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Essays in Applied Microeconomics
No full textThis thesis aims to answer several economic policy questions with macroeconomic implications using micro-level data. The first chapter is on the geographic distribution of manufacturing firms' productivity and production, using a ``market access'' approach. The second chapter is on the liabilities and risk taking of U.S. defined-benefit pension funds. The third chapter is a policy review paper on urban productivity in the developing world.Economic
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Essays on Globalization
No full textInternational trade has vastly changed over the last couple of decades with production processes becoming increasingly fragmented across country borders and production stages. This thesis studies the supply chain networks underlying global trade, or global value chains (GVCs), and aims to answer why they matter, how to better measure them, and what forces shape them. Chapter 1 discusses why understanding GVCs matters and does so through the quintessential question of international trade: quantifying the gains from trade. Chapter 2 shows how to better measure supply chain networks by developing tools for building more realistic networks using input-output datasets than those built with input-output analysis while complementing the measurement with additional sources of information. Chapter 3 then studies the underlying forces driving the fragmentation patterns observed in modern manufacturing.EconomicsInternational Trade; Global Value Chains; Input-Output Data; Input-Output Analysis; Fragmentation of Production; Supply Chains; Network
Rethinking exchange rate regimes
No full textThis paper employs an updated algorithm and database for classifying exchange rate and anchor currency choice, to explore the evolution of the global exchange rate system, including parallel rates, capital controls and reserves. In line with a large recent literature, we find that the US dollar has become ever-more central as the de facto anchor or reference currency for much of the world. The discussion encompasses the history of anchor currency choice, methods for classifying exchange rate regimes, a detailed discussion of the evolution of regimes, the growing substitution of reserves for capital controls as a tool for exchange rate stabilization, the modern Triffin dilemma, and the surprising recent trend decline in volatility of exchange rates at the core of the system. It concludes with issues surrounding the rise of China
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Essays in International Trade and Economic Geography
No full textThis dissertation consists of three essays in the field of international trade and economic geography. The first essay develops a “market access” approach in an inter-regional trade framework to study the distribution of firm productivity and production in a network of geographic locations. We distinguish between two competing effects of trade cost changes, namely import competition and export access, and derive consumer market access (CMA) and firm market access (FMA) measures respectively to capture each effect. This approach allows us to investigate the effect of trade cost changes in general equilibrium, taking into account inter-location spillovers. Motivated by the prominence of intermediated trade and its welfare and policy implications, essays 2 and 3 both examine the role of intermediaries in facilitating international trade. The second essay extends the Melitz (2003) framework to include an intermediated trade technology and foreign demand uncertainty. In this framework, new exporters face idiosyncratic demand uncertainty and intermediated trade serves as a low cost method of testing foreign demand. The third essays studies the relation between exporters' financial health and their mode of exporting. This essay posits that intermediated trade reduces the financing requirement for exporting by lowering the up-front fixed costs and allowing the producers to get paid sooner. Using firm-level data from China, I document that exporters with poor financial health rely disproportionally on trade intermediaries to access foreign markets.EconomicsInternational Trade; Trade Intermediation; Uncertainty; Financial Constraints; Economic Geography; Infrastructur
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