We use a detailed micro dataset on product availability to construct a direct high-frequency measure of consumer product shortages during the 2020-2021 pandemic. We document a widespread multi-fold rise in shortages in nearly all sectors early in the pandemic. Over time, the composition of...

We study how the technological importance of inputs - measured by cost shares - is related to the decision to "make" or "buy" that input. Using detailed French international trade data and an instrumental variable approach based on self-constructed input-output tables, we show that...

For centuries, most international trade involved an exchange of complete goods. But, with recent improvements in transportation and communications technology, it increasingly entails different countries adding value to global supply chains, or what might be called "trade in tasks." We propose a...

International supply chains require coordination of numerous activities across multiple countries and firms. We adapt a model of supply chains and apply it to an international trade setting. In each chain, the measure of tasks completed within a firm is determined by transaction costs and the...

We develop a model of the joint capital structure decisions of banks and their borrowers. Strikingly high bank leverage emerges naturally from the interplay between two sets of forces. First, seniority and diversification reduce bank asset volatility by an order of magnitude relative to that of...

We examine firm participation in global supply chains to help explain a puzzling decline in protectionist demands in the U.S. despite increased import competition and ongoing currency undervaluation. To explain firm responses to undervaluation, we rely on advances in the international trade...

Prices are regulated in many markets, ranging from healthcare to labor to telecommunications. This paper reinterprets the variables in the basic supply-demand model so that both product-definition and quantity are equilibrium outcomes. Specifically, compliance with price controls is achieved by...

It has been previously shown that for sufficiently large pools of patient-donor pairs, (almost) efficient kidney exchange can be achieved by using at most 3-way cycles, i.e. by using cycles among no more than 3 patient-donor pairs. However, as kidney exchange has grown in practice, cycles among...