Results

Blog

VoxTalks:

Tariff Confusion (podcast)

If you run a business that exports to the United States, how big is the tariff you have to pay? In 2025 that question was hard to answer. Between February and December, 53 separate announcements introduced, delayed, rein...Read more...

Blog

LSE Management:

How America out-deindustrialised Europe

Despite the prevailing narrative of Western deindustrialisation as one of a rigid Europe and a dynamic America, Richard Baldwin, Saul Estrin, and Bob Hancke argue that the comparison of the EU with the US turns this narr...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

How to grow an invoicing currency: micro evidence from Argentina

We study the internationalization of the Chinese renminbi (RMB) leveraging a unique policy experiment. In 2023, amid a dollar shortage, Argentina expanded a currency swap line with China. The share of imports from China ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Counting the costs: a quantitative assessment of Brexit?s effect on UK regional economies

This paper examines the implications of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) using a dynamic spatial general equilibrium model. Unlike previous studies that primarily projected potential impacts of Brexit base...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The civil war reduced slave owners' economic power but increased their political influence

Did Southern elites? economic losses from abolition translate into diminished political influence? Using novel census-linked data on state lawmakers across four slave owning and two Northern states (1850?1880), we docume...Read more...

CentrePiece article

How the US-China trade conflict boosted exports and employment in Mexico

Lower-paid workers in Mexican firms gained as exports shifted....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Segregation, spillovers and the locus of racial change

We use a discrete choice framework to provide the first nesting of Thomas C. Schelling's canonical models of racial segregation amenable to empirical examination. Using U.S. Census data from 1970-2000, we demonstrate a c...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

How to grow an invoicing currency: micro evidence from Argentina

How can a currency achieve more widespread international use? We study the internationalization of the Chinese renminbi (RMB) through the lens of a unique policy experiment in Argentina. In 2023, amid a severe dollar sho...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Deglobalisation in disguise? Brexit barriers and trade in services

Deglobalisation policies promote the vision that pulling back from economic integration can help correct international imbalances and reposition national economies for renewed prosperity. A core vision of Brexit was to t...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

How the 2018/19 US tariffs against China boosted exports and employment in Mexico

In 2018 and 2019, the US administration hiked tariffs on imports from China. This column shows that imports from Mexico partly filled the gap, leading to an export and employment surge in Mexico. Using highly disaggregat...Read more...

Blog

LSE Politics and Policy:

The UK deals with India, USA and the EU are symbolic

The Labour Government is on a trade deal spree. After signing a free trade agreement with India, the UK made a pact with the US to remove some of the tariffs on UK car and aerospace exports, and finally a new agreement w...Read more...

Blog

Financial Times:

How should central banks respond to US tariffs? (Podcast)

US tariffs have sent financial markets into a frenzy in recent weeks, but how much should central bankers be taking trade into account when setting monetary policy? To find out, Soumaya Keynes sits down with Bank of Engl...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The 2025 trade war: dynamic impacts across US States and the global economy

We use a dynamic trade and reallocation model with downward nominal wage rigidities to quantitatively assess the economic consequences of the recent increase in the U.S. tariffs on imports from Mexico, Canada, and China,...Read more...

Journal article

The Quarterly Journal of Economics:

Putting quantitative models to the test: an application to the US-China trade war

The primary motivation behind quantitative work in international trade and many other fields is to shed light on the economic consequences of policy changes and other shocks. To help assess and potentially strengthen the...Read more...

Blog

LSE Business Review:

US-China tensions could become the biggest trade war in history

The announced US tariffs and the retaliatory actions taken by China have intensified. If the threats are carried out, they will drive the average implied US tariff to exceed 20 per cent, a level not seen since the 1930s....Read more...

CentrePiece article

Property rights empower women inventors

Breakthrough innovations occurred when women obtained the right to reap economic rewards from their inventions. Ruveyda Nur Gozen shows how such inclusive policies are a critical driver of economic growth....Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

US electoral impact of remote work and inter-state migration

Remote work and geographic mobility have surged in the US since 2020. This column examines trends for both and discusses the potential electoral implications. The authors find that remote work opportunities are dispropor...Read more...

Blog

Bocconi:

The European consequences of the America first approach

Whether it is Democrat Kamala Harris or Republican Donald Trump who wins the upcoming US presidential election, the country's trade policies will be marked by strong continuity: with that of the Biden administration for ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

A political disconnect? Evidence from voting on EU trade agreements

We study votes of Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) on the approval of free trade agreements (FTAs). Against widespread Eurosceptic arguments, we find that MEPs are responsive to the interests of their electorate...Read more...

