Results

Journal article

Review of Economics and Statistics: Forthcoming

Trade, Gravity and Aggregation.

Gravity equations are an important tool in empirical international trade research. We study to what extent sector-level parameters can be recovered from aggregate gravity equations estimated via Poisson pseudo maximum li...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Political Economy:

The Origins of Firm Heterogeneity: A Production Network Approach

We explore firm size heterogeneity in production networks. In comprehensive data for Belgium, firms with more customers have higher total sales but lower sales and lower market shares per customer. Downstream factors, es...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of the European Economic Association:

The Twin Peaks of the Export Intensity Distribution

Received wisdom suggests that most exporters sell most of their output domestically. We show, however, that the distribution of export intensity varies substantially across countries and is often bimodal, displaying “twi...Read more...

Journal article

International Economic Review:

Estimating border effects: the impact of spatial aggregation

Trade data are typically aggregated across space. In this article, we investigate the sensitivity of gravity estimation to spatial aggregation. We build a model in which micro regions are aggregated into macro regions. W...Read more...

Journal article

German Economic Review:

Trade and the size distribution of firms: Evidence from the German Empire

What effect did trade have on the size distribution of firms during the first wave of globalization? Three historical datasets from the German Empire between 1875 and 1907 were collected and harmonized to answer this que...Read more...

Journal article

The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization:

In-house and arms length: productivity heterogeneity and variation in organizational form

This paper analyzes firm boundaries in the US hotel industry. Hotel properties of a given brand are often managed either by a chain employee or by a franchisee. We document that brand properties with the lowest and the h...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Growing like China: firm performance and global production line position

Global value chains have fundamentally transformed international trade and development in recent decades. We use matched firm-level customs and manufacturing survey data, together with Input-Output tables for China, to e...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Geography:

Tales of the city: what do agglomeration cases tell us about agglomeration in general?

This article considers the heterogeneous microfoundations of agglomeration economies. It studies the co-location of industries to look for evidence of labour pooling, input sharing and knowledge spillovers. The novel con...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Trade liberalization, input intermediaries and firm productivity: Evidence from China

We investigate theoretically and empirically the role of wholesalers in mediating the productivity effects of trade liberalization. Intermediaries provide indirect access to foreign produced inputs. The productivity effe...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Automation, globalization and vanishing jobs: a labor market sorting view

We show, theoretically and empirically, that the effects of technological change associated with automation and offshoring on the labor market can substantially deviate from standard neoclassical conclusions when search ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade liberalization, input intermediaries and firm productivity: evidence from China

We investigate theoretically and empirically the role of wholesalers in mediating the productivity effects of trade liberalization. Intermediaries provide indirect access to foreign produced inputs. The productivity effe...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Geography, competition, and optimal multilateral trade policy

How should multilateral trade policy be designed in a world in which countries differ in terms of market access and technology, and firms with market power differ in terms of productivity? We answer this question in a mo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Tales of the city: what do agglomeration cases tell us about agglomeration in general?

This paper considers the heterogeneous microfoundations of agglomeration economies. It studies the co-location of industries to look for evidence of labor pooling, input sharing, and knowledge spillovers. The novel contr...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Geography, competition and optimal multilateral trade policy

How should multilateral trade policy be designed in a world in which countries differ in terms of market access and technology, and firms with market power differ in terms of productivity? We answer this question in a mo...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Political Economy:

Monopolistic competition and optimum product diversity under firm heterogeneity

Empirical work has drawn attention to the high degree of productivity differences within industries and their role in resource allocation. This paper examines the allocational efficiency of such markets. Productivity dif...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The origins of firm heterogeneity: a production network approach

This paper quantifies the origins of firm size heterogeneity when firms are interconnected in a production network. Using the universe of buyer-supplier relationships in Belgium, the paper develops a set of stylized fact...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

In-house and arms length: productivity heterogeneity and variation in organizational form

This paper analyzes how firms are organized in the U.S. hotel management industry. For most hotel brands, properties with intermediate room occupancy rates are relatively more likely to be managed by company employees ra...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Currency unions, trade and heterogeneity

How do trade costs affect international trade? This paper offers a new approach. We rely on a flexible gravity equation that predicts variable trade cost elasticities, both across and within country pairs. We apply this ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

The buyer margins of firms’ exports

We use detailed data on exporters from Costa Rica, Ecuador and Uruguay as well as on their buyers to show that: aggregate exports are disproportionally driven by few multi-buyers exporters; and each multi-buyer exporter'...Read more...

Journal article

Research in Economics:

Monopolistic competition and optimum product selection: Why and how heterogeneity matters

After some decades of relative oblivion, the interest in the optimality properties of monopolistic competition has recently re-emerged due to the availability of an appropriate and parsimonious framework to deal with fir...Read more...

