About

Hi!

I am an Economics PhD Student at LMU Munich with a research interest in trade, spatial, & urban economics. I will be on the upcoming academic job market.

You can find my CV here.

Research

Working Papers

“Unproductive Exporters”

Job Market Paper, draft available soon

Abstract

This paper examines “only-exporters,” firms that sell almost exclusively abroad while forgoing their domestic market. About 19\% of exporters across countries are only-exporters, a pattern particularly prevalent in developing economies. These only-exporters are typically among the least productive firms and are most common in large, low-income countries with high trade integration. A model with non-homothetic preferences rationalizes these facts, showing that only-exporters emerge when low domestic income or intense domestic competition pushes them to serve richer, smaller, and less integrated foreign markets. Analyzing China’s WTO accession reveals that trade liberalization increases the share of these firms, reallocating market share toward the least productive firms. Consequently, aggregate productivity gains from trade disappear and, in some industries, can even become negative.

“Export Induced Spatial Divergence” joint with Lei Li and Jinfeng Luo (PDF)

Abstract

How does export liberalization affect firm location choice and the spatial concentration of eco- nomic activity? We address these questions using the geo-coordinates of Chinese manufacturing firms and find that export widens inter-city and intra-city spatial disparities by reinforcing ini- tially large industry centers. We first show that there has been an increased spatial concentration across cities in response to improved foreign market access. Only industry city pairs that were large initially increase their employment density following trade liberalization. Second, there has also been an increased spatial concentration within cities. For a given industry, districts closer to city centers are getting denser, mainly driven by the extensive margin. Third, the above effects are not exclusive to industries directly exposed to export shocks but also spill over positively to upstream and downstream industries and negatively to industries competing for the same workers locally.

Work in Progress

“Connect and Compete: Transport Infrastructure and Spatial Divergence”