Author Archives: Kritchasorn Jarupasin

IIPF Doctoral School 2016

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Social Insurance Programs

Mannheim, Germany
June 15-18, 2016

Convenors:
Luigi Pistaferri, Stanford University
Josef Zweimüller, University of Zurich

Co-organized with:
CESifo, Munich
MaTax, ZEW Mannheim and University of Mannheim
Office of Tax Policy Research, University of Michigan
Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation

The aim of IIPF Schools is to provide a forum in which new researchers can meet to learn about and discuss issues at the forefront of academic research in specific fields of public finance. Each School will be convened by leading and experienced researchers in the relevant field. The convenors will deliver lectures on, and provide an overview of, the School’s topic. New researchers will also have the opportunity to present their own research and receive constructive feedback.

The topic of the 2016 edition of the School will be Social Insurance Programs, and the convenors will be two distinguished experts on this topic:

  •  Luigi Pistaferri, Professor of Economics, Stanford University.
  •  Josef Zweimüller, Professor of Economics, University of Zurich.

Further details and current information

Financial Support
With support from co-organizers and other contributors, the IIPF will cover travel costs, accommodation and subsistence costs for a limited number of participants who are unable to raise funds elsewhere.

TAPES conference
Directly before the IIPF School, on June 13-15, 2016, the ZEW/NBER Trans-Atlantic Public Economics Seminar (TAPES) will be taking place at ZEW in Mannheim. The TAPES conference is often considered to be among the most important international conferences in the field of public economics. Participants at the IIPF Doctoral School 2016 are welcome to attend the workshop. More information

Applications
Places in the School are limited. Anyone who is currently enrolled in a relevant PhD programme, or has graduated from a relevant PhD programme within the last 3 years, is invited to apply to participate in the School. The IIPF especially encourages applications from low and middle income countries.
To apply, please send an email to school@iipf.org by February 29, 2016. The email should contain the following information:

  •  your CV, including details of PhD courses attended, and PhD supervisors;
  •  a brief summary of your research agenda;
  •  a research paper (if you wish to present it at the School; this is not required);
  • an indication of whether you need support for expenses for participating;
  • an indication of whether you would like to attend the TAPES conference (this does not affect acceptance probability);
  • one letter of reference, preferably from your PhD supervisor.

Successful applicants will be notified by mid-March 2016.

Please contact Philipp Doerrenberg (doerrenberg@zew.de) or Barbara Hebele (hebele@ifo.de) in case of questions or inquiries.

The 15th Annual GEP Postgraduate Conference 2016 University of Nottingham, United Kingdom — April 14-15, 2016

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Keynote speaker: Dr Giammario Impullitti (University of Nottingham)

Objectives

The Conference provides a forum for the dissemination of student research relating to issues of Globalisation and Economic Policy from both theoretical and empirical perspectives.The objective of the Conference is to bring together a number of young researchers to discuss their own research ideas with established researchers in a relaxed atmosphere. The Conference is open to graduate students, as well as to post-docs, engaged in the preparation or revision of a doctoral dissertation. Speakers will be selected on the basis of submitted papers or an extended abstract.

Submission
Applicants must submit their CV, a letter of support from their PhD supervisor (sent separately by email; this is not required for post-docs) and the paper to be presented. If a full paper is not yet available, please include a detailed abstract, providing clearly the motivation for the work, the relationship to the literature, the method used and the expected results. Those who are invited to present a paper are expected to deliver a complete paper before the Conference and in time for distribution among the participants.

Applications should be sent by e-mail to:

Dr Roberto Bonfatti (roberto.bonfatti@nottingham.ac.uk)
Deadline for submission: 30 January 2016

Finance

There is an £180 registration fee to contribute towards costs, which includes up to two nights’ accommodation (13th and 14th April).

Best Paper Prize
The organising committee will award a prize of ₤100 to the best paper presented at the Conference.

Further information
Further information on the Conference can be found at the website

Weather Shocks, Natural Disasters, and Economic Outcomes

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The ‘new weather-economy literature’ applies panel methods to examine how weather-related events such as temperature, precipitation and windstorms affect economic outcomes such as output, labor productivity and conflict.  By capturing exogenous variation in weather related events over time within a given spatial unit, the literature helps inform classic issues of economic development and especially the role of geographic features in influencing development paths.  This in turn contributes to the debate over the competing explanations of institutions and geography in explaining economic development.  Overall, this literature establishes that temperature, precipitation and extreme weather events exert economically meaningful and statistically significant influences on a variety of economic outcomes.  A key finding is that panel estimates tend to predict economically and statistically significant negative impacts of hotter temperatures on per-capita income but only for poor countries.

