Zipf's law is a well-known empirical regularity of firm size distribution. To date, it remains a puzzle as to what is the identity of the firms that causes this regularity. We document the multi-plant firm origin of Zipf's law - plants of multi-plant fi rms (exponent close to one) are more...

In 1994, due to environmental concerns, Germany banned a chemical called ‘Azodyes’, a primary input for the leather and textiles firms in India (a key exporter). Exploiting this as a quasi-natural experiment, we examine the effects of this crossborder regulatory change on labor compensation,...

Governments around the world engage in fiscal interventions targeting the poor. Using a rich dataset on income and consumption of Indian households, we estimate the distributional effects of such interventions in a heterogeneous agent model. The standard scheme of interventions that consistently...