Working Papers
Institutions and the Sectoral Organization of Production,
January 2016
Fundamental
Resource Curse, July 2010
Uncertainty and the
Allocation of Resources (with Harris Dellas),
October 2009
Knowledge,
Technology Adoption and Financial Innovation, June 2005
Published Research
Finance and Competition (with Harris Dellas), Economic Journal,
forthcoming
A Closed-Form Solution to a Model of Two-Sided,
Partial Altruism Macroeconomic Dynamics 16(2012), 230-239.
Altruism,
Labor Supply and Redistributive Neutrality Journal of Population Economics
24(2011), 1443-1469.
Youth Emancipation and Perceived Job Insecurity of
Parents and Children (with Sascha O. Becker, Samuel Bentolila
and Andrea Ichino) Journal of Population Economics 23 (2010), 1047–1071.
Income Insecurity and Youth Emancipation: A
Theoretical Approach (with Sascha O. Becker, Samuel Bentolila and
Andrea Ichino) The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy 8 (2008, Contributions), Article 19.
Inappropriate
Technology (with Krishna Kumar) Macroeconomic Dynamics 11 (2007),
487-518.
On the Equivalence of Quantitative Trade Restrictions and Tariffs
(with Harris Dellas and Klaus Neusser) Economic Letters 96 ( 2007), 331-336.
A Recursive Formulation for
Repeated Agency with History Dependence (with Christopher Phelan), Journal
of Economic Theory 91 (2000), 223-247.
Work in
Progress
Bounds on Democracy
A Wealth-Based Theory of
Property Rights
Institutions and the Sectoral Organization of Production Paper
Do institutions, such as the Rule of Law, affect the way in which output
is generated? This paper provides evidence suggesting that countries with
better contract enforcement have disproportionately higher employment shares in
sectors that interact more with other input-providing sectors; further, such
countries also experience disproportionately higher sectoral
value added in those sectors. The data are consistent with institutions
affecting the productivity of technological use or adoption, thus acting as sectoral productivity shifters. However, labor (mis)allocation (and not
direct productivity loss) is quantitatively the most important effect of poor
institutional quality in reducing sectoral value
added. These effects are statistically undetected once we rely on data
aggregated across the subsectors of manufacturing. Yet, when sectoral data are used, a one standard deviation increment
in the Rule of Law indicator results in an increase of the overall value added
in the manufacturing sector of 36%. Our findings support the notion that sectoral transformation is grounded on good institutional
quality.
Keywords: Sectoral
organization of output, employment shares, institutions, contractual
enforcement, input-output, complexity
JEL Codes: O43, P16
Fundamental Resource Curse Paper
Abstract: This
paper proposes a fundamental model of the resource curse problem. Outcomes,
such as the formation of coalitions -- groups of financiers who engage armies
to gain control of the resources -- as well as the size of the corresponding
armies, are derived endogenously from the economy's fundamentals. The model
predicts that inefficient outcomes -- in the form of either conflict or a
deterrence army solution -- will always occur as long as the value of natural
resources to capture is positive and the opportunity cost of time -- which
partly determines soldiers' wages -- is finite.
Keywords: Endogenous
political economy, conflict, deterrence, natural resource curse, inefficiency,
general equilibrium.
JEL Codes: H11, O11, P16
Finance and Competition Paper
Abstract:
We investigate the role of financial constraints for product market
competition in a general equilibrium model, where firms may differ in terms of
own wealth and/or efficiency. We find that the amelioration of financial
constraints always increases
competition (it lowers the Lerner index of markups)
in financially dependent sectors even when other standard concentration indexes
indicate otherwise. Our analysis implies that disruptions in financial markets
–such as the recent financial crisis– may have adverse effects on competition
in product markets, a cost that has not been identified before.
Keywords: Financial
Development, Liberalization, Market Structure, Product Market Competition.
JEL Codes: L1, E2
Uncertainty and the Allocation of Resources Paper
Abstract: We study the effects of uncertainty
on the allocation of resources in the standard, general equilibrium,
two-sector, two-factor model. The elasticity
of substitution in production vs that in consumption
plays the key role in determining whether uncertainty attracts or repels
resources, while risk aversion is of lesser importance. The model
predicts that countries with greater production flexibility (better factor
substitution possibilities) will be able to pursue more risky activities than
less flexible economies.
Keywords: Uncertainty,
General Equilibrium, Two Factor-Sector Model, Flexibility.
JEL Codes: E2, D5, D8
On the Equivalence of Quantitative Trade Restrictions
and Tariffs Paper
Abstract: A major difficulty in the conduct of industrial
policy is that governments rarely have advance knowledge of an infant
industry’s long term potential. We argue that alternative commercial policy
instruments may be associated with differences in the speed and the accuracy
with which the government learns about industry type.
Keywords: Industrial Policy,
Quantitative Trade Restrictions, Tariffs, Learning, Infant Industry.
JEL Classification: E32, E52.
Income Insecurity and Youth Emancipation: A Theoretical Approach Paper
Abstract: In this paper, we propose a
theoretical model to study the effect of income insecurity of parents and
offspring on the child’s residential choice. Parents are partially altruistic
toward their children and will provide financial help to an independent child
when her income is low relative to the parents’. We find that children of more
altruistic parents are more likely to become independent. However, first-order
stochastic dominance (FOSD) shifts in the distribution of the child’s future
income (or her parents’) have ambiguous effects on the child’s residential
choice. Parental altruism is the very source of ambiguity in the results. If
parents are selfish or the joint income distribution of parents and child
places no mass on the region where transfers are provided, a FOSD shift in the
distribution of the child’s (parents’) future income will reduce (raise) the
child’s current income threshold for independence.