Blog

United States Politics and Policy:

Will the US remain the world's superpower? | LSE iQ and The Ballpark podcast

A shining city on a hill. America the beautiful. The United States has long been mythologised as the land of dreams and opportunity. And since the fall of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s it has been undisputedly the ...Read more...

Blog

LSE USAPP:

Corporate landlords are eroding the American dream of homeownership, especially in black neighborhoods

There has been a growing trend for institutional investors to purchase single-family homes and convert them to permanent rental properties. At the same time, homeownership rates for black households have declined on par ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization:

Is having an expert "friend" enough? An analysis of consumer switching behavior in mobile telephony

We present novel evidence from a large panel of UK consumers who receive personalized reminders from a specialist price-comparison website about the precise amount they could save by switching to their best-suited altern...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Is having an expert "friend" enough? An analysis of consumer switching behavior in mobile telephony

We present novel evidence from a large panel of UK consumers who receive personalized reminders from a specialist price-comparison website about the precise amount they could save by switching to their best-suited altern...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does Chinese research hinge on US co-authors? Evidence from the China initiative

Launched in November 2018 by the Trump administration, the China Initiative made administrative procedures more complicated and funding less accessible for collaborative projects between Chinese and US researchers. In th...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The shift to remote work lessens wage-growth pressure

The recent shift to remote work raised the amenity value of employment. As compensation adjusts to share the amenity-value gains with employers, wage-growth pressures moderate. We find empirical support for this mechanis...Read more...

Blog

LSE USAPP:

Citizen complaints can be a useful early warning system for governments to act on environmental violations.

Is enabling citizens to complain about public services an effective way of improving government services, or should we be more concerned about their accuracy and reliability? In new research, Jonathan Colmer, Mary Evans,...Read more...

Blog

LSE USA Politics and Policy:

Long Read: Economics experts agree that a US debt default would do substantial damage to financial markets

In January, the US federal government reached the debt ceiling previously set by Congress, and is now using extraordinary measures to meet its public spending obligations. The Initiative on Global Markets Forum at the Un...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists:

Climate-related natural disasters and voting behavior: evidence from environmental legislation in the US Senate

This study investigates whether US senators are more likely to vote in favor of environmentally friendly legislation following damages caused by climate-related natural disasters. We combine senatorial scores of roll cal...Read more...

Journal article

Economica:

The impact of non-tariff barriers on trade and welfare

Deep trade agreements (DTAs) are widespread and have taken the world beyond tariff liberalization in goods trade. As the importance of global supply chains and the services sector has increased across the world, shallow ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Non-tariff barriers and consumer prices: evidence from Brexit

Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) are the main policy impediment to international trade, yet little is known about their pass-through to prices. This paper exploits the Brexit trade policy shock to quantify how NTBs affect cons...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Intra-bloc tariffs and preferential margins in trade agreements

We study how countries choose intra-bloc tariffs and preferential margins in Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). Our model indicates that countries should set systematically lower preferential margins when the bloc tak...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Nonparametric measurement of long-run growth in consumer welfare

How should we measure long-run changes in consumer welfare? This paper proposes a nonparametric approach that is valid under arbitrary preferences that depend on observable consumer characteristics, e.g. when expenditure...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Import liberalisation as export destruction: evidence from the United States

Holger Breinlich, Elsa Leromain, Dennis Novy and Thomas Sampson look at US-China trade relations to examine how import liberalisation brings down import costs and increases competition, but can also lead to lower export ...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Inflation, market power, and price controls: views of leading economists

With sharply rising US inflation prompting debate about the potential role of powerful firms in driving up prices and whether antitrust interventions and/or price controls may be an effective policy response, the IGM For...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Covid-19 uncertainty: a tale of two tails

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a massive spike in uncertainty. This column uses data from panel surveys of US and UK business executives to document how uncertainty over own-firm sales growth rates over the...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The donut effect of Covid-19 on cities

Using data from the US Postal Service and Zillow, we quantify the effect of Covid-19 on migration patterns and real estate markets within and across US cities. We find two key results. First, within large US cities, hous...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Intra-bloc tariffs and preferential margins in trade agreements

