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Working Paper
Shipping to America
We study the macroeconomic and trade-policy implications of disruptions to U.S.-bound shipping routes. Standard models treat them as iceberg-cost shocks, conflating the shock with the response to it. Using satellite vessel-tracking data, we construct route-level measures of potential and effective capacity for all U.S.-bound container ships from 2016 to 2025. Utilization losses in recent disruptions ran 20 to 40 percentage points, and began months before port congestion became visible. We embed these measures in a general equilibrium model in which firms reallocate a common fleet without ...
Working Paper
Structural Change and the Rise in Markups
Is the recent rise in markups caused by increased monopoly power or is it a natural consequence of structural change? I show that the rise in aggregate markups has been driven by a reallocation of market share away from non-services to services-producing firms and a faster increase of services’ markups. I develop a two-sector model to assess the sources of the rise in markups, in which the two forces of structural change play opposing roles. On one hand, an increase in the relative productivity of manufacturing leads to a decline of the relative price of manufactured goods and to an ...
The Sluggish Renaissance of U.S. Manufacturing
An analysis examines which subindustries and geographies have contributed the most to growth in U.S. manufacturing employment and establishments since 2014.
Journal Article
What To Know About the Rise of Services
What should you know about the rise of services over the past 40 years? The services sector now accounts for about 79% of output, 85% of employment, 83% of firms, and 78% of household spending.
Who Applies to and Enrolls at Selective Colleges?
Attending college is an investment in one’s human capital. But how does parental income impact where students apply and, ultimately, where they enroll?
The Rise of Digital Advertising and Its Economic Implications
Growth in the digital advertising market has allowed big tech companies to better target consumer tastes, potentially increasing firms’ market power.
What’s Driving the Surge in U.S. Corporate Profits?
Nonfinancial industries, primarily retail and wholesale trade and construction, drove a recent rise in U.S. corporate profits as a share of national income.
Working Paper
The Expansion of Varieties in the New Age of Advertising
The last decades have seen large improvements in digital advertising technology that allowed firms to better target specific consumer tastes. This research studies the relationship among digital advertising, the rise of varieties, and economic welfare. We develop a model of advertising and varieties where firms choose the intensity of digital ads directed at specific consumers as well as traditional ads that are undirected. The calibrated model shows that improvements in digital advertising have driven the rise in varieties over time. Empirical evidence is presented using detailed micro data ...
Journal Article
What Is Behind the Rise in Markups?
Markups increased noticeably over the past 70 years in the U.S. But what’s behind this increase?
Do Productivity Booms Push Down Prices?
Industries with unusually strong productivity growth, at times coinciding with new technologies, have seen relative declines in producer price inflation.