A branch of this literature examines the effects of natural disasters on economic growth.  In a technical sense, natural disasters have the same appeal as other weather related shocks in that they are exogenous.  Natural disasters are distinguished from other weather related shocks in that they are more destructive.  This feature provides a reasonably straightforward connection to the predictions of growth theory in that the destruction of capital leads initially to an inward shift of the production possibility frontier and so a sharp contraction of growth, but then a recovery process during which the growth rate may be higher than that in the steady state.  Yet there are many subtleties that are amenable to econometric testing.  For example, models based on Schumpeter’s creative destruction process may even ascribe higher growth as a result of negative shocks, as these shocks can be catalysts for reinvesting and upgrading of capital goods.  On the other hand, endogenous growth models that exploit increasing returns to scale in production generally predict that a destruction of part of the physical or human capital stock result in a lower growth path and, consequently, a permanent deviation from the previous growth trajectory.  Also, economic openness that allows for an inflow of capital from abroad and good institutions that can be used effectively to defend property rights should all speed up the recovery process.  Here a consensus appears to be emerging that the initial impact of a shock on growth is indeed negative and that this is followed by a recovery phase during which growth accelerates.  Moreover, better institutional quality, greater openness to trade, and greater financial openness all help support faster recovery.  In future research, the new datasets on weather related shocks and natural disasters could be fruitfully applied to many other questions, including the relation between disasters and trade patterns, migration patterns, poverty and inequality.

Albala-Bertrand, J.-M., (1993); Political Economy of Large Natural Disasters. Oxford, Clarendon Press.

Caballero, R.J., and M.L. Hammour, (1994); “The Cleansing Effect of Recessions.” American Economic Review 84: 1350–1368. [Working paper version]

Cavallo, E., S. Galiani, I. Noy, and J. Pantano, (2013); “Catastrophic Natural Disasters and Economic Growth.” Review of Economics and Statistics, 95(5): 1549–1561. [Working paper version]

Cavallo, E.A., and I. Noy, (2011); “Natural Disasters and the Economy – A Survey.” International Review of Environmental and Resource Economics 5: 63–102. [Working paper version]

Dell, M., B.F. Jones, and B.A. Olken, (2012); “Temperature Shocks and Economic Growth: Evidence from the Last Half Century.” American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, 4(3): 66-95. [Working paper version]

Dell, M., B. Jones, and B. Olken, (2014); “What Do We Learn from the Weather? The New Climate-Economy Literature.” Journal of Economic Literature, 52(3): 740-798. [Working paper version]

Felbermayr, G., and J. Gröschl, (2014); “Naturally Negative: The Growth Effects of Natural Disasters.” Journal of Development Economics, 111: 92-106. [Working paper version]

Miguel, E., S. Satyanath, and E. Sergenti, (2004); “Economic Shocks and Civil Conflict: An Instrumental Variables Approach.” Journal of Political Economy 112(4): 725-753. [Working paper version]

Welcome new members

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We would like to welcome the following new members of the InsTED network.

Prof. Gouranga Das (Hanyang University) His primary research fields are trade and development, computable general equilibrium modeling, technological change, and outsourcing.

Prof. Carl Davidson (Michigan State University) His research falls into two general areas: the influence of labor market structure on issues related to international trade and the development of models of oligopolistic behavior.

Dr. Tim Schmidt-Eisenlohr (The Federal Reserve Board) His research interests include international trade, international finance, international macroeconomics and public economics.

New Working Papers – November 2015

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The following working papers have recently been added to our working papers page.

Bartelme, Dominick and Yuriy Gorodnichenko (2015) “Linkages and Economic Development”

Boehm, Johannes (2015) “The Impact of Contract Enforcement Costs on Outsourcing and Aggregate Productivity”

Bove, Vincenzo, Jean-Philippe Platteau and Petros G. Sekeris (2015)  “Political repression in autocratic regimes”

Glaeser, Edward L., Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto and Yimei Zou (2015)  “Urban Networks: Spreading the Flow of Goods, People, and Ideas”  

Peng, Shin-Kun, Raymond Riezman and Ping Wang (2014) “Intermediate Goods Trade, Technology Choice and Productivity”

The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality

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“The world is a better place than it used to be. People are healthier, wealthier, and live longer. Yet the escapes from destitution by so many has left gaping inequalities between people and nations. In The Great Escape, Angus Deaton–one of the foremost experts on economic development and on poverty–tells the remarkable story of how, beginning 250 years ago, some parts of the world experienced sustained progress, opening up gaps and setting the stage for today’s disproportionately unequal world. Deaton takes an in-depth look at the historical and ongoing patterns behind the health and wealth of nations, and addresses what needs to be done to help those left behind…” [Publisher’s book website]

Author’s book website

Reviews / Comments

Book review by David N. Weil in Journal of Economic Literature, 53(1), 102–114, March 2015.

