Online Australasian Seminar in International Economics (OASIS)
Deakin University, James Cook University, Melbourne University, Monash University, University of Auckland
Online Australasian Seminar in International Economics (OASIS)
Deakin University, James Cook University, Melbourne University, Monash University, University of Auckland
Welcome to the OASIS! OASIS is co-organized by A/Professor Reshad Ahsan, Professor Phillip McCalman, Dr. Krisztina Orbán, Dr. Cong S. Pham, Dr. Maria Ptashkina, A/Professor Laura Puzzello, A/Professor Asha Sundaram, Dr. Haiping Zhang, and A/Professor Sizhong Sun.
This is a seminar series on international economics-related topics for economists based in Australia and New Zealand and invited international speakers from around the world.
The format of the seminar is a 60-minute talk followed by a 15-minute Q&A. Unless otherwise specified, seminars will take place on the second and fourth Wednesday of each month. To convert the AEST or NZST time to your time zone, please click here.
Please email oasis.intlecon@gmail.com to sign up for the OASIS mailing list.
UPCOMING OASIS SEMINAR:
November 26, Time 9:00 AEDT (8:00 NZDT)
Speaker: Anais Galdin (Tuck School of Business)
Title: Resilience of Global Supply Chains and Generic Drug Shortages
Abstract: Since 2009, U.S. hospitals have faced chronic shortages of generic (off-patent) injectable drugs, defying the expectation that competitive pressures would quickly resolve excess demand in this commodity-like market. Over the same period, production of generic drugs shifted dramatically to the Global South. I document the causal impact of offshore facilities on U.S. shortages by constructing a novel dataset that maps the exact manufacturing location of injectable drugs sold in the U.S., thereby resolving pervasive traceability issues in globalized pharmaceutical supply chains. Drugs produced by Asian manufacturing plants face a 54 percentage-point higher probability of shortages compared to their U.S. counterparts, with shortages lasting 130 days longer on average. To shed light on the incentive mechanisms behind supply disruptions, I then develop and estimate a partial-equilibrium model of global procurement in which manufacturers trade off cost-cutting and reliability investments, endogenously translating into higher shortage risks in offshore locations. I estimate the model by GMM to recover location‑specific disruption probabilities, demand and cost parameters, finding that hospital buyers place no weight on manufacturers' shortage history. Offshoring enables drug manufacturers to exploit laxer regulatory oversight and target higher disruption risks than permissible in the U.S., in exchange for lower production costs. The resulting increase in supply disruption risk, combined with price stickiness and lumpy production capacity in generic injectable markets, generates persistent shortage spells once production globalizes. Counterfactual simulations reveal that reshoring subsidies result in substantial price increases with limited consumer welfare gains. Spot-price increases during shortages fail to significantly increase consumer surplus as they do not address lumpy capacity adjustments. In contrast, enforcing failure-to-supply penalties in contracts improves consumer surplus by raising manufacturers' expected cost of a disruption, inducing ex-ante reliability investments and reducing shortage spells. Sharp reductions in patients forced into the outside option result in large welfare gains that are not offset by the associated price increases.
PROGRAM - 2025 - Semester 2
November 26, Time 9:00 AEDT (11:00 NZDT)
Anais Galdin (Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College)
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August 13, Time 16:30 AEST (18:30 NZST)
Feodora Teti (Princeton University, LMU Munich, Ifo Institute)
Title: Missing Tariffs
August 27, Time 9:00 AEST (11:00 NZST)
Anca Cristea (University of Oregon)
Title: Organized Labor When Things Go South: Unions and the Labor Market Consequences of NAFTA
September 10, Time 9:00 AEST (11:00 NZST)
Jim Tybout (Penn State University)
Title: Two-sided Search in International Markets
September 24, Time 9:00 AEST (11:00 NZST)
Lidya Cox (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Title: The Macroeconomic Effects of the Buy American Act (with Miguel Acosta)
October 22, Time 18:00 AEDT (20:00 NZDT)
Isabella Manelici (LSE)
Title: The Gains from Foreign Multinationals in an Economy with Distortions (with Mauricio Ulate, Jose P. Vasquez and Roman David Zarate)
November 12, Time 10 AEDT (8:00 NZDT)
Jonathan Dingel (Columbia University)
Title: Market Size and Trade in Medical Services
(with Joshua D. Gottlieb, Maya Lozinski, Pauline Mourot)