Research

Publications:

• Understanding the Effect of Financial Behaviour on Mental Health: Evidence From Australia (With R. Banerjee , K. Lushington and B. Lowies), Stress and Health (2025)

Write up in New York Post, The Economic Times, Making of a Millionaire, StudyFinds, NewsWise, Medical Xpress, IndianLink, Investopedia, SciTechDaily

• Understanding women’s preferences for long-acting reversible contraceptives in Gondar, Ethiopia: a discrete choice experiment (with Ambaw O., Minyhun A., Baykeda T., Tewabe H., Andargie E., Belay Y., and Si L.), Health Economics Review (2025)

• Improving Exports: Quasi-Experimental Evidence from the Ethiopia Commodity Exchange. (With Habtamu Edjigu and Nicholas Sim), The World Economy (2025)

• Real Exchange Rate Misalignment and Business Cycle Fluctuations in Asia and the Pacific. (With Pundit, M., Ramayandi, A., & Sim, N.), Asian Economic Journal (2023), 1– 26.

• Minimizing COVID-19 Transmission Cases: Do Policies and Institutions Matter? (with Shandre Thangavelu, Vutha Hing, and Patrick N. Osakwe), The World Economy (2022). 

• Industrial subsidies and impact on exports of trading partners: Case of China. (With Shandre Thangavelu), Review of Development Economics (2022), 00, 1–28. 

• The Impacts of Trade Restrictions on World Agricultural Price Volatility during the COVID-19 Pandemic, (With Wenshou Yan, Yan Cai, & Faqin Lin), China and World Economy (2021), 29, 140-158. 

• Real Exchange Rate Misalignment and Civil Conflict: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa, (with Nicholas Sim), Oxford Economic Papers (2019), 73(1), 178-199 

• Is Inflation Targeting or the Fixed Exchange Rate More Effective for Attracting FDI into Developing Countries?, (with Nicholas Sim), Applied Economics Letters (2018), 25.7: 499-503. 

Working papers:

• Do Foreign Firms Influence the Energy Efficiency of Local Firms in Low-Income Countries? Evidence from Ethiopia (With Y. Ayele, A. Ampofo, R. Banerjee, and N. Mengistie)

• Urban Amenities, City Agglomerations, and Firm Performance: Evidence from Australia (With Tony Cavoli, Christopher Findlay, and Shandre Thangavelu)

• Agricultural subsidy, shocks, and civil conflict in Africa (with Y. Ayele and S. Walelign)

• Landlockedness, Trade Cost and Trade: Evidence from a Natural Experiment in Ethiopia, (with Habtamu Edjigu and Nicholas Sim) 

• Does Emergency Food Aid Increase Civil Conflict in the Recipient Countries? (Under Review)

• Impacts of the US-China trade war: International Evidence, (with Tony Cavoli and Peter Draper) (Under Review)

• Barriers to the Diffusion of Technology Across Countries: the Impact of Genetic Distance on Firm Productivity, (with Firmin Doko Tchatoka, Habtamu Edjigu, and Nicholas Sim)

•  Business Environments and Firm Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa, (with Habtamu Edjigu and Yohannes Ayele) (Under Review)

Selected work in progress:

• Foreign Firm Presence and Domestic Firm Productivity: Evidence from Australia (With F. D. Tchatoka and A. Ampofo)

• The Impact of Financial Behaviour on Retirement Confidence: A Comparative Household Study from Australia and South Africa  (With R. Banerjee , K. Lushington, B. Lowies, N. Dhlembeu, H. Schalkwyk, and J. Visagie)

• Linkage between industrial subsidies and Global Value Chains (GVCs) participation

• Real Exchange Rate Misalignment and the Democratic Window of Opportunity

Book Chapters:

•  Agricultural Commodity Trade: What are the Major Issues? In Abate, T., (ed.), 2024, The Untold Stories of African Agriculture: Lessons from Ethiopia (pp.355-365). CABI International Publishing. (with Abate, T., and Yohannes, M. F.) 

• Lessons from the pandemic for future WTO subsidy rules, In Evenett S. and Baldwin R. (ed.), 2021, Revitalising Multilateralism: Pragmatic Ideas for the New WTO Director-General. (with Peter Draper and Henry Gao)

• FDI activities and integration in ASEAN and East Asia. In Kimura F., Pangestu M., Thangavelu S. M., and Findlay C, (Ed.), 2020, Handbook on East Asian Economic Integration. Edward Elgar Publishing. (with Shandre Mugan Thangavelu, Shujiro Urata)

Policy reports:

• Strengthening African Agricultural Trade: The Case For Domestic Support Entitlement Reforms. IIT working paper 07, 2022 (With Ken Ash, Peter Draper, & Hilton Zunckel).

• The Commonwealth’s Trade Landscape in a Post-COVID World, International Trade Working Paper 2020/13, Commonwealth Secretariat, London. (With Peter Draper)

• Industrial Subsidies, Market Competition, Global Trade, and Investment: Towards a Research Agenda (with Peter Draper, Andreas Freytag, Naoise McDonagh, Wenxiao Wang  & Keith Wilson) 

Ph.D. Dissertation:

• Ambaw D.T. (2018), Essays on political economy and economic development. Thesis (Ph.D.) -- The University of Adelaide, School of Economics.