Book review by Bill Gates, April 2014.

Book review by Kenneth Rogoff in Project Syndicate, January 2014.

Book review by David Leonhardt in The New York Times, December 2013.

Book review by Uwe E. Reinhardt in The New York Times, November 2013.

In sickness and in health by The Economist, October 2013.

Book review by Fred Andrews in  The New York Times, October 2013.

Book review by Edward Hadas in Reuters, October 2013.

Book review by Clive Crook in Bloomberg, October 2013.

Book review by Niranjan Rajadhyaksha in Mint, October 2013.

Book review by Johm McDermott in Financial Times, October 2013.

Book review by Konrad Yakabuski in Globe and Mail, October 2013.

Book review by Charan Singh in Business Standard, October 2013.

Book review by Zack Beauchamp in Think Progress, October 2013

Book review by Kitty Stewart in Times Higher Education, October 2013

Call for papers: An International Conference on International Trade

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An International Conference on International Trade,

13-16 June 2016, Athens, Greece.

 

The Athens Institute for Education and Research (ATINER), a world association of academics and researchers, organizes An International Conference on International Trade, 13-16 June 2016, Athens, Greece.

Submission

Please submit a 300-word abstract before 16 November 2015, by email (), addressed to Mr. Athanasios Mihalakas, Academic Member, ATINER & Assistant Professor, The State University of New York, at Brockport, USA.

Please include: Title of Paper, First Name, Family name of all co-authors, Current Position of all co-authors, Institutional Affiliation (University/Organization) of all co-authors, Country of all co-authors, an email address of all co-authors and at least 3 keywords that best describe the subject of your submission. Decisions will be reached within four weeks of your submission.

 

Should you wish to participate in the Conference as a chair of a session, evaluate papers which are to be included in the conference proceedings or books, contribute to the editing of a book, or any other contribution, please send an email to Dr. Gregory T. Papanikos, President, ATINER & Honorary Professor, University of Stirling, UK ().

Learning Externalities and International Trade

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It has long been recognized that the dynamic effects of trade, such as the learning externalities that drive technological change, are likely to dwarf the static gains.  According to the oral tradition in economics, the literature tended to focus on the static gains because the dynamic effects were poorly understood and supposedly impossible to measure.  Yet recent work conducting natural and field experiments has found large effects from learning externalities associated with international trade, potentially shattering the received wisdom that this type of effect cannot be measured.

Perhaps the oldest and best known learning externality of trade is associated with the infant industry argument for protection.  A developing country’s transformation curve shifts over time partly due to the learning-by-doing effect of “experience” in raising manufacturing productivity.  As a result the manufacturing sector is too small under laissez faire.  There is an efficiency gain to protecting or subsidising the manufacturing sector because the additional manufacturing output contributes to social benefit by enhancing future productivity.  Two challenges arise with identifying empirically the effects of infant industry protection.  First, even if the industry becomes competitive after receiving protection it is difficult to know whether it would have become competitive anyway.  Second, in the case of a policy intervention, it is not possible to disentangle the effect of the market imperfection from the effect of the policy intervention itself.  A recent paper by Réka Juhász has addressed both issues by treating the protective effect on the French cotton industry of the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) as a natural experiment.  Exogenous within-country variation in the effectiveness of the naval blockade makes it possible to address the first challenge identified above.  The fact that the protection does not arise as the result of a policy addresses the second.  The results show that areas that received a larger trade cost shock during the Napoleonic Wars increased production capacity in mechanised cotton spinning to a larger extent than areas which received a smaller shock.  This research suggests that economically significant learning effects can arise from protection.  Future research could usefully ask how to obtain these effects without falling into the usual traps that accompany protective interventions.

“Learning from exporting” is perhaps the newest type of learning externality to be identified in the literature on international trade and appears to have emerged from policy circles.  Early attempts to identify this effect found little evidence of it, finding instead that more productive firms tended to select into exporting and not the other way around.  But recent research by David Atkin, Amit Khandelwal and Adam Osman based on a randomised trial conducted in Egypt offers compelling evidence to the contrary.  The trial randomly assigns access to international markets across a sample of firms, making it possible to causally identify the impact of exporting on profits and productivity.  Treatment firms report 15-25 percent higher profits and exhibit large improvements in quality alongside reductions in output per hour relative to control firms.  These important results give rise to a new research agenda to understand the apparent conflict between the failure of early attempts to find learning externalities and the success of these new results.  A related question that could usefully be explored in future research concerns the extent to which these results vary with the quality of domestic institutions such as the rule of law and enforcement of property rights.

