Research

My main research interests focus on macroeconomics, international economics, and household heterogeneity. I am particularly interested in the development of macroeconomic models that are consistent with microeconomic heterogeneity, both by identifying and incorporating different types of micro-frictions, as well as introducing micro-foundations for frictions already examined in the literature.

Working Papers

“Do Capital Inflows Spur Technology Diffusion? Evidence from a New Technology Adoption Index” joint with Andrea Manera (IMF) [March 2024, IMF WP version]

We construct a novel measure of technology adoption, the Embodied Technology Imports Indicator (ETI), available for 181 countries over the period 1970-2020. The ETI measures the technological intensity of imports of each country by leveraging patent data from PATSTAT and product-level trade data from COMTRADE. We use this index to assess the link between capital flows and the diffusion of new technologies across emerging economies and low-income countries. Through a local projection difference-in-differences approach, we establish that variations in statutory capital flow regulations increase technological intensity by 7-9 percentage points over 5 to 10 years. This increase is accompanied by a significant 28-33 pp rise in the volume of gross capital inflows, driven primarily by foreign direct investment (21 pp increase), and a 9 to 12 percentage points shift in the level of Real GDP per capita in PPP terms.


“Emerging markets, household heterogeneity, and exchange rate policy”  [November 2022]

I argue that household heterogeneity plays a key role in the transmission of aggregate shocks in emerging market economies. Using Mexico's 1995 crisis as a case study, I first document empirically that working in the tradable versus non-tradable sector is a crucial determinant of the income and consumption losses of different types of households. Specifically, households in the non-tradable sector suffered much larger income and consumption losses regardless of other household characteristics. To account for the effect of this observation on macroeconomic dynamics, I construct a New Keynesian small open economy model with household heterogeneity along two dimensions: uninsurable sector-specific income and limited financial-market participation. I find that the propagation of shocks in this economy is affected by both dimensions of heterogeneity, with uninsurable sector-specific income playing a quantitatively larger role. In terms of policy, a managed exchange rate policy is more costly overall when households are heterogeneous; however, households in the non-tradable sector benefit from it.


Work in progress

"A Macroeconomic Framework of Climate Adaptation" joint with Vu Chau (IMF) and Filiz Unsal (IMF, OECD)

We build a small open economy model to analyze climate adaptation in developing economies. We model slow-onset climate risks as the slow-moving depletion of land. Our model features endogenous entry and adaptation choice in the land-intensive agricultural sector, while firms are neoclassical in the manufacturing and services sectors.  We find that the aggregate and distributional benefits of adaptation depend on the financial frictions faced by firms, and the interaction with mitigation policies can hinder adaptation choice.


“Optimal policy and the underground economy: a transactions-based approach” 

I use a transactions-based approach, as in Lagos and Wright (2005), to study the role of inflation as a revenue instrument in an environment where not all transactions are observable by the government and money is used as a payment instrument. Since consumers can choose the type of transaction they participate in, the government faces a trade-off between using distortive taxes on observable transactions and taxing unobservable transactions using inflation in order to finance government spending.


“Macroprudential policies with heterogeneous households”

“Women and the labor market of politics” joint with Analía Gomez Vidal (University of Maryland)