Job Market Paper
Job Market Paper
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Abstract:
Firms frequently source standardized inputs from multiple countries, a costly strategy that challenges standard trade models. This paper shows that firms diversify not only to gain variety but also to create competition among suppliers and to hedge against supply disruptions. Using French customs data, I provide causal evidence for this dual motive with a shift–share instrument that exploits exogenous changes in the geopolitical risk of potential new supplier countries. When firms diversify in response to these shocks, their incumbent suppliers are forced to lower prices substantially, revealing a strong pro-competitive effect concentrated among large firms. To interpret these findings, I develop and estimate a structural model of global sourcing that incorporates both disruption risk and oligopolistic competition. Counterfactual analyses reveal that while both channels matter, the competition mechanism plays a quantitatively larger role in shaping firms’ diversification behavior and price outcomes.
Work in Progress
Work in Progress
Abstract:
This paper investigates how international trade shapes gender inequality within firms through the diffusion of cultural norms. Using matched employer–employee data linked to firm-level trade records for France, we show that firms more exposed to trade with countries characterized by greater gender inequality exhibit lower female employment shares and wider gender wage gaps. Event-study evidence suggests that these effects emerge gradually after new trade relationships are established, consistent with a process of cultural transmission rather than immediate economic competition. The results highlight that globalization not only reallocates production across countries but can also transmit social norms, shaping gender inequality in the domestic labor market.
Transportation Shock Through Production Networks: Evidence From US Air Routes
Transportation Shock Through Production Networks: Evidence From US Air Routes
Abstract:
This paper studies how improvements in transportation infrastructure reshape production networks and firm performance. I develop a model in which firms endogenously form supplier–buyer relationships across locations, facing both iceberg trade costs and location-pair-specific fixed costs of establishing connections. The model shows that lower connection frictions lead firms to form new links and expand the network, amplifying productivity through direct and indirect channels. I test these predictions using detailed firm-to-firm transaction data from the Compustat Segment Database and exploit the introduction of new direct air routes in the United States as quasi-experimental reductions in connection costs. Consistent with the model, the opening of air routes increases the likelihood that firms located along the new routes form new trading relationships. These effects translate into higher local firm performance and propagate to their first-tier customers, highlighting the networked nature of the gains from transportation infrastructure. The results reveal that improvements in connectivity generate sizable economic benefits not only for directly affected firms but also across the production network.
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