Many jurisdictions around the world have deregulated utilities and opened retail markets to competition. However, inertial decisionmaking can diminish consumer benefits of retail competition. Using household-level data from the Texas residential electricity market, we document evidence of...

A distortion caused by previous policies could distort the results of reforms. This may explain why policies to reduce industrial fuel subsidies have not necessarily resulted in increases in aggregate productivity in countries with mandated pricing. To identify and measure these distortions'...

In this paper, I propose a new theory to address a critical question in international trade: 'What factors explain the worldwide increase in skill premiums following international trade integration'? I show how trade cost reductions induce firms to choose a higher degree of labor specialization...

To what extent a short-term decline in the output of a small open economy can be explained by trade barriers? To answer, we extend the standard four-wedge Business Cycle Accounting method of Chari et al. (2007) to a five-wedge small open economy model by adding a time-varying wedge that...

Both theory and empirics suggest that exporters perform better. Using a panel dataset of manufacturing plants in Iran (2003-2011) we test learning by exporting. In order to address endogenous selection into export, we employ the methods of data trimming and Propensity Score Weighting....

Governments execute energy subsidy reforms by either increasing energy prices or reducing energy price dispersion. These policies make less use of energy per plant (intensive margin), vary total number of firms (extensive margin), promote technological progress (technology channel), and make...

This study investigates the existence and functionality of the credit channel of monetary policy transmission based on two primary needs of external financing: working capital and investment. Using the novel database of the “Annual Survey of Iranian Manufacturing Establishments”, which...