Before joining Stern at NYUAD, he was a research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, where he studied profit rates and the diverging roles of public and private firms in the US economy.
Traina earned his PhD in Financial Economics from the University of Chicago in 2022, where he focused on labor market power and technological change in US manufacturing. Along the way, he developed methods for estimating price markups and wage markdowns, contributing to a better understanding of firm behavior in imperfectly competitive markets. He has shared his findings on platforms such as ProMarket, presented at major conferences like the “NBER Summer Institute”, and received recognition for his work, including the Stigler Center PhD Dissertation Award.
At Stern at NYU Abu Dhabi, Traina concentrates on research and teaching related to how competition and technology are changing markets in contemporary economies. As an educator, he dedicates his time to mentoring students and promoting collaboration across fields. He aims to deepen both academic and practical knowledge of financial and economic behavior, particularly in response to emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence.
