Laura Alfaro

Global Supply Chains: The Looming “Great Reallocation”

Global supply chains have come under unprecedented stress as a result of US-China trade tensions, the Covid-19 pandemic, and geopolitical shocks. We document shifts in the pattern of US participation in global value chains over the last four decades, in terms of partner countries, products, and modes, with a focus on the last five years (2017-2022). The available data point to a looming "great reallocation" in supply chain activity: Direct US sourcing from China has decreased, with low-wage locations (principally: Vietnam) and nearshoring/friendshoring alternatives (notably: Mexico) gaining in import share. The production line positioning of the US’ imports has also become more upstream, which is indicative of some reshoring of production stages. We sound several cautionary notes over the policies that have set this reallocation in motion: It is unclear if these measures will reduce US dependence on supply chains linked to China, and there are moreover already signs that prices of imports from Vietnam and Mexico are on the rise.

Come Together: Firm Boundaries and Delegation

We develop an incomplete-contracts model to jointly study firm boundaries and the allocation of decision rights within them. Integration has an option value: it gives firm owners authority to delegate or centralize decision rights, depending on who can best solve problems that may arise in the course of an uncertain production process. To examine the evidence, we construct measures of vertical integration and delegation for thousands of firms in different countries and industries. In line with the model’s predictions, we find that input value and supplier uncertainty play a key role in shaping both integration and delegation choices.

The Real Exchange Rate, Innovation and Productivity

We evaluate manufacturing firms' responses to changes in the real exchange rate (RER) using detailed firm-level data for a large set of countries for the period 2001-2010. We uncover the following stylized facts about regional variation of manufacturing firms' integration into global value chains: firms in emerging Asia are very export oriented relative to their dependence on imported intermediates; firms from Latin America and Eastern Europe depend heavily on imported intermediates compared to their export orientation; firms from high-income countries export on average as much as they import. Motivated by these facts, we build a dynamic model in which real depreciations raise the cost of importing intermediates, affect export demand, borrowing-constraints and the profitability of engaging in innovation (R&D). We decompose the effects of RER changes on average firm-level productivity growth across regions into these channels. We then structurally estimate the model and quantitatively evaluate the different mechanisms by providing counterfactual simulations of temporary RER movements. In export-oriented emerging Asia, real depreciations are on average associated with higher firm-level probabilities to engage in R&D, faster growth of firm-level productivity and cash-flow and higher export entry rates. We find negative average effects for firms in other emerging economies, which are relatively more import dependent, and no significant average effects for firms in industrialized economies. Effects on physical TFP growth, while different across regions, are non-linear and asymmetric.

Undisclosed Debt Sustainability

Over the past decade, non-Paris Club creditors, notably China, have become an important source of financing for low- and middle-income countries. In contrast with typical sovereign debt, these lending arrangements are not public, and other creditors have no information about their magnitude. We transform the traditional sovereign debt and default model to quantitatively study incomplete information arrangements and find that they greatly reduce traditional Paris Club creditors' debt sustainability. Disclosure of nontraditional debt would imply significant welfare gains for the recipient countries but would reduce its sustainability. We discuss the implications of nontraditional lending on standard assumptions of sovereign debt models.

Credit Supply Shocks, Network Effects, and the Real Economy

We consider the real effects of bank lending shocks and how they permeate the economy through buyer-supplier linkages. We combine administrative data on all firms in Spain with a matched bank-firm-loan dataset with information on the universe of corporate loans for 2003-2013. Borrowing methods from the matched employer-employee literature, which allow handling large data sets, we identify bank-specific shocks for each year in our sample. We then construct firm-specific exogenous credit supply shocks and estimate their direct and indirect effects on real activity combining the Spanish Input-Output structure and firm-specific measures of upstream and downstream exposure. Credit supply shocks have sizable direct and downstream propagation effects on investment and output throughout the whole period but no significant impact on employment during the expansion period. Downstream propagation effects are quantitative larger in magnitude than direct effects. The results corroborate the importance of network effects in quantifying the real effects of credit shocks and show that real effects vary during booms and busts.

