Ongoing research

1.  Produce at Home! Trade Disruption and Domestic Supply 

How do economies adjust when access to an established foreign supplier is disrupted? I address this question by combining transaction-level customs records with administrative VAT data from Rwanda. Leveraging the 2019 Rwanda--Uganda border closure and pre-existing differences in products' dependence on Ugandan supply, I find that (i) Uganda-origin imports collapse in more exposed product markets; (ii) imports from alternative foreign suppliers increase, particularly from Kenya and Tanzania, but do not fully replace the lost supply; and (iii) domestic production does not expand in more exposed markets, even among firms with greater pre-existing specialization in the affected products. The limited domestic response is also present among producers without direct pre-closure imports from Uganda. The findings suggest that, in this setting, adjustment to a major foreign supply disruption occurred primarily through reallocation across foreign suppliers rather than expansion of domestic production. Working paper, coming soon!!

2.  Origins of Large Firms: Evidence from Emerging and Developing Economies

3. Information Frictions, Capital Misallocation, and Firm Dynamics

4. Life Cycle of Firms and Access to Finance in Developing Countries

5. Managers and Allocation of Talent in the Public Sector