The average price of cement in Africa was the highest of any continent in 2011, but by 2017 it had fallen by 35 percent, the largest decline in the world, according to data from the International Comparison Program. An empirical industry equilibrium model distinguishes between the fundamental...

Using a panel of Spanish manufacturing firms covering the 1990-2017 period, I document new evidence about affiliates of multinational enterprises (MNEs): after being acquired, they exhibit a higher propensity to use robots, which leads to a reduction in their labor share. These effects are...

In this paper, we construct a novel measure of nepotism and explore its implications for firm value. We document that 35% of U.S. public firms employ relatives in top jobs. Using our measure, we show that nepotism decreases firm value: high-nepotism stocks underperform low-nepotism stocks by...

Nepotism emerges in a multiplicity of contexts from political assignments to firm hiring decisions, but what are its real effects on the economy? This paper explores how nepotism affects corporate investment. To measure nepotism, we build a unique dataset of family connections among individuals...

The average price of cement in Africa was the highest of any continent in 2011, according to data from the International Comparison Program. An empirical industry equilibrium model distinguishes between the fundamental drivers of price differences across economies: demand, costs, conduct, and...

Countries compete internationally to attract investment from multinational enterprises (MNEs). Policy-makers hope that they bring superior technology to the host country and boost domestic activity. Because technology is often factor-biased, there are distributional effects to consider beyond...