Search Results
Working Paper
The Allocation of Immigrant Talent: Macroeconomic Implications for the U.S. and Across Countries
We quantify the labor market barriers that immigrants face, using an occupational choice model with native-born individuals and immigrants of multiple types subject to wedges that distort their allocations. We find sizable output gains from removing immigrant wedges in the U.S., representing 25% of immigrants' overall economic contribution, and that these wedges alter the impact of alternative immigration policies. We harmonize microdata across 19 economies and exploit cross-country variation in immigrant outcomes and estimated wedges to examine the drivers of differences in wedges and gains ...
Critical Goods and International Trade Dependence in the U.S.
Communications and IT are two critical sectors of the U.S. economy that are most reliant on international trade.
Protectionism and Dependence on Imports of Essential Medical Equipment
The COVID-19 global pandemic has led to a surge in protectionism, which poses challenges to countries dependent on imports of essential medical equipment.
Working Paper
The Impact of Health and Economic Policies on the Spread of COVID-19 and Economic Activity
This paper empirically investigates the causal linkages between COVID-19 spread, government health containment and economic support policies, and economic activity in the U.S. up to the introduction of vaccines in early 2021. We model their joint dynamics as generated by a structural vector autoregression and estimate it using U.S. state-level data. We identify structural shocks to the variables by making assumptions on their short-run relation consistent with salient epidemiological and economic features of COVID-19. We isolate the direct impact of COVID-19 spread and policy responses on ...
Working Paper
Financial Development and Trade Liberalization
We study the role of financial development on the aggregate and welfare implications of reducing international trade barriers on imports of physical capital and intermediate inputs. We document that financially underdeveloped economies feature a slower response of real GDP, consumption, and investment following trade liberalization episodes that improve access to imported production inputs. To quantify the role of financial development, we set up a quantitative general equilibrium model with heterogeneous firms subject to financial constraints and estimate it to match salient features from ...
Working Paper
International Trade of Essential Goods During a Pandemic
This paper studies the role of international trade of essential goods during a pandemic. We consider a multi-country, multi-sector model with essential and non-essential goods. Essential goods provide utility relative to a reference consumption level, and a pandemic consists of an increase in this reference level. Each country produces domestic varieties of both types of goods using capital and labor subject to sectoral adjustment costs, and all varieties are traded internationally subject to trade barriers. We study the role of international trade of essential goods in mitigating or ...
Working Paper
Navigating the Waves of Global Shipping: Drivers and Aggregate Implications
This paper studies the drivers of global shipping dynamics and their aggregate implications. We document novel evidence on the dynamics of global shipping supply, demand, and costs. Motivated by this evidence, we set up a dynamic model of international trade with a global shipping market where shipping firms and importers endogenously determine shipping supply and costs. We find the model successfully accounts for the dynamics of global shipping observed in the aftermath of COVID-19 as well as at business cycle frequencies. We find that accounting for global shipping is critical for the ...
Journal Article
Decoupling Where it Matters? US Imports from China in Critical Sectors
The US has decreased its dependence on imports from China, dropping 7.7 percentage points in the share of total imports since 2017. Critical goods in communications and information technology have been most affected.
The Dynamics of International Shipping Costs
Is the recent rise in international shipping costs due to higher demand for goods during COVID-19, or are other disruptions also at play?
Working Paper
International Trade of Essential Goods During a Pandemic
This paper studies the role of international trade of essential goods during a pandemic. We consider a multi-country multi-sector model with essential and non-essential goods. Essential goods provide utility relative to a reference consumption level, and a pandemic consists of an increase in this reference level. Each country produces domestic varieties of both types of goods using capital and labor subject to sectoral adjustment costs, and all varieties are traded internationally subject to trade barriers. We study the role of international trade of essential goods in mitigating or ...