Journal article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics:

Reference-dependent job search: Evidence from Hungary

We propose a model of job search with reference-dependent preferences, with loss aversion relative to recent income (the reference point). In this model, newly unemployed individuals search hard since consumption is belo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Twin peaks

Received wisdom suggests that most exporters sell the majority of their output domestically. In this paper, however, we show that the distribution of export intensity not only varies substantially across countries, but i...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade and the size distribution of firms: evidence from the German Empire

What is the effect of trade on the size distribution of firms? We collect historical data between 1882 and 1907 from the German Empire to address this question. Our data allow us to match three data sets according to the...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Estimating border effects: the impact of spatial aggregation

Trade data are typically reported at the level of regions or countries and are therefore aggregates across space. In this paper, we investigate the sensitivity of standard gravity estimation to spatial aggregation. We bu...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Global firms

Research in international trade has changed dramatically over the last twenty years, as attention has shifted from countries and industries towards the firms actually engaged in international trade. The now-standard hete...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

What is 'Firm Heterogeneity' in Trade Models? The Role of Quality, Scope, Markups and Cost

We estimate a structural model of heterogeneous multiproduct firms to examine the sources of firm heterogeneity emphasized in the recent trade and macro literatures. Using Nielsen barcode data on prices and sales, we est...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Dynamic Selection: An Idea Flows Theory of Entry, Trade and Growth

This paper develops an idea flows theory of trade and growth with heterogeneous firms. New firms learn from incumbent firms, but the diffusion technology ensures entrants learn not only from frontier technologies, but fr...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Heterogeneous Agglomeration

Many prior treatments of agglomeration either explicitly or implicitly suppose that all industries agglomerate for the same reasons, with traditional Marshallian (1890) factors affecting all industries similarly. An impo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Buyer Margins of Firms' Exports

We use detailed data on exporters from Costa Rica, Ecuador and Uruguay as well as on their buyers to show that aggregate exports are disproportionally driven by few multi-buyers exporters whose foreign sales of any produ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Monopolistic Competition and Optimum Product Selection: Why and How Heterogeneity Matters

After some decades of relative oblivion, the interest in the optimality properties of monopolistic competition has recently re-emerged due to the availability of an appropriate and parsimonious framework to deal with fir...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Firm Heterogeneity and Aggregate Welfare

We examine how firm heterogeneity influences aggregate welfare through endogenous firm selection. We consider a homogeneous firm model that is a special case of a heterogeneous firm model with a degenerate productivity d...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Heterogeneous Firms and Trade

This paper reviews the new approach to international trade based on firm heterogeneity in differentiated product markets. This approach explains a variety of features exhibited in disaggregated trade data, including the ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Exporters, Importers and Credit Constraints

This paper analyses the interaction between credit constraints and trading behaviour. I construct a unique dataset containing firm-level trade transactions data, balance sheets and credit scores from an independent credi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Heterogeneity, Demand for Insurance and Adverse Selection

Recent empirical work finds that surprisingly little variation in the demand for insurance is explained by heterogeneity in risks. I distinguish between heterogeneity in risk preferences and risk perceptions underlying t...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Agglomeration, Trade and Selection

This paper studies how firm heterogeneity in terms of productivity affects the balance between agglomeration and dispersion forces in the presence of pecuniary externalities through a selection model of monopolistic comp...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Determinants of Intrafirm Trade: Evidence from French Firms

How well does the theory of the firm explain the choice between intrafirm and arms' length trade? This paper uses firm-level import data from France to look into this question. We find support for three key predictions o...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Trade, Wages and Productivity

We develop a new general equilibrium model of monopolistic competition with heterogeneous firms, variable demand elasticity and multiple asymmetric regions, in which trade integration induces wage and productivity change...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade, Wages and Productivity

We develop a new general equilibrium model of monopolistic competition with heterogeneous firms, variable demand elasticity and multiple asymmetric regions, in which trade integration induces wage and productivity change...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Macroeconomic Role of Unemployment Compensation

The standard motivation for unemployment compensation is consumption smoothing and most papers in the literature have analyzed trade-offs involving consumption smoothing and moral hazard. This paper shows how such policy...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade, Technology Adoption and Wage Inequalities: Theory and Evidence

This paper develops a model of trade that features heterogeneous firms, technology choice and different types of skilled labor in a general equilibrium framework. Its main contribution is to explain the impact of trade i...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Survival of the Fittest in Cities: Agglomeration, Selection and Polarisation

Empirical studies consistently report that labour productivity and TFP rise with city size. The reason is that cities attract the most productive agents, select the best of them, and make the selected ones even more prod...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Why Capital does not Migrate to the South: A New Economic Geography Perspective

This paper explains why capital does not flow from the North to the South - the Lucas Paradox - with a New Economic Geography model that incorporates mobile capital, immobile labour, and productively heterogeneous firms....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Survival of the Fittest in Cities: Agglomeration, Selection, and Polarisation

Empirical studies consistently report that labour productivity and TFP rise with city size. The reason is that cities attract the most productive agents, select the best of them, and make the selected ones even more prod...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Impact of Trade on Aggregate Productivity and Welfare with Heterogeneous Firms and Business Cycle Uncertainty

This paper presents a model with monopolistic competition, productively heterogeneous firms, and business cycle aggregate shocks. With firm-specific productive heterogeneity, weaker firms quit when faced with a negative ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Inflation Persistence When Price Stickiness Differs Between Industries

There is much evidence that price-adjustment frequencies vary widely across industries. This paper shows that inflation persistence is lower with heterogeneity in price stickiness than without it, taking as given the deg...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Technology, Information and the Decentralization of the Firm

This paper develops a framework to analyze the relationship between the diffusion of new technologies and the decentralization decisions of firms. Centralized control relies on the information of the principal, which we ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Gender, Motivation, Experience and Wages

Using data from the British Household Panel Survey, 1991-97 this paper investigates the structure of the female wage equation and the gender wage differential. The discriminatory portion of the gender wage differential i...Read more...