This paper examines the role of inventories in the decline of production, trade, and expenditures in the United States in the economic crisis of late 2008 and 2009. Empirically, the paper shows that international trade declined more drastically than trade-weighted production or absorption and...

We study the role of inventories for the volatility of international trade and the propagation of business cycles. We build a model of international trade in which intermediaries have a precautionary motive to hold inventories. With either productivity or demand shocks, we find inventories...

Theoretically, indivisible investments together with financial frictions can lower development, generate poverty traps, and lead agents to become risk-loving. Using experimental cash grants involving a choice between a safer, low payoff and a riskier, large payoff lottery, we find that 27...

We develop a model of households with multiple needs (smoothing shocks, financing investment) and constraints (limited credit, self-control issues) in order to examine the nature of household's financing constraints in a developing country, and the impact of relaxing them. We show that increased...

This paper studies the growth of Chinese imports into the United States from autarky during 1950-1970 to about 15 percent of overall imports in 2008, taking advantage of the rich heterogeneity in trade policy and trade growth across products during this period. Central to the analysis is an...

This paper studies the effects on international trade from the annual tariff uncertainty about China's Most Favored Nation (MFN) status renewal in the United States prior to joining the World Trade Organization. The paper makes four main findings. First, in monthly data trade increases...