This paper studies the origins and consequences of international technology gaps. I develop an endogenous growth model where R&D efficiency varies across countries and productivity differences emerge from firm-level technology investments. The theory characterizes how innovation and learning...

The classical Wage Fund (Capital or Credit) framework is integrated with the simplest text-book version of the Ricardian model of comparative advantage, generating a model that replicates important features of the neo-classical production theory involving capital and labour without neo-classical...

We develop a network trade model with country-sector level input-output linkages. It includes (1) domestic and global value chain linkages between all country-sectors, (2) direct as well as indirect shipments (via other sectors and countries) to a final destination, (3) value added rather than...

This paper evaluates alternative indicators of global economic activity and other market fundamentals in terms of their usefulness for forecasting real oil prices and global petroleum consumption. We find that world industrial production is one of the most useful indicators that has been...

We estimate a three-variate VAR using proxies of global financial uncertainty, the global financial cycle, and world industrial production to simulate the effects of the jump in financial uncertainty observed in correspondence of the Covid-19 outbreak. We predict the cumulative loss in world...

The economic effects of a pandemic crucially depend on the extend to which countries are connected in global production networks. In this paper we incorporate production barriers induced by COVID-19 shock into a Ricardian model with sectoral linkages, trade in intermediate goods and sectoral...

We analyze how trade openness matters for interstate conflict over productive resources. Our analysis features a terms-of-trade channel that makes security policies trade-regime dependent. Specifically, trade between two adversaries reduces each one’s incentive to arm given the opponent’s...

This paper studies the secular increase in U.S. household debt and its relation to growing income inequality and financial fragility. We exploit a new household-level dataset that covers the joint distributions of debt, income, and wealth in the United States over the past seven decades. The...

We offer a new explanation for why taxes have become less progressive in many countries in parallel with an increase in income inequality. When performance-based compensation differentials are needed to incentivize effort, redistribution through progressive income taxes becomes less precisely...