Corporate Debt, Firm Size and Financial Fragility in Emerging Markets

The post-Global Financial Crisis period shows a surge in corporate leverage in emerging markets and a number of countries with deteriorated corporate financial fragility indicators (Altman’s Z-score). Firm size plays a critical role in the relationship between leverage, firm fragility, and exchange rate movements in emerging markets. While the relationship between firm leverage and distress scores varies over time, the relationship between firm size and corporate vulnerability is relatively time invariant. All else being equal, large firms in emerging markets are more financially vulnerable and also systemically important. Consistent with the granular origins of aggregate fluctuations in Gabaix (2011), idiosyncratic shocks to the sales growth of large firms are positively and significantly correlated with GDP growth in our emerging markets sample. Relatedly, the negative impact of exchange rate shocks has a more acute impact on the sales growth of the more highly levered large firms.

Internalizing Global Value Chains: A Firm-Level Analysis

In recent decades, advances in information and communication technology and falling trade barriers have led firms to retain within their boundaries and in their domestic economies only a subset of their production stages. A key decision facing firms worldwide is the extent of control to exert over the different segments of their production processes. We describe a property-rights model of firm boundary choices along the value chain that generalizes Antràs and Chor (2013). To assess the evidence, we construct firm-level measures of the upstreamness of integrated and non-integrated inputs by combining information on the production activities of firms operating in more than 100 countries with input-output tables. In line with the model's predictions, we find that whether a firm integrates upstream or downstream suppliers depends crucially on the elasticity of demand for its final product. Moreover, a firm's propensity to integrate a given stage of the value chain is shaped by the relative contractibility of the stages located upstream versus downstream from that stage, as well as by the firm's productivity. Our results suggest that contractual frictions play an important role in shaping the integration choices of firms around the world.

Spatial Agglomeration and Superstar Firms

We characterize the agglomeration patterns of industries and plants in Europe, distinguishing Eurozone countries and the United States. Using a micro-level index, we quantify the degree of geographic concentration in industrial activities and explore how firm heterogeneity, industry attributes, and location fundamentals jointly explain the observed patterns. Our analysis shows that there is a clear hub-and-spoke structure in the geographic distribution. Larger and more productive plants, especially the superstars of each industry, are more centered than their smaller, less productive counterparts. The greater agglomeration surrounding superstars is particularly pronounced in the Eurozone but not present in the rest of Europe. Location fundamentals also play an important role and can sometimes mitigate the importance of agglomeration economies around large firms. Regions with different levels of economic development, including in education and technology, exhibit distinct agglomeration patterns. The findings suggest heterogeneity in the ability of regional policies to build superstar-centered industry clusters.

Debt Redemption and Reserve Accumulation

In the past decade, foreign participation in local-currency bond markets in emerging countries increased dramatically. We revisit sovereign debt sustainability under the assumptions that countries can accumulate reserves and borrow internationally using their own currency. As opposed to traditional sovereign-debt models, asset-valuation effects occasioned by currency fluctuations act to absorb global shocks and render consumption smoother. Countries do not accumulate reserves to be depleted in “bad” times. Instead, issuing domestic debt while accumulating reserves acts as a hedge against external shocks. A quantitative exercise of the Brazilian economy suggests this strategy to be effective for smoothing consumption and reducing the occurrence of default.

Selection and Market Reallocation: Productivity Gains from Multinational Production

Assessing the productivity gains from multinational production has been a vital topic of economic research and policy debate. Positive aggregate productivity gains are often attributed to within-firm productivity improvement; however, an alternative, less emphasized explanation is between-firm selection and market reallocation, whereby competition from multinationals leads to factor reallocation and the survival of only the most productive domestic firms. We investigate the roles of the two different mechanisms in determining the aggregate productivity gains by exploring their distinct predictions on the distributions of domestic firms: within-firm productivity improvement shifts the productivity and revenue distributions rightward while between-firm selection and market reallocation raise the left truncation of the distributions and shift revenue leftward. Using a rich cross-country firm-level panel dataset, we find significant evidence of both mechanisms, but between-firm selection and market reallocation accounts for the majority of aggregate productivity gains, suggesting that ignoring this channel could lead to substantial bias in understanding the nature of gains from multinational production.

Do Prices Determine Vertical Integration?*

What is the relationship between product prices and vertical integration? While the literature has focused on how integration affects prices, this paper provides evidence that prices can affect integration. Many theories in organizational economics and industrial organization posit that integration, while costly, increases productivity. It follows from firms’ maximizing behavior that higher prices induce more integration. The reason is that at low prices, increases in revenue resulting from enhanced productivity are too small to justify the cost, whereas at high prices the revenue benefit exceeds the cost. Trade policy provides a source of exogenous price variation to assess the validity of this prediction: higher tariffs should lead to higher prices and therefore to more integration. We construct firmlevel indices of vertical integration for a large set of countries and industries and exploit cross-section and time-series variation in import tariffs to examine their impact on firm boundaries. Our empirical results provide strong support for the view that output prices are a key determinant of vertical integration.

