Research

Abstract: This paper studies when financial sanctions induce BRICS countries to coordinate alternative trade settlement regimes. Empirical evidence suggests that sanctions pressure is associated with intra-BRICS import reorientation, consistent with early signs of coalition-based adjustment. Motivated by this pattern, I develop a dynamic quantitative gravity framework in which dollar-settled trade faces stochastic payment-system frictions. Countries may instead coordinate on an alternative arrangement that insulates intra-coalition trade from the sanctions wedge but entails scale-dependent network costs and one-time switching costs. The model generates endogenous switching thresholds: collective adoption becomes optimal around seven active sanctions, while China–Russia initiation requires about nine and triggers rapid expansion through network cost compression. Evaluated at current heterogeneous sanctions exposure, only China–Russia is privately feasible, matching observed settlement patterns while explaining limited broader adoption. The framework offers policymakers a quantitative basis for anticipating when financial sanctions risk triggering more coordination among target countries.

(Submitted)

Abstract: This paper examines how large trade shocks affect workers differently over the life cycle and how these heterogeneous economic effects translate into electoral outcomes. Using the U.S. China Shock as a source of plausibly exogenous variation in local labor demand across commuting zones, I compare cohorts that age through the shock in more exposed locations to otherwise similar cohorts in less exposed areas. The analysis uses the Autor, Dorn, and Hanson import-penetration exposure measure for identification, while treating the 2000 granting of Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) to China as the institutional break that helps interpret the timing and intensity of the post-2000 shock. I show that workers approaching retirement in highly exposed commuting zones experience the largest and most persistent income losses, consistent with limited adjustment horizons and irreversible labor market disruptions. These losses are accompanied by significant political consequences: electoral punishment of incumbents is concentrated in locations where trade-induced income declines fall disproportionately on older, highly politically engaged cohorts. The results highlight a behavioral and political-economy amplification mechanism: trade shocks that generate concentrated losses among groups with high electoral participation can produce political responses that are large relative to the average economic shock.