This paper explores the impacts of the Trump administration's trade policy on prices and welfare. Over the course of 2018, the U.S. experienced substantial increases in the prices of intermediates and final goods, dramatic changes to its supply-chain network, reductions in availability of...

We develop a new method of quantifying the impact of policy announcements on investment rates that makes use of stock market data. By estimating the effect of U.S.-China tariff announcements on aggregate returns and the differential returns of firms exposed to China, we identify their effect on...

We show that the specific factors model can be used to derive a rigorous link between movements in stock prices and productivity, wages, employment, output, and welfare. We also prove that the commonly used measure of the effective rate of protection equals the dual measure of revenue TFP,...

Inflation has risen sharply in many countries since the COVID-19 outbreak. Economists have debated the underlying causes. In this paper, we examine the drivers of the global import price inflation, which peaked at approximately 11 percent a year. We find that a common global component closely...

Between 1992 and 2002, the Japanese Import Price Index registered a decline of almost 9 percent and Japan entered a period of deflation. We show that much of the correlation between import prices and domestic prices was due to formula biases. Had the IPI been computed using a pure Laspeyres...

Starting with Romer [1987] and Rivera-Batiz-Romer [1991] economists have been able to model how trade enhances growth through the creation and import of new varieties. In this framework, international trade increases economic output through two channels. First, trade raises productivity levels...

The theoretical debate over whether countries can and should set tariffs in response to the foreign export elasticities they face goes back to Edgeworth (1894). Despite the centrality of the optimal tariff argument in trade policy, there exists no evidence about whether countries actually...

This paper studies technology absorption worldwide in the late nineteenth century. We construct several novel datasets to test the idea that the codification of technical knowledge in the vernacular was necessary for countries to absorb the technologies of the Industrial Revolution. We find that...

Using data from 2018, a number of studies have found that recent U.S tariffs have been passed on entirely to U.S. importers and consumers. These results are surprising given that trade theory has long stressed that tariffs applied by a large country should drive down foreign prices. Using...

Using new data on currency invoicing for Belgian firms, we analyze how firms make their currency choice, for both exports and imports, and the implications of this choice for exchange rate pass-through into prices and quantities. We derive our estimating equations from a theoretical framework...