The Real Effects of Capital Controls: Financial Constraints, Exporters, and Firm Investment

In aftermath of the global financial crisis of 2008–2009, emerging-market governments have increasingly restricted foreign capital inflows. The data show a statistically significant drop in cumulative abnormal returns for Brazilian firms following capital control announcements. Large firms and the largest exporting firms appear less negatively affected compared to externalfinance-dependent firms, and capital controls on equity have a more negative announcement effect than those on debt. Real investment falls following the controls. Overall, the results suggest that capital controls segment international financial markets, increase the cost of capital, reduce the availability of external finance, and lower firm-level investment.

Surviving the Global Financial Crisis: Foreign Ownership and Establishment Performance

We examine the differential response of establishments to the recent global financial crisis with particular emphasis on the role of foreign ownership. Using a worldwide establishment panel dataset, we investigate how multinational subsidiaries around the world responded to the crisis relative to local establishments. We find that, first, multinational subsidiaries fared on average better than local counterfactuals with similar economic characteristics. Second, among multinational subsidiaries, establishments sharing stronger vertical production and financial linkages with parents exhibited greater resilience. Finally, in contrast to the crisis period, the effect of foreign ownership and linkages on establishment performance was insignificant in non-crisis years.

Sovereigns, Upstream Capital Flows and Global Imbalances

We construct measures of net private and public capital flows for a large cross-section of developing countries considering both creditor and debtor side of the international debt transactions. Using these measures, we demonstrate that sovereign-to-sovereign transactions account for upstream capital flows and global imbalances. Specifically, we find that i) international net private capital flows (inflows minus outflows of private capital) are positively correlated with countries’ productivity growth, ii) net sovereign debt flows (government borrowing minus reserves) are negatively correlated with growth only if net public debt is financed by another sovereign, iii) net public debt financed by private creditors is positively correlated with growth, iv) public savings are strongly positively correlated with growth, whereas correlation between private savings and growth is flat and statistically insignificant. These empirical facts contradict the conventional wisdom and constitute a challenge for the existing theories on upstream capital flows and global imbalances.

Deregulation, Misallocation, and Size: Evidence from India

This paper examines the impact of the deregulation of compulsory industrial licensing in India on firm size dynamics and reallocation of resources within industries. Following deregulation, resource misallocation declines, and the left-hand tail of the firm size distribution thickens significantly, suggesting increased entry by small firms. However, the dominance and growth of large incumbents remains unchallenged. Quantile regressions reveal that the distributional effects of deregulation on firm size are significantly non-linear. The reallocation of market shares toward a small number of large firms and a large number of small firms is characterized as the "shrinking middle" in Indian manufacturing. Small- and medium-sized firms may continue to face constraints in their attempts to grow.

The Global Agglomeration of Multinational Firms

The explosion of multinational activities in recent decades is rapidly transforming the global landscape of industrial production. But are the emerging clusters of multinational production the rule or the exception? What drives the offshore agglomeration of multinational firms in comparison to the agglomeration of domestic firms? Using a unique worldwide plant-level dataset that reports detailed location, ownership, and operation information for plants in over 100 countries, we construct a spatially continuous index of agglomeration and analyze the different patterns underlying the global economic geography of multinational and nonmultinational firms. We present new stylized facts that suggest that the offshore clusters of multinationals are not a simple reflection of domestic industrial clusters. Agglomeration economies including technology diffusion and capital-good market externality play a more important role in the offshore agglomeration of multinationals than the agglomeration of domestic firms. These findings remain robust when we explore the process of agglomeration.