Keywords:
Partial Altruism, Emancipation, Coresidence, Income Insecurity, Option value,
Stochastic Dominance.
JEL Classification: D1, D8, J1, J2.
Youth Emancipation and Perceived Job Insecurity
of Parents and Children Paper
Abstract: The age at which children leave the parental home differs considerably
across countries. In this paper we argue that lower job insecurity of parents
and higher job insecurity of children delay emancipation. We provide aggregate
evidence which supports this hypothesis for 12 European countries and which
helps account for the increase in coresidence in the 1990s. We also give
microeconometric evidence for
Keywords:
Emancipation, Job security, Option value.
JEL
Classification: J1, J2.
Knowledge,
Technology Adoption and Financial Innovation Paper
Abstract: Why are new financial instruments
created? This paper proposes the view that financial development arises as a
response to the contractual needs of emerging technologies. Exogenous
technological progress generates a demand for new financial instruments in
order to share risk or overcome private information, for example. A model of
the dynamics of technology adoption and the evolution of financial instruments
that support such adoption is presented. Early adoption may be required for
financial markets to learn the technology; once learned, financial innovation
boosts adoption further. Financial learning emerges as a source of
technological diffusion. The analysis identifies a causality link from
technology to finance which is nonetheless consistent with empirical findings
of a positive effect of current financial development on future growth.
Keywords: Financial innovation,
Technology adoption, Learning.
JEL Codes: G20, N20, O30.
A Closed-Form Solution to a Model of
Two-Sided, Partial Altruism Paper
Abstract: This
paper presents a closed-form characterization of the allocation of resources in
an overlapping generation's model of two-sided, partial altruism. Three
assumptions are made: (i) parents and children play Markov strategies, (ii)
utility takes the CRRA form, and (iii) the income of children is stochastic but
proportional to the saving of parents. In families where children are rich
relatively to their parents, saving rates -- measured as a function of the
family's total resources -- are higher compared to the case when children are
poor relative to their parents. Income redistribution from the old to the
young, therefore, leads to an increase in aggregate saving.
Keywords:
Closed form, Value function, Partial altruism, Markov strategies
JEL Codes: C61, D13.
Inappropriate
Technology (with Krishna Kumar) Paper
[Presented at the 2002 Minnesota
Workshop in Macroeconomic Theory.]
Abstract: In this paper, we investigate
incentives, other than altruism, developed countries
have in improving developing country technologies. We propose a simple model of
international trade between two regions, in which individuals have preferences
over an inferior good and a luxury good. The poor region has a comparative
advantage in the production of the inferior good, and the rich in the luxury
good. Even when costly adaptation of the technology to the poor region's
characteristics is required -- which makes the technology inappropriate for
local use -- there are parameter configurations for which the rich region has
an incentive to incur this cost. It benefits from an improvement in its terms
of trade; by raising the efficiency of the productive process of the developing
region, it can also redirect its own productive resources toward the luxury
good. Indeed, there are cases where the rich region would prefer to improve the
poor region's technology for producing the inferior good rather than its own.
We apply our model to the Green Revolution and provide a quantitative
assessment of its welfare effects.
Keywords: Developing
country technology improvements, Dynamic trade models, Welfare analysis.
JEL Classification: O11, O33,
F11, F41
Altruism,
Labor Supply and Redistributive Neutrality Paper
Abstract: This paper presents a model of
familial altruism in which labor supply is chosen endogenously. The model is
used to address the predictions of Ricardian Equivalence, both theoretical and
empirical. It is argued that, to the extent that income variation in the data
comes mostly from wage and effort changes, the empirical tests of neutrality
are misspecified. Numerical estimates suggest that quantitatively important
deviations from neutrality may be at work.
Keywords: Ricardian
Equivalence, redistributive neutrality, altruism, endogenous labor supply,
private information.
JEL Classification: D19,
D64, D82, J22.
Altruism, Redistributive
Neutrality and Labor Supply (with extended appendices) Paper
Abstract: The psychology literature firmly
establishes that optimism is an attribute of mentally healthy
individuals. Data show, for example, that people systematically overestimate
future income. Optimism may be motivated by the human tendency to
derive utility from the anticipation of positive future
events. Anticipation utility is conceptually distinct from the
utility induced by actual events as they occur. Here, we model the
utility of a decision maker as the weighted sum of both
components. Because anticipation utility increases with the believed
probability of good outcomes, the utility-maximizing decision maker distorts
his beliefs away from rational expectations, even though he must then adopt
actions based on those distorted beliefs. Such rational optimism can
affect effort levels and other behavior with macroeconomic
consequences. Considering saving for retirement, we find that when
risk-aversion exceeds unity, the optimal believed return to saving exceeds the
true return, saving is lower than the amount chosen by a conventional
expected-utility maximizer, and both deviations increase in the weight assigned
to anticipation. These results are in line with two well-known
empirical facts: the low intertemporal elasticity of substitution and the
puzzling drop in consumption following anticipated retirement.
JEL Classification: D81, D83,
D84.
A
Recursive Formulation for Repeated Agency with History Dependence (with Christopher Phelan)
Journal
of Economic Theory
91, 223-247 (2000). JET
Abstract: We present general recursive
methods to handle environments where privately observed variables are linked
over time. We show that incentive compatible contracts are implemented
recursively with a threat keeping constraint in addition to the usual temporary
incentive compatibility and promise keeping conditions.
Keywords: Mechanism design,
Repeated agency.
JEL Classification: D30, D31,
D80, D82.