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Discussion Paper
Global trade patterns in the wake of the 2018-2019 U.S.-China tariff hikes
In 2018, the U.S. government announced bilateral tariff increases on a number of Chinese goods. Thus began a tit-for-tat exchange of increasing bilateral tariffs between the U.S. and China until, by the end of 2019, most of the goods traded between the U.S. and China were subject to additional tariffs. In this note, we use Census and UN Comtrade data to study the effects of the 2018-19 U.S.-China tariff hikes on global trade patterns.
Working Paper
The Dynamics of Global Sourcing
This paper studies an import model that incorporates both static crosscountry interdependence and dynamic dependence in firm-level decisions. I find that the benefit of sourcing from one country increases as a firm imports from more countries. Furthermore, using a partial identification approach under the revealed preferences assumption, I provide evidence for the sunk costs of importing, which make establishing relationships with new sellers costlier than maintaining existing ones. The coexistence of cross-country interdependence and sunk costs implies that temporary trade policy changes can ...
Discussion Paper
As the U.S. is Derisking from China, Other Foreign U.S. Suppliers Are Relying More on Chinese Imports
China's share of U.S. goods imports has fallen significantly since 2017 following the U.S.-China tariff hikes and other geopolitical tensions. Even though the U.S. has reduced its direct sourcing from China, other foreign suppliers of U.S. imported goods have increased their reliance on imports from China.
Working Paper
The Effect of Export Market Access on Labor Market Power: Firm-level Evidence from Vietnam
We examine the impact of an export market expansion created by the US-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) on labor market competition among Vietnamese manufacturing firms. We measure distortionary wedges between equilibrium marginal revenue products of labor (MRPL) and wages nonparametrically and find that the median firm pays workers 59% of their MRPL. The BTA permanently decreases labor market distortion in manufacturing by 3.4%, mainly for domestic private firms. The median distortion is 26% higher for women than men, and the decline in distortion for women drives the overall ...