Intra-Industry Foreign Direct Investment (joint with Andrew Charlton)

We identify a new type of vertical foreign direct investment (FDI) made up of multinational subsidiaries producing intermediate inputs, which are of similar skill intensity to the final goods produced by their parents, and which are overwhelmingly located in high skill countries. These subsidiaries make up more than half of all vertical subsidiaries and are not readily explained by the comparative advantage considerations in traditional models of vertical FDI, where firms locate their low skill production stages abroad in low skill countries to take advantage of factor cost differences. In this paper we exploit a remarkable new firm level data set which establishes the location, ownership, and activity of 650,000 multinational subsidiaries—close to a comprehensive picture of global multinational activity. A number of patterns emerge from the data. Most foreign direct investment (FDI) occurs between rich countries. The share of vertical FDI (subsidiaries which provide inputs to their parent firms) is larger than commonly thought, even within developed countries. More than half of all vertical subsidiaries are only observable at the four-digit level because the inputs they are supplying are so proximate to their parent firm’s final good that they appear identical at the two-digit level. We call these proximate subsidiaries ‘intra-industry’ vertical FDI and find that their location and activity are significantly different to the inter-industry vertical FDI visible at the two-digit level. We explain this pattern of intra-industry north-north vertical FDI in terms of the decision to outsource versus own the production of intermediate inputs. Overwhelmingly, multinationals source raw materials and inputs in early stages of production from outside the firm, but tend to own the stages of production proximate to their final production giving rise to a class of high-skill intra-industry vertical FDI.

Intra-Industry Foreign Direct Investment

Sovereign Debt as a Contingent Claim: A Quantitative Approach (joint with Fabio Kanczuk)

We construct a dynamic equilibrium model with contingent service and adverse selection to quantitatively study sovereign debt. In the model, benefits of defaulting are tempered by higher future interest rates. For a wide parameter, the only equilibrium is one in which the sovereign defaults in all states; additional output losses, however, sustain equilibria that resemble the data. We show that due to the adverse selection problem, some countries choose to delay default in order to reduce loss of reputation. Moreover, although equilibria with no default imply in greater welfare levels, they are not sustainable in highly indebted and volatile countries.

Sovereign Debt as a Contingent Claim: A Quantitative Approach

Optimal Reserve Management and Sovereign Debt (with Fabio Kanczuk)

Most models currently used to determine optimal foreign reserve holdings take the level of international debt as given. Some of the implications of this analysis, however, may not be generalized once one considers the joint decision to hold debt and reserves by a sovereign. Given the sovereigns willingness to pay incentive problems, reserve accumulation may reduce sustainable debt levels. In addition, assuming debt levels constant does not allow addressing one of the puzzles behind the current accumulation of reserves. Sovereign countries have an alternative way of reducing the negative effects of external crisis: to reduce the level of sovereign debt. To study the joint decision of holding sovereign debt and reserves, we construct a small open economy stochastic dynamic equilibrium model, which is then calibrated to a sample of emerging markets. We study different scenarios associated with interest rate shocks, sudden stops, output costs and the use of contingent reserves. A robust quantitative result that emerges is that the optimal policy is not to accumulate reserves. In fact, in most of simulated economies, the optimal level of reserves holding is zero.

Optimal Reserve Management and Sovereign Debt

Capital Flows and Capital Goods (joint with Eliza Hammel)

We examine one of the channels through which financial integration can help promote growth. In particular, we study the effects of capital account liberalization on the imports of capital goods. We pay particular attention to the effects of equity market liberalization. We find that for the period 1980-1997, after controlling for trade liberalization and other macroeconomic reforms and policies, stock market liberalization leads to a substantial increase in the share of imports of capital goods. Our results suggest that with the increased access to international capital firms noticeably increase their spending on imports of machinery and equipment.

Capital Flows and Capital Goods

The Global Networks of Multinational Firms (with Maggie Chen)

In this paper we characterize the topology of global multinational networks and examine the macro and micro patterns of multinational activity. We construct indices of network density at both pairwise industry and establishment level and measure agglomeration in a global and continuous metric space. These indices exhibit distinct advantages compared to traditional measures of agglomeration including the independence on the level of geographic aggregation. Estimating the indices using a new worldwide establishment dataset, we investigate both the significance and causes of multinational firm co-agglomeration. In contrast to the conventional emphasis of the literature on the role of input-output linkages, we assess the effect of various agglomeration economies. We find that, relative to counterfactuals, multinationals with greater capital-market externalities, knowledge spillovers and vertical linkages exhibit significant co-agglomeration. The importance of these factors differs across headquarter, subsidiary and employment networks but knowledge spillovers and capital-market externalities, two traditionally under-emphasized forces, exert consistently strong effects. Within each macro network, there is a large heterogeneity across subsidiaries. Subsidiaries with a greater size and a higher productivity attract significantly more agglomeration than their counterfactuals and become the hubs of the network.

