Research Statement
Working Papers
Importing Political Polarization? The Electoral Consequences of Rising Trade Exposure
Resubmitted (2nd round) to the American Economic Review
Latest Version: October 2019. Joint with David Autor, David Dorn, and Gordon Hanson
NBER Working Paper #22637
Media Coverage: New York Times; Los Angeles Times; Wall Street Journal; CNN (GPS); The Economist; MIT Technology Review (Cover Story); Freakonomics Radio
A Note on the Effect of Rising Trade Exposure on the 2016 Presidential Election [Appendix to Autor, Dorn, Hanson, and Majlesi “Importing Political Polarization? The Electoral Consequences of Rising Trade Exposure”]
Latest Version: January 2017 (First Version: November 2016)
Media Coverage: Wall Street Journal; Washington Post (Wonkblog); New York Times
Published and Forthcoming
- Household Finance
Stock Market Returns and Consumption
forthcoming at Journal of Finance
Joint with Marco Di Maggio and Amir Kermani
Media Coverage: MarketWatch
Poor Little Rich Kids? The Role of Nature versus Nurture in Wealth and Other Economic Outcomes and Behaviors
forthcoming at Review of Economic Studies
Joint with Sandra E. Black, Paul Devereux, and Petter Lundborg.
Media Coverage: The Atlantic; FiveThirtyEight; KUT Austin; Dagens industri
Learning to Take Risks? The Effect of Education on Risk-Taking in Financial Markets [Online Appendix]
May 2018, Review of Finance
Joint with Sandra E. Black, Paul Devereux, and Petter Lundborg
On The Origins of Risk-Taking in Financial Markets [Online Appendix]
October 2017, Journal of Finance
Joint with Sandra E. Black, Paul Devereux, and Petter Lundborg
Media Coverage: Wall Street Journal (Blog); QUARTZ
- Labor and Development Economics
International Import Competition and the Decision to Migrate: Evidence from Mexico
May 2018, Journal of Development Economics
Joint with Gaia Narciso
Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital: Is It a One-Way Street? [Online Appendix]
January 2018, Journal of Health Economics
Joint with Petter Lundborg
Labor Market Opportunities and Women’s Decision Making Power Within Households
March 2016, Journal of Development Economics
Work in Progress
Labor Market Shocks, Household Saving Behavior and Wealth Inequality
Summary: The rise in wealth inequality within many developed economies in the past few decades has been among the most discussed matters of inquiry in both academic and public spheres. Recent work indicates that how much households save and how they allocate their savings across and within different asset classes have important effects on wealth accumulation at the household level and, as a result, the dynamics of wealth inequality in the economy. Despite this evidence, the causes behind differential saving behaviors and, more importantly, what triggers changes in saving behavior are very much understudied. In a set of papers, using administrative data from different Scandinavian countries, I argue that the most prevalent labor market shocks faced by today's advanced economies (including automation, trade import competition, and weakening of labor and trade unions) affect the consumption and saving behavior of households and, as a result, have contributed to the evolution of wealth inequality.
The Effect of Trade on Innovation: Evidence from Individual and Firm Level data
Joint with David Dorn and Olof Ejermo
Summary: How trade competition affects innovation has been of interest for a long time. In this paper, using granular production level data at the firm level in Sweden and data on individual inventors that is linked to their place of work and followed across time, we first measure trade exposure at the firm level and, in line with Autor et al. (2019), show that more exposed firms invent less, measured by the number of patents filed. However, very importantly, when we follow individual inventors (and potential inventors) who were employed in the exposed firms in the beginning of the period across time, we find that they more than compensate for their loss of inventive activity in the exposed firms by leaving their initial employers and moving to more productive sectors of the economy. As a result, the total inventive activity in the economy does not go down as a result of import competition.
Summary: How trade competition affects innovation has been of interest for a long time. In this paper, using granular production level data at the firm level in Sweden and data on individual inventors that is linked to their place of work and followed across time, we first measure trade exposure at the firm level and, in line with Autor et al. (2019), show that more exposed firms invent less, measured by the number of patents filed. However, very importantly, when we follow individual inventors (and potential inventors) who were employed in the exposed firms in the beginning of the period across time, we find that they more than compensate for their loss of inventive activity in the exposed firms by leaving their initial employers and moving to more productive sectors of the economy. As a result, the total inventive activity in the economy does not go down as a result of import competition.
