sharing opportunities, and then quantitatively for 14 countries in a dynamic heterogeneous-agent version of the model. In the simple model, I show that this complementarity is present and I prove that failing to take differences in risk sharing into account understates the gains from credit access. Firm-level data from 35 countries support the model's prediction that leverage falls with risk only where credit is easy to obtain. My quantitative results show that moving every country to the frontier in both credit access and risk sharing raises output by 13% on average, of which a quarter comes from the complementarity. Quantitatively, a model without risk sharing understates the output gain from improving credit access, and more so where risk sharing is higher (e.g., 40% in Korea and 100% in Norway).

The Welfare Impact of Motherhood (2026)- with Paula Calvo, Ilse Lindenlaub and Yoko Okuyama

Abstract: Motherhood profoundly reshapes women’s employment and earnings, but how does it impact mothers’ welfare? We examine this by combining longitudinal Japanese household panel data with a dynamic equilibrium model of marriage, fertility, divorce, and intrahousehold bargaining. Event studies around the birth of the first child show large, persistent declines not only in mothers’ employment and earnings, but also in several welfare-relevant dimensions: mothers’ private consumption and leisure fall while child-related spending and home production rise. Our core contribution is to identify the mechanisms behind these patterns. The same employment penalty has sharply different welfare and policy implications depending on whether it reflects efficient specialization or preferences for child-related public goods, versus childcare scarcity, gender norms, or mistaken beliefs about invisible parenting costs. We show that all these channels are empirically relevant. Using our equilibrium model, we aim to quantify how these mechanisms impact mothers' welfare. To do so, we compute decision and experienced utility from having a child. Using these measures, we aim to evaluate policies by whether they raise welfare and fertility—not only by whether they reduce labor market motherhood penalties.

Optimal Subsidies When Business Ideas Are Uncertain (2025)

Abstract: Large, productive firms start as small, risky startups. Using panel data on French firms for the period 2000–2010, I show that young firms grow faster, are more volatile, and have less persistent productivity than older firms. At the same time, the average product of capital increases in the early years of a firm’s life and declines only gradually, a pattern inconsistent with models that feature only collateral constraints. I develop a quantitative entrepreneurial choice model with risk-averse agents, collateral constraints, and age-dependent risk in productivity. Early-stage uncertainty interacts with financial frictions to slow self-financing, reduce entry by poorer entrepreneurs, and prolong misallocation. In a calibrated small open economy, collateral tightening generates sizable output and welfare losses, which are substantially understated in models without age-dependent risk. Finally, I show that age-targeted subsidies for young firms can stimulate experimentation and yield large welfare gains.

Teaching

Instructor:

Intermediate Macroeconomics (Spring 2026, Summer 2025)
Microeconomic Principles (Fall 2025)

Teaching Assistant:

Financial Economics (PhD)
Financial Economics
Intermediate Macroeconomics
International Trade Theory
Macroeconomic Principles

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