Canadian Studies Announcements

In This Issue:

Program News

• US Supreme Court cites program director Hidetaka Hirota in landmark citizenship decision

• Grad student Thor Larson presents at Toronto Meeting on the Economics of Climate Change

US Supreme Court Cites Program Director Hidetaka Hirota in Landmark Citizenship Decision

When the US Supreme Court released its much-anticipated decision upholding birthright citizenship last week, it referenced research by Canadian Studies Program Director Hidetaka Hirota to show the concept’s deep roots in US history.

As reported by the College of Letters & Science, the opinion of the court cited Professor Hirota’s 2017 book, Expelling the Poor: Atlantic Seaboard States and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of American Immigration Policy. The book traces the origins of US federal immigration policy to the mid-19th century influx of impoverished Irish immigrants.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts quoted Hirota as “describing outcry in 1855 when Massachusetts deported a pauper Irish mother with her American-born infant, who was acknowledged to be a ‘native-born citizen'”. As the court noted, the case demonstrates that even before the passing of the 14th Amendment, and in a time of heightened anti-immigrant sentiment, children of immigrants born on US soil were considered native-born citizens.

“It’s an honor to be cited in the US Supreme Court ruling on an issue of critical importance for our society,” Hirota told L&S News. “The decision demonstrates how historians’ work continues to matter in our society today… The case reminds us that birthright citizenship is something that must be actively protected rather than something that can be taken for granted.”

Grad Student Thor Larson Presents at Toronto Meeting on the Economics of Climate Change

The Canadian Studies Program was pleased to sponsor economics PhD candidate Thor Larson to present at the Toronto Meeting on the Economics of Climate Change (TMEC), which took place from June 24-26. Hosted by the University of Toronto, the workshop provides a forum for leading researchers in the field to discuss their work.

Thor is an applied microeconomist with a background in energy and environmental economics and industrial organization. His research focuses on the design of energy markets with a special emphasis on innovation and the clean energy transition.

Thor presented his dissertation research on the California-Quebec cap-and-trade program. California and Quebec linked their cap-and-trade programs in 2015, in a major example of environmental policy coordination across international borders. Thor’s research examines where this program has succeeded and where it can still be improved. While the coordinated environmental policy has produced many benefits, the way California and Quebec implemented the agreement inadvertently increased greenhouse gas emissions. His work shows that better coordination could have avoided this emissions increase, preserved the many gains from international collaboration, and increased global welfare by over $330 million annually.

Thor is an affiliate of Berkeley’s Energy Institute and the first economist at Berkeley to earn a Designated Emphasis in Energy Science and Technology alongside his PhD. He graduated magna cum laude from Harvard College with a BA in Applied Mathematics and Chemistry in 2021.

Thor was not the only representative from Berkeley to present at TMEC. Both of the conference’s keynote speeches were given by UC Berkeley affiliates: one by agricultural economist and Chancellor’s Associate Professor Joseph S. Shapiro, and the other by Solomon Hsiang, a former Berkeley faculty member who now teaches at Stanford.

Canadian Studies Program

213 Philosophy Hall #2308

Website | LinkedIn | Email | Donate