Baldwin, R., and P.R. Krugman, (1986); “Market Access and International Competition: A Simulation Study of 16K Random Access Memories.” NBER Working Paper no. 1936.

Bernard, A.B. and J.B. Jensen, (1999); “Exceptional Exporter Performance: Cause, Effect, or Both?” Journal of International Economics, 47: 1-25. [Working paper version]

Bond, E.W., and Y. Ma, (2013); “Learning by Doing and Fragmentation,” Pacific Economic Review, 18(5): 603-627.

Clerides, S.K., S. Lach and J.R. Tybout, (1998); “Is Learning by Exporting Important? Microdynamic Evidence from Columbia, Mexico and Morocco.” Quarterly Journal of Economics 113, 903-947.

De Loecker, J., (2007); “Do Export Generate Higher Productivity? Evidence from Slovenia.”  Journal of International Economics, 73: 609-644. [Working paper version]

Head, K. (1994); “Infant Industry Protection in the Steel Rail Industry.” Journal of International Economics, 37(3), 141-165.

Irwin, D.A., (2000); “Did Late-Nineteenth-Century US Tariffs Promote Infant Industries? Evidence from the Tinplate Industry.” The Journal of Economic History, 60(2): 335-360. [Working paper version]

Juhasz, R., (2014); “Temporary Protection and Technology Adoption: Evidence from the Napoleonic Blockade.” CEP Discussion Paper no. 1322.

Keller, W., (2004); “International Technology Diffusion.” Journal of Economic Literature, 43: 752-782. [Working paper version]

Rhee, Y., B. Ross-Larson and G. Pursell (1984); Korea’s Competitive Edge: Managing the Entry into World Markets. Johns Hopkins University Press for the World Bank, Baltimore, MD.

New Working Papers – October 2015

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The following working papers have recently been added to our working papers page.

Handley, Kyle and Nuno Limao (2014) “Policy Uncertainty, Trade and Welfare: Theory and Evidence for China and the U.S.”

Lashkaripour, Ahmad (2015) “Beyond Gravity: the Composition of Multilateral Trade Flows”

Leibovici, Fernando (2015) “Financial Development and International Trade”  

Lugovskyy, Volodymyr and Alexandre Skiba (2015) “Positive and Negative Effects of Distance on Export Prices”

 

 

Welcome new members

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We would like to welcome the following new members of the InsTED network.

Prof. Christian Robert Ahlin (Michigan State University) His research interests are in micro-finance, finance and development, matching and group formation, corruption and development, inequality, and industrial organization.

Prof. Dominick Bartelme (University of Michigan) His research interests are international trade, economic geography, and economic growth.

Prof. Christian Bogmans (University of Birmingham) His main research interests are in the fields of environmental and energy economics, and international trade.

Prof. Michael Callen (Harvard University) His research fields are development economics, political economy, and experimental economics

Prof. Jenny Guardado (Georgetown University) Her research examines the political and economic mechanisms affecting armed conflict, corruption, and economic development.

Saad Gulzar (New York University) His research interests are in political economy of development, governance, and technology.

Dr. Réka Juhász (Princeton University) Her research interests are in international trade, economic history, and  development and growth.

Gaurav Khanna (University of Michigan) His research focuses on education policy, high skill immigration, infrastructure, and public-works programs and conflict.

Dr. Tim Larsen (Vanderbilt University) His fields of interest are economic history, labor, development, and political economy

Dr. Stephan Litschig (The Institute for Economic Analysis) His research interests are development economics, public economics, political economics, and micro-econometrics.

Prof. Mary E. Lovely (Syracuse University) Her research interests are in international economics, and public economics.

Prof. Devashish Mitra (Syracuse University) His research interests are in international trade, political economy, and development economics.

Prof. Rahul Mukherjee (Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies) His broad areas of research are international macroeconomics, and finance.

Prof. Lourenço Paz (Baylor University) His research focuses on how international trade affect developing countries.

Prof. Thorsten Rogall (University of British Columbia) His recent work in progress are on the topics of income inequality and conflict, organized violence and voting, and community meetings.

Prof. Georg Schaur (University of Tennessee) His publications are in the filed of international economics, economic education, and environmental economics.