About

Steven Davis is a highly-cited researcher and expert in earth system science, emissions and energy scenarios, climate impacts and solutions, and corporate climate strategy. He is a Professor of Earth System Science in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability and leads the Sustainable Solutions Lab, a research group dedicated to quantifying how different human activities are affecting climate and air quality, how those environmental changes in turn jeopardize human wellbeing, and the relative priority of solutions. Steve has contributed as a Contributing Author of two Working Group III chapters in the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), serves on the Scientific Steering Committee of the Global Carbon Project, was the Lead Author of the Mitigation chapter in the U.S. Fifth National Climate Assessment, and is a member of the Technical Council of the Science Based Targets Initiative. Prior to his science career, he worked as a lawyer to venture-backed companies in Silicon Valley. He holds degrees from Stanford University, the University of Virginia School of Law, and the University of Florida, where he double-majored in Political Science and Philosophy.

Research topics

• Geography
• Medicine
• Economics
• Financial economics
• Virology
• Business
• Monetary economics
• Finance

Selected publications

• Demand-Driven Technical Change: Evidence from WFH Technologies

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Remote Work, Employee Mix, and Performance

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Macro Shocks and Firm-Level Response Heterogeneity

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-06-01 · 2 citations

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Macro shocks produce high dispersion in firm-level equity returns, sales growth, and other outcomes.We show that this dispersion reflects observable differences in business characteristics.To do so, we combine firm-level returns on stock market ``jump" days with text about business risks in prior 10-K filings to construct firm-specific shock exposures.Our exposure measures explain firm-level abnormal returns through interpretable variation in language.They also explain most of the increased dispersion in firm-level revenue growth after major shocks and much of the dispersion in employment growth, investment rates, and earnings surprises.Our evidence yields a novel interpretation for countercyclical dispersion, highlighting the key role of heterogeneous business characteristics in macro shock transmission.

  PublisherDOI

• Sticky Wages on the Layoff Margin

  American Economic Review · 2025-01-30 · 7 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  We design and field an innovative survey of unemployment insurance (UI) recipients that yields new insights about wage stickiness on the layoff margin. A majority of UI recipients would accept pay cuts of 5–10 percent to save their jobs, and one-third would accept a 25 percent cut. Yet worker-employer discussions about cuts in pay, benefits, or hours in lieu of layoffs are exceedingly rare. Roughly one-quarter of the layoffs in our sample violate the theoretical condition for bilaterally efficient separations. We draw on our findings and other evidence to assess theories of wage stickiness and its role in layoffs. (JEL C83, E24, J31, J63, J65)

  PublisherDOI

• The global persistence of work from home

  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2025-07-03 · 12 citations

  articleOpen access

  Work from home (WFH) surged worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, then partially receded as the pandemic subsided. Using our Global Survey of Working Arrangements covering dozens of countries, we find that average WFH rates among college-educated employees stabilized after 2022. The average number of WFH days per week is steady at roughly 1 d per week globally from 2023 through early 2025. Cross-country variation persists: WFH is about twice as common in advanced English-speaking economies as in much of Asia. These results show how the pandemic-driven shift to remote work has persisted and reached a new equilibrium with implications for urban economies, workforce flexibility, and future research on labor markets.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Policy Interventions and China's Stock Market in the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Defining ‘abated’ fossil fuel and industrial process emissions

