"The impact of input-trade liberalization on firms' borrowings" with Maria Bas, Journal of Comparative Economics, 2025.
Abstract: Trade liberalization creates incentives for firms to upgrade domestic and foreign technology, embodied in imported intermediate and capital goods, which play a central role in the economic growth of developing countries. Firms require access to financial resources to pay the fixed cost of technology upgrading and sourcing foreign inputs from abroad. This paper investigates the micro-economic effects of input-trade liberalization on firms’ demand of external finance. Relying on firm-level data during India’s trade liberalization episode in the early 1990s, we present novel evidence on the relationship between exogenous changes in input tariffs across industries over time and within-firm changes in borrowings. We demonstrate that firms sourcing inputs from abroad and producing in industries that have experienced greater input tariff reductions experienced a higher increase in borrowings. The 33 percentage points decrease in input tariffs over the period is associated with almost 13 percent increase in the borrowings of firms that source inputs from abroad. This empirical finding is robust to alternative specifications that control for alternative explanations.
"Imported Inputs and Firm Labour Organization"
Abstract: Sourcing inputs from abroad influences the scale of the firm. Conditional on this scale effect, this article aims to show that it can have occupation-specific impacts. Relying on firm-level administrative data from France between 2002 and 2015, I find that the relative demand for CEOs and blue collar workers decreases while the relative demand for senior managers and supervisors increases with no significant impact on white collar workers. These results are robust to alternative specifications. Using Rauch (1999) classification to identify differentiated and homogeneous inputs, I show that the increase in the share of senior managers is driven by the demand for engineers who complement the differentiated imported inputs. Moreover, the decline in the share of blue collar workers is driven by the demand for skilled blue collar workers who are substituted by the homogeneous imported inputs.
"Human Rights Due Diligence and Trade: Evidence from the French Duty of Vigilance Law " with Léa Marchal & Frauke Steglich .
Abstract: Although participation in global value chains (GVCs) is widely associated with economic benefits, the sustainability of production in GVCs is increasingly controversial. As a result, several industrialized countries have introduced laws on human rights due diligence (HRDD) that mandate companies to ensure specific minimum standards for themselves and the suppliers along their value chains. Some fear that less developed countries might be displaced from global supply chains and that, thus, the goal of improving working conditions and environmental outcomes in developing countries might be missed. In this paper, we use the French HRDD legislation to analyze the impacts of such laws on firms' trading strategies, especially with developing countries. Using French firm-customs data and a difference-in-difference approach, we explore the risk of trade diversion – the shift from high-risk to relatively low-risk trading partners regarding the risk of negative social and environmental externalities. In so doing, we explore sector, country, and relationship-specific heterogeneity and consider differences in firms’ exposure to human rights risks in their supply chains. Preliminary findings indicate no overall change in imports but a drop in imports and a reduction in the number of import markets from less developed countries.
"WORLD TRADE REPORT 2025: Making trade and AI work together to the benefit of all" , World Trade Organization flagship report, September 2025.
Contributed as a research assistant to the data analysis, data interpretation and literature reviews on how trade can make AI development more inclusive .