I study the firm-level dynamic response of a commodity-exporting economy to global cycles in commodity prices. To do so, I develop a heterogeneous-firms model that endogenizes declines in aggregate productivity through reallocation towards less productive firms. Within a given sector, commodity...

The run-up in oil prices after 2004 coincided with a growing flow of investment to commodity markets and an increased price comovement between different commodities. We analyze whether speculation in the oil market played a key role in driving this salient empirical pattern. We identify oil...

SVAR models that include a single world price (such as the terms-of-trade) predict that world shocks explain a small fraction of movements in domestic output (typically less than 10 percent). This paper presents an empirical framework in which multiple commodity prices transmit world...

Fluctuations in commodity prices are an important driver of business cycles in small emerging market economies (EMEs). This paper documents how these fluctuations correlate strongly with the business cycle in EMEs. A commodity sector is then embedded into a multi-country EMEs business cycle...

The Great Recession, which was preceded by the financial crisis, resulted in higher unemployment and inequality. We propose a simple model where firms producing varieties face labor-market frictions and credit constraints. In the model, tighter credit leads to lower output, lower number of...