Selection, Reallocation, and Spillover: Identifying the Sources of Gains from Multinational Production (with Maggie Chen)

Quantifying the gains from multinational production has been a vital topic of economic research. Positive productivity gains are often attributed to knowledge spillover from multinational to domestic firms. An alternative, less stressed explanation is firm selection whereby competition from multinationals leads to market reallocation and survival of only the most productive domestic firms. We develop a model that incorporates both aspects and identify their relative importance in the gains from multinational production by exploring their distinct predictions on domestic productivity and revenue distributions. We show that knowledge spillover shifts both distributions rightward while selection and reallocation raise the left truncation of the distributions and shift revenue leftward. Using a rich firm-level panel dataset that spans 60 countries, our structural estimates suggest firm selection and market reallocation constitute an important source of productivity gains while its relative importance varies across nations. Ignoring the role of this source can lead to significant bias in understanding the nature of gains. We also perform counterfactual analysis and quantify both the aggregate and the decomposed welfare effects of multinational production.

Keywords: Gains From Multinational Production; Firm Selection; Knowledge Spillover

Why Doesn't Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries? An Empirical Investigation (joint with Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Vadym Volosovych)

We examine the role of different explanations for the lack of flows of capital from rich to poor countries -- the Lucas paradox -- in an empirical framework. Broadly, the theoretical explanations for this paradox include differences in fundamentals affecting the production structure versus capital market imperfections. Our empirical evidence, based on cross-country regressions, shows that for the period 1971-1998, institutional quality, which is a fundamental, is the most important causal variable explaining the Lucas paradox. Human capital and asymmetric information do play a role as determinants of capital flows but these variables cannot account for the paradox.

Why Doesn't Capital Flow from Rich to Poor Countries? An Empirical Investigation

International Financial Integration and Entrepreneurship (joint with Andrew Charlton)

We explore the relation between international financial integration and the level of entrepreneurial activity in a country. Researchers have stressed the role of new firm activity and economic dynamism on growth. Yet, the empirical effects of international capital mobility on entrepreneurial activity have received little attention in the literature albeit the ambiguous theoretical predictions and the intense policy debate. Using a unique comprehensive data set of nearly 24 million firms in a close to 100 developed and developing countries, we find higher entrepreneurial activity in countries with fewer restrictions to international capital flows. Our results are robust to using various proxies for entrepreneurial activity such as entry, size, age, skewness of the firm-size and firm-age distribution and controlling for other variables that might affect the business environment such as the size of the market, regulation, enforcement of property rights and other institutional variables. We also use different empirical specifications in our analysis. We further explore various channels through which international financial integration can affect entrepreneurship and provide consistent evidence to support our results. In particular, we find that the presence of downstream foreign firms has a positive effect on firm activity (a foreign direct investment channel) and we find higher entrepreneurial activity in sectors more reliant on external finance (a capital/credit availability channel). Overall our study provides suggestive evidence that international financial integration has been associated with higher levels of entrepreneurial activity.

International Financial Integraton and Entrepreneurship

India Transformed? Insights from the Firm Level 1988-2005 (with Anusha Chari)

Using firm-level data this paper analyzes, the transformation of India’s economic structure following the implementation of economic reforms. The focus of the study is on publicly-listed and unlisted firms from across a wide spectrum of manufacturing and services industries and ownership structures such as state-owned firms, business groups, private and foreign firms. Detailed balance sheet and ownership information permit an investigation of a range of variables such as sales, profitability, and assets. Here we analyze firm characteristics shown by industry before and after liberalization and investigate how industrial concentration, the number, and size of firms of the ownership type evolved between 1988 and 2005. We find great dynamism displayed by foreign and private firms as reflected in the growth in their numbers, assets, sales and profits. Yet, closer scrutiny reveals no dramatic transformation in the wake of liberalization. The story rather is one of an economy still dominated by the incumbents (state-owned firms) and to a lesser extent, traditional private firms (firms incorporated before 1985). Sectors dominated by state-owned and traditional private firms before 1988-1990, with assets, sales and profits representing shares higher than 50%, generally remained so in 2005. The exception to this broad pattern is the growing importance of new and large private firms in the services sector. Rates of return also have remained stable over time and show low dispersion across sectors and across ownership groups within sectors.

