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My research fields are International Trade and Industrial Organization.
Here you will find some information on my current papers. “Import Competition and Employment Dynamics”, 2007, mimeo Abstract: In order to quantify the effect of foreign competition in domestic industries and to elucidate the cross-country differences that have been observed in response to intensified import competition, this paper presents and estimates an open industry model under monopolistic competition and aggregate uncertainty. It thus provides a novel method for rigorously characterizing how firms adjust to intensified import competition and aggregate shocks in a structural framework. In the model, heterogeneous firms face competition both from outside the country through imports and from inside the country in the domestic market. Firms react to changes in the competitive environment through both hiring and firing on the intensive margin and entry and exit at the extensive margin.
The model's parameters, including the sunk start-up costs faced by new firms, fixed per period costs, the stochastic process that governs firms' idiosyncratic productivity shocks, and the adjustment costs associated with changing employment levels are estimated using plant-level panel data from Colombian metal products industry. Then with the estimates of the structural parameters, the model is used to characterize and quantify the effects of intensified import competition on job turnover patterns, productivity distributions and entry and exit patterns of the firms.
In addition to the predictions on the associated changes in the aggregate productivity, employment, job flow patterns, and mark-ups the model delivers predictions on the nature of the transition process when openness changes, and the role of adjustment costs in shaping firms' responses.
“Credit Rationing, Risk Aversion and Industrial Evolution in Developing Countries” with E. Bond and J. Tybout, 2008, NBER Working paper
Abstract:
Relative to their counterparts in high-income regions, entrepreneurs in developing countries face less efficient financial markets, more volatile macroeconomic conditions, and higher entry costs. This paper develops a dynamic empirical model that links these features of the business environment to firm ownership patterns, firm size distributions, productivity distributions, borrowing patterns, and cross-household savings behavior. Applied to panel data on Colombian apparel producers, the model yields econometric estimates of a credit market imperfection index, the sunk costs of creating a new business, and various other parameters. It also provides a basis for several counterfactual experiments. These show, inter alia, that an efficient credit market would improve the weighted-average efficiency of producers by about 5 percent, partly by allowing the most productive producers to expand and partly by reducing the incentives for inefficient firms to remain in the market. The gains from better intermediation accrue mainly during periods of macro volatility, and mainly to households with modest wealth but high entrepreneurial ability.
“Learning By Exporting Through Access to Foreign Technical Service Markets”, 2009, mimeo.
Abstract:
Using data from the entire pool of manufacturing plants in Chile from 1990 to 1996, I find evidence for a specific channel through which learning by exporting can happen: domestic exporters gain enhanced access to foreign technical and professional services by virtue of their presence in the foreign market and actively use it to acquire productivity improving capabilities.
I first show that there are complementarities between exporting and foreign technical service market access either to receive training or to use foreign technology. Using the propensity-score matching technique to control for self-selection I match firms within narrowly defined industries. Using the difference in difference estimator that removes the effects of aggregate shocks, I find strong evidence that access to foreign technical service markets is an important channel for the firms to learn by exporting.
“The Impact of Chinese Competition on Mexican Maquiladoras: Evidence from Plant-level Panel Data”, 2010, mimeo.
Abstract:
In this paper we analyze the impact of intensified competition from China on Mexican export assembly plants (maquiladoras) and provide a first analysis of Mexican Maquiladoras using comprehensive plant-level panel data covering the period from 1990 to 2006. By using the WTO accession of China as a quasi-natural experiment, our difference in difference approach reveals a significant effect of intensified Chinese competition on maquiladoras. In particular, competition from China has negative and significant impact on plants’ growth. We also find that it is positively associated with plant exits. We do not find a major effect on productivity through reallocative channels other than entry, but quantify significant within plant productivity improvement of maquiladoras that can be attributed to the competition from China.
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Hâle Utar
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