  Energy and Climate Change · 2025-06-23 · 4 citations

  articleOpen access

  • The scientific literature is clear that net-zero and then net-negative CO 2 and eventually all greenhouse gases is necessary to stop global temperatures from increasing, but also that fossil fuels will be required during the transition. To be compliant with the Paris Agreement climate goals, this requires abatement of fossil fuel and industrial process CO 2 emissions, for which the definition is currently unclear. • Starting with the incomplete footnote 54 of IPCC WGIII AR6 Summary for Policymakers, this article sets out to establish usable Paris Agreement compliant benchmark criteria for abated fossil fuel use and industrial process CO 2 and related upstream CH 4 emissions. • Based on the necessity of 100% abatement of fossil fuel and industrial process GHG emissions for meeting the long-term Paris Agreement temperature goals within our current technical capacities, we establish the following criteria for abated fossil fuels. 1) CO 2 capture rates of more than or equal to 95% of CO 2 emitted; 2) permanent storage of captured emissions; 3) reducing upstream and end-use fugitive methane emissions to less than 0.5% and towards 0.2% of gas production, & an equivalent for coal; and 4) all remaining residual emissions are to be offset through permanent carbon dioxide removal (CDR). • In the course of establishing these criteria, a review of carbon capture and storage applications was conducted to ascertain what level of capture may be feasible under current technological conditions, and in what processes and sectors. Our review suggests a refocusing away from “hard to abate sectors” to targeting of specific currently greenhouse intense industrial processes, e.g., iron ore reduction and clinker making, and an intense, ideally cooperative effort to directly or indirectly electrify these processes or concentrate the CO 2 in their exhaust gases to make CCS easier and cheaper. There is scientific consensus that limiting warming in line with the Paris Agreement goals requires reaching net zero CO 2 emissions by mid-century and net negative emissions thereafter. Because of the entrenchment of current fossil fuel energy and feedstock demand estimated in almost all global modelled scenarios, ‘abated’ fossil fuel and industrial process and product use (IPPU) CO 2 emissions, using carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies to perform carbon management, are likely to be part of any transition. In addition to fossil fuel combustion, this will be primarily in cement & lime kilns, chemical production, and possibly waste incineration and iron and steel making, in processes producing maximally concentrated CO 2 waste streams. Abated fossil fuel and IPPU CO 2 emissions in the context of recent commitments, however, requires consideration of capture rates for fuel processing and end-use, permanence of storage, reduction of upstream production and end-use fugitive methane, and sufficient means to sequester residual emissions. Based on an assessment of evolving CCS technologies in existing sectors and jurisdictions, criteria are proposed for defining a benchmark for 'abated' fossil fuel and IPPU emissions as where near 100% GHG abatement is to be eventually achieved, with N 2 O and fluorinated gases considered separately. This can be accomplished through: 1) CO 2 capture rates of more than or equal to 95% of CO 2 emitted; 2) permanent storage of captured emissions; 3) reducing upstream and end-use fugitive methane emissions to less than 0.5% and towards 0.2% of gas production & an equivalent for coal; and 4) counterbalancing remaining emissions using permanent carbon dioxide removal. Application of these criteria to just steel and cement yields estimates of more than or equal to 1.37 Gt CO 2 per year reductions after all other reasonable and lower cost actions are taken. At the same time, we acknowledge the value of capture rates below 95%, so as long they are designed to enable eventual full abatement through process learning. We also discuss commercialization and deployment policy for CCS, highlighting the need to integrate these criteria into international climate agreements.

  PublisherDOI

• Macro Shocks and Firm-Level Response Heterogeneity

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Policy Interventions and China’s Stock Market in the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2025-02-01

  reportOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  China's stock market greatly outperformed other national markets during the first several months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it did so even before it became evident that early containment efforts would flounder in the United States and many other countries.As to why, one view holds that aggressive monetary and credit easing propped up Chinese equity values.To assess this view, we consider several interventions that eased monetary and credit conditions in the first six months of 2020.Our analysis finds clear evidence that these interventions raised implied stock market volatility but little evidence that they influenced stock price levels.We also consider policy actions that restricted short selling, limited stock sales, and boosted stock purchases.These efforts to raise net equity demand were small in scale and highly time-limited, as we discuss, suggesting that any direct effects on stock prices were also modest.Neither our study nor other work known to us provides a ready explanation for the extraordinary performance of China's stock market in the first half of 2020.This performance is even more striking in hindsight, given later developments in China's economy and stock market.

  PublisherDOI

• The New Geography of Labor Markets

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2025-01-01

  preprintOpen access
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Nicholas Bloom

  Stanford University

  501 shared

• John Haltiwanger

  410 shared

• Jose Maria Barrero

  223 shared

• David Altig

  University of Chicago

  121 shared

• Scott Baker

  117 shared

• Javier Miranda

  91 shared

• R. Jason Faberman

  Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

  87 shared

• Cevat Giray Aksoy

  University College London

  84 shared

Labs

• Vice Provost for Student AffairsPI