How Does Foreign Direct Investment Promote Economic Growth? Exploring the Effects of Financial Markets on Linkages (with Areendam Chanda, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Selin Sayek)

The empirical literature finds mixed evidence on the existence of positive productivity externalities in the host country generated by foreign multinational companies. We propose a novel mechanism, which emphasizes the role of local financial markets in enabling foreign direct investment (FDI) to promote growth through backward linkages, shedding light on this empirical ambiguity. In a small open economy, final goods production combines the production processes of foreign and domestic firms, which compete for skilled labor, unskilled labor, and intermediate products. In order to operate a firm in the intermediate goods sector, entrepreneurs must first engage in R\&D to develop a new variety of intermediate good. Innovation requires capital costs, which must be financed through the domestic financial institutions. The more developed the local financial markets are, the easier it is for credit constrained entrepreneurs to start their own firms. Thus the number of varieties of intermediate goods increases, causing positive spillovers to the final goods sector. As a result the host country benefits from the backward linkages between foreign and domestic firms since the local financial markets allow these linkages to turn into FDI spillovers. Our calibration exercise confirms our analytical results. For the same proportion of foreign owned firms, countries with well developed financial markets grow twice as fast compared to those with poorly developed markets. Further the effect of an increase in FDI on growth is higher for the countries with well developed markets. The calibration exercise also shows the importance of the other local conditions such as market structure and human capital---the absorptive capacities---for the effect of FDI on economic growth.

How Does Foreign Direct Investment Promote Economic Growth? Exploring the Effects of Financial Markets on Linkages

Nominal versus Indexed Debt: A Quantitative Horse Race (joint with Fabio Kanczuk)

There are different arguments in favor and against nominal and indexed debt which broadly include the incentive to default through inflation versus hedging against unforeseen shocks. We model these arguments and calibrate the model to assess the quantitative importance of each. We use a dynamic equilibrium model with tax distortion, government outlays, uncertainty, and contingent debt service, which we take to mean nominal debt. In the model, the benefits of defaulting through inflation are tempered by higher future interest rates. We obtain that calibrated costs from contingent inflation more than offset the benefits for any amount of nominal debt. We further discuss sustainability of nominal debt in volatile (developing) countries.

Nominal Versus Indexed Debt: A Quantitative Horse Race

Debt Maturity: Is Long-Term Debt Optimal? (with Fabio Kanczuk)

We model and calibrate the arguments in favor and against short-term and long-term debt. These arguments broadly include: maturity-term premium, tax smoothing, rolling over risk and the cost from defaulting. We use a dynamic equilibrium model with tax distortion, government outlays uncertainty, and model maturity as the fraction of debt that needs to be rolled over ever period. In the model, the benefits of defaulting are tempered by higher future interest rates. We obtain that the calibrated costs from defaulting long-term debt more than offset other costs associated with short-term debt. Therefore, short-term debt implies in higher welfare levels.

Debt Maturity: Is Long-Term Debt Optimal?

Multinationals and Linkages: an Empirical Investigation (joint with Andres Rodriguez-Clare)

Several recent papers have used plant-level data and panel econometric techniques to carefully explore the existence FDI externalities. One conclusion that emerges from this literature is that it is difficult to find evidence of positive externalities from multinationals to local firms in the same sector (horizontal externalities). In fact, many studies find evidence of negative horizontal externalities arising from multinational activity while confirming the existence of positive externalities from multinationals to local firms in upstream industries (vertical externalities). In this paper we explore the channels through which these positive and negative externalities may be materializing, focusing on the role of backward linkages. In particular, we criticize the common usage of the domestic sourcing coefficient as an indicator of a firms linkage potential and propose an alternative, theoretically derived indicator. We then use plant-level data from several Latin American countries to compare multinationals linkage potential to that of domestic firms. We find that multinationals linkage potential in Brazil, Chile and Venezuela is higher than for domestic firms. For Mexico, we cannot reject the hypothesis that foreign and local firms have similar linkage potential. Finally, we discuss the relationship between this finding and the conclusions that emerge from the recent empirical literature.

Multinationals and Linkages: An Empirical Investigation

FDI and Economic Growth: The Role of the Local Financial Markets (joint with Areendam Chanda, Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan, Selin Sayek)

In this paper, we examine the various links among foreign direct investment (FDI), financial markets, and economic growth. We explore whether countries with better financial systems can exploit FDI more efficiently. Empirical analysis, using cross-country data between 1975-1995, shows that FDI alone plays an ambiguous role in contributing to economic growth. However, countries with well-developed financial markets gain significantly from FDI. The results are robust to different measures of financial market development, the inclusion of other determinants of economic growth, and consideration of endogeneity.