We study, theoretically and empirically, how countries choose intra-bloc tariffs and preferential margins when they form Preferential Trade Agreements (PTAs). Our model indicates that countries should set systematically ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The impact of Covid-19 on US firms

We use survey data on an opt-in panel of around 2,500 US small businesses to assess the impact of Covid-19. We find a significant negative sales impact that peaked in Quarter 2 of 2020, with an average loss of 29% in sal...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... The long shadow of slavery

The politics and economy of the antebellum American South were dominated by those who practiced forced enslavement. Research by Luna Bellani, Anselm Hager and Stephan Maurer, which examines a database of Texas legislator...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The impact of non-tariff barriers on trade and welfare

Deep trade agreements are widespread and have taken the world beyond tariff liberalization in goods trade. As the importance of global supply chains and the services sector increased across the world, shallow tariff redu...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The long shadow of slavery: the persistence of slave owners in Southern law-making

This paper documents the persistence of the Southern slave owning elite in political power after the end of the American Civil War. We draw on a database of Texan state legislators between 1860 and 1900 and link them to ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Brands in motion: how frictions shape multinational production

Following the 2016 Leave vote in the referendum on UK membership in the EU and the election of Donald Trump, trade agreements have entered a period of great instability. To predict the impact of possible disruptions to e...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Beyond tariff reductions: what extra boost from trade agreement provisions?

There is a growing recognition that for developed economies, like the UK, tariff-free market access is just one of a number of measures that ease cross-border trade flows. Modern trade agreements go beyond tariff reducti...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Surprise! Out-of-network billing for emergency care in the United States

Using insurance claims data capturing 8.9 million emergency episodes, we show that in 22% of cases, patients attended in-network hospitals, but were treated by out-of-network physicians. We find that out-of-network billi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Politics, hospital behaviour and health care spending

This paper examines the link between legislative politics, hospital behaviour, and health care spending. When trying to pass sweeping legislation, congressional leaders can attract votes by adding targeted provisions tha...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Tariffs, trade and productivity: a quantitative evaluation of heterogeneous firm models

We examine the quantitative predictions of heterogeneous firm in the context of the Canada?US Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) of 1989. We compute predicted increases in trade flows and measured productivity and compare the...Read more...

CentrePiece article

What makes consumers switch mobile phone tariffs?

The potential psychological pain of nasty surprises on mobile phone bills is a great motivator to switch tariffs, according to research by Christos Genakos and colleagues. Their study notes that navigating through thousa...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Loss aversion on the phone

We analyze consumer switching between mobile tariff plans using consumer-level panel data. Consumers receive reminders from a specialist price-comparison website about the precise amount they could save by switching to a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Home computers and married women's labor supply

I consider how the availability of a personal computer at home changed employment for married women. I develop a theoretical model that motivates the empirical specifications. Using data from the U.S. CPS from 1984 to 20...Read more...

CEP US election analysis

Inequality and opportunity: the return of a neglected debate

During this election period many Americans are feeling angry towards the very rich, especially those working in the financial sector, who helped cause the Great Recession and yet were bailed out by the government. Increa...Read more...

CEP US election analysis

Economic Recovery and Policy Uncertainty

Until some political mechanism creates incentives to elect moderate representatives who can reach across the ideological divide, the US seems destined to heightened levels of policy uncertainty for many years to come. So...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Policy uncertainty: a new indicator

The damaging impact of economic uncertainty on growth has been reasonably well studied - but what happens when there is uncertainty about economic policy-making? Nicholas Bloom and colleagues have developed a measure of ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Political Competition, Policy and Growth: Theory and Evidence from the United States

This paper develops a simple model to analyze how a lack of political competition may lead to policies that hinder economic growth. We test the predictions of the model on panel data for the US states. In these data, we ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Revolving Door Lobbyists

Washington's 'revolving door' - the movement from government service into the lobbying industry- is regarded as a major concern for policy-making. We study how ex-government staffers benefit from the personal connections...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Multinationals and US Productivity Leadership: Evidence from Great Britain

We study the productivity of US owned plants in the UK. Using a new dataset that identifies foreign and domestic MNEs, we find that UK MNEs are less productive than US affiliates, but as productive as non US foreign affi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Are European Labor Markets As Awful As All That?

?The standard explanation of why advanced Europe has generated less work per adult than the US is that something is seriously amiss with EU labor markets. The theme of this piece is simple. Compared to an ideal competiti...Read more...