Search Results
Working Paper
Digital Adoption, Automation, and Labor Markets in Developing and Emerging Economies
We document a strong negative link between self-employment and the rate of digital adoption by firms in developing and emerging economies. No link between digital adoption and the unemployment rate is found, however. To explain this evidence, we build a general equilibrium search-and-matching model with endogenous labor force participation, self-employment, endogenous firm entry, and information-and-communications technology adoption. The main finding is that changes in the cost of technology adoption per se cannot rationalize the evidence. Instead, changes in firms' barriers to entry ...
Working Paper
Slowdown in Immigration, Labor Shortages, and Declining Skill Premia
We document a slowdown in low-skilled immigration that began around the onset of the Great Recession in 2007, which was associated with a subsequent rise in low-skilled wages, a decline in the skill premium, and labor shortages in service occupations. Falling returns to education also coincided with a decline in the educational attainment of native workers. We then develop and estimate a stochastic growth model with endogenous immigration and training to rationalize these facts. Lower immigration leads to higher wages for low-skilled workers but also to higher consumer prices and lower ...
Working Paper
Search Complementarities, Aggregate Fluctuations, and Fiscal Policy
We develop a quantitative business cycle model with search complementarities in the inter-firm matching process that entails a multiplicity of equilibria. An active equilibrium with strong joint venture formation, large output, and low unemployment coexists with a passive equilibrium with low joint venture formation, low output, and high unemployment. {{p}} Changes in fundamentals move the system between the two equilibria, generating large and persistent business cycle fluctuations. The volatility of shocks is important for the selection and duration of each equilibrium. Sufficiently adverse ...
Journal Article
COVID-19 International Evidence: Some Notable Puzzles
This article uses international evidence to argue that we still have limited knowledge about the efficacy of widely used preventive actions, such as social distancing and face masks, in containing the spread of the novel COVID-19 virus. I document three puzzles. One, Peru enacted unprecedented lockdowns early in the pandemic, which led to a record contraction in economic activity. The country’s residents also adopted near-universal face mask usage. None of these actions, however, prevented Peru from experiencing the world’s highest per capita mortality rate from the virus. Second, ...
Working Paper
Skilled Immigration Frictions as a Barrier for Young Firms
This paper studies the impact of skilled immigration policy frictions in the United States on technology-intensive firms by age cohorts. We use firm-level data and a general equilibrium model with endogenous firm entry and exit. The empirical results show that skilled immigration policy frictions directly influence young firm dynamics in technology-intensive sectors by affecting firm survival. Our general equilibrium model incorporates skilled foreign labor and immigration policy frictions that mimic the H-1B policy and matches the age distribution of firms in high-technology sectors, showing ...
Working Paper
Offshoring, Low-skilled Immigration, and Labor Market Polarization
During the last three decades, the U.S. labor market has been characterized by its employment polarization. As jobs in the middle of the skill distribution have shrunk, employment has expanded in high- and low-skill occupations. Real wages have not followed the same pattern. While earnings for high-skill occupations have risen robustly, wages for both low- and middle-skill workers have remained subdued. We attribute this outcome to the rise in offshoring and low-skilled immigration, and develop a three-country stochastic growth model to rationalize their asymmetric effect on employment and ...
Working Paper
Immigration, remittances, and business cycles
We use data on border enforcement and macroeconomic indicators from the United States and Mexico to estimate a two-country business cycle model of labor migration and remittances. The model matches the cyclical dynamics of labor migration to the United States and documents how remittances to Mexico serve an insurance role to smooth consumption across the border. During expansions in the destination economy, immigration increases with the expected stream of future wage gains, but it is dampened by a sunk migration cost that reflects the intensity of border enforcement. During recessions, ...
Working Paper
Offshoring, low-skilled immigration, and labor market polarization
During the last three decades, jobs in the middle of the skill distribution disappeared, and employment expanded for high- and low-skill occupations. Real wages did not follow the same pattern. Although earnings for the high-skill occupations increased robustly, wages for both low- and middle-skill workers remained subdued. We attribute this outcome to the rise in offshoring and low-skilled immigration, and we develop a three-country stochastic growth model to rationalize this outcome. In the model, the increase in offshoring negatively affects the middle-skill occupations but benefits the ...
Working Paper
Business cycles: a role for imperfect competition in the banking system
This paper studies the cyclical pattern of ex post markups in the banking system using balance-sheet data for a large set of countries. Markups are strongly countercyclical even after controlling for financial development, banking concentration, operational costs, inflation, and simultaneity or reverse causation. The countercyclical pattern is explained by the procyclical entry of foreign banks, which occurs mostly at the wholesale level and signals the intention to spread to the retail level. My hypothesis is that wholesale entry triggers incumbents' limit-pricing strategies, which are aimed ...
Discussion Paper
Money Aggregates, Debt, Pent-Up Demand, and Inflation: Evidence from WWII
The COVID-19 pandemic produced a massive decline in U.S. consumption in 2020 and swiftfiscal and monetary responses. After growing at a rather steady 5 percent rate for decades, the moneysupply (M2) increased 25 percent over the past year alongside unprecedented fiscal support, raisingsome inflationary concerns. Concurrent with the reopening of the economy as vaccines roll out, thisarticle derives some lessons from the U.S. experience during and after WWII. The debt-to-GDP ratioincreased from 40 percent to 110 percent because of the war effort. Most of it was financed by Fed debtpurchases, ...