FDI and Economic Growth: The Role of the Local Financial Markets

Growth and the Quality of Foreign Direct Investment: Is All FDI Equal? (joint with Andrew Charlton)

In this paper we distinguish different qualities of FDI to re-examine the relationship between FDI and growth. Establishing the quality of FDI, however, is a difficult concept. Quality, that is the effect of a unit of FDI on economic growth, is a combination and interaction of many different country and project characteristics, those characteristics are hard to measure and the data quality is generally poor. Hence, we broadly differentiate quality FDI in several different ways. First, we look at the possibility that the effects of FDI differ by sector. Second, we differentiate FDI based on objective qualitative industry characteristics including the average skill intensity and reliance on external capital. Third, we use a new dataset on industry-level targeting to analyze quality FDI based on the subjective preferences expressed by the receiving countries themselves, since no one characteristic of FDI can determine quality and because the quality of FDI is the interaction of investment and country characteristics. Finally, we use a two-stage least squares methodology to control for measurement error and endogeneity to establish the quality of FDI as determined by countries themselves. Exploiting a new comprehensive industry level data set of 29 countries between 1985 and 2000, we find that the growth effects of FDI increase when we account for the quality of FDI.

Growth and the Quality of Foreign Direct Investment

Inflation, Openness, and Exchange-Rate Regimes. The Quest for Short-Term Commitment

This paper further tests Romers (1993) extension of Kydland and Prescotts (1977) predictions on dynamic-inconsistency problems with regard to open economies. In a panel data set, I find that openness does not seem to play a role in the short run in restricting inflation, but a fixed exchange-rate regime plays a significant role. This result is robust to the use Reinhart and Rogoffs (2002) exchange rate regime classification. If the openness-inflation relationship arises from the dynamic inconsistency of discretionary monetary policy, the relationship is weaker in countries with fixed exchange-rate regimes.

Inflation, Openness, and Exchange-Rate Regimes

Capital Controls, Risk and Liberalization Cycles (joint with Fabio Kanczuk)

We construct an Overlapping-Generations model where agents vote on whether to open or close the economy to international capital flows. Political decisions are shaped by the risk over capital and labor returns. In an open economy, the capitalists (old) completely hedge their savings income. In contrast, in a closed economy, the workers (young) partially insulate wages from the productivity shocks. We find three possible equilibrium outcomes: economies that eventually remain open, those that eventually remain closed, and those that cycle between open and closed. In line with the stylized fact, cycles are more common in economies with moderate development levels.

Capital Controls, Risk and Liberalization Cycles

Capital flows in a Globalized Economy: The Role of Policies and Institutions (joint with Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan and Vadym Volosovych)

We describe the patterns of international capital flows in the period 1970-2000. We then examine the determinants of capital flows and capital flow volatility during this period. We find that institutional quality is an important determinant of capital flows. Historical determinants of institutional quality have a direct effect on today's foreign investment. Policy plays a significant role in explaining the increase in the level of capital flows and their volatility. Local financial structure measured as the share of bank credit in total is associated with high volatility of capital flows..

Capital Flows in a Globalized Economy

On the Political Economy of Stabilization Programs

This paper provides a political economy explanation for temporary exchange-rate-based stabilization programs by focusing on the distributional effects of real exchange-rate appreciation. I propose an economy in which agents are endowed with either tradable or nontradable goods. Under a cash-in-advance assumption, a temporary reduction in the devaluation rate induces a consumption boom accompanied by real appreciation, which hurts the owners of tradable goods. The owners of nontradables have to weigh two opposing effects: an increase in the present value of nontradable goods wealth and a negative intertemporal substitution effect. For reasonable parameter values, owners of nontradables are better off.

On the Political Economy of Stabilization Programs

Recipient of a Harvard China Fund Faculty Grant in 2018.

Recipient of a 2016 Lemann Brazil Research Fund Award from Harvard University.

Named Warren Alpert Professor of Business Administration, 2013.

Named Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, 2013.

Named a Young Global Leader 2008 by the World Economic Forum. The honor, bestowed annually, recognizes leaders in business, government, academia, and the media—below the age of 41—for their professional accomplishments, their commitment to society, and their potential to contribute to shaping the future of the world.

Named Faculty Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research, 2007.

Recipient of Dissertation Award, Department of Economics, University of California, Los Angeles, 1998.

Recipient of Fellowship, Foundation Francisco Marroquín, 1993-1999.