Research

"Elasticity of Related-party Trade" [Slide] [15min-slide]

Abstract. In this paper, I explore how the import demand of multinationals (MNEs) responds to a short-term tariff shock given the heterogeneity in shares of related-party imports. In particular, I focus on estimating the trade elasticities of MNEs during the 2017-18 Trump tariff period. Building on Amiti et al. (2019) and Fajgelbaum et al. (2020), I estimated the elasticities of related-party imports to be between -1.578 and -1.955 and more elastic than their arms-length counterparts. Under complete tariff pass-through, multinational importers bear more tax incidence and larger drops of import quantities than non-MNE importers due to larger trade elasticities and thus suffer greater deadweight loss.

"JMC's problem: Academic Inclination and Placement Game"

Abstract. The variation and randomness in placements of Econ Job Market Candidates (JMC) highlight the essence of strategic interactions and matching between the prospective scholars and hiring departments. But, within a same program, a JMC first encounters the dilemma of going on the market or staying one more year when conjecturing to conflict with the “program stars” in the exact same research subfields. This study focuses on unveiling the black box of candidate–candidate peer effects. Featuring monotone comparative statics in 1) department placement policy and 2) options of postdoc, I explore the decisions in playing the job market game and hope extend to frictions in the general labor market.