Research

Contract workers constitute half of employment in India's automotive industry but earn substantially less than permanent workers. Using Annual Survey of Industries data (2002-2019), I develop a decomposition estimator integrating labor demand and supply to explain this wage premium. The model features nested CES production with distinct worker types, discrete choice supply functions with worker-specific wage sensitivity, and differentiated market conduct—Nash-Bertrand competition for contract workers versus plant-level union bargaining for permanent workers. I find the wage premium stems entirely from permanent workers' higher productivity rather than differential monopsony power or unionization advantages.

Conference Presentations (* scheduled):

• 2025: Graduate Exhibition (University Park, PA), SEA (Tampa, FL)*

This paper investigates how productivity dispersion relates to input misallocation using a model with staggered productivity shocks that create wedges between anticipated and realized productivity for any production input. With inputs allocated optimally ex ante but suboptimally ex post, dispersion in realized productivity contributes to ex post input misallocation. Analyzing European firm data from 2000–2017 reveals significant co-movement between productivity dispersion and capital/labor misallocation across industries. Productivity dispersion explains a substantial share of capital and labor misallocation (40% and 70%), and 10% of materials misallocation, confirming its key role in allocation frictions.

Conference Presentations (* scheduled):

• 2024: CAED (University Park, PA), EEA-ESEM (Rotterdam, NL), EARIE - Rising Star Session (Amsterdam, NL)

• 2023: 12th CompNet Annual Conference (Bruxelles, BE)

• 2022: MICROPROD - Final event (Bruxelles, BE)

In this study, we evaluate the reproducibility and replicability of Scott Orr's (Journal of Political Economy 2022; 130(11): 2771–2828) innovative approach for identifying within-plant productivity differences across product lines. Orr's methodology allows the estimation of plant-product level productivity, contingent upon a well-behaved pre-estimated demand system, which requires carefully chosen instrumental variables (IVs) for output prices. Using Orr's STATA replication package, we successfully replicate all primary estimates with the ASI Indian plant-level panel data from 2000 to 2007. Additionally, applying Orr's replication codes to a sample from 2011 to 2020 reveals that the suggested IVs do not perform as expected.

This study examines whether exporting enhances efficiency and favors specific inputs. We develop a production function model within a dynamic exporting and investment framework, capturing factor-biased technical changes. Using Kalman filtering to address