Working Papers
- Robots and Inequality Between and Within Occupations
Joint with Rodimiro Rodrigo and Yun Zhang, GWU.
We show that automation is related to decreasing inequality within occupations, but increased inequality across occupations. We also show that a standard model of wage-posting accounts for these findings as long as it is the highest-productivity firms that automate, as found by the literature.
- Social Networks and the Demand for Innovation: Evidence from Online Banking
Joint with Qi Chen, GWU.
Innovation is key to growth, and demand is key for providing incentives for innovation. We find evidence that demand for innovations develops as agents become informed through their social connections. This effect is weaker in the presence of alternative sources of information. We use the case of the diffusion of online banking, which also connects with the literature on financial innovation. It also implies that to some extent the adoption of IT in the banking sector was driven by the demand for online banking services, encouraged by sources of information including social networks.
- Minimum Wage, Informality and Non-Compliance
Joint with Jinho Kim, Cardiff Business School.
We study the effect of the minimum wage in Indonesian household and firm level panel data. A higher minimum wage increases non-compliance, raises the wage distribution and brings people from the informal sector into the formal sector, while also rationing out marginal workers, consistent with an extension of the Burdett-Mortensen (1998) framework. We calibrate the model economy and find that the minimum wage has a negative overall impact on the size of the formal workforce.
Work in Progress
- Rule of Law and Firm Performance: Evidence from Vietnam
- Firm Credit and Loan Guarantees
- Protection and Power
- A Daily Capital Control Index Powered by Machine Learning
- Uncertainty and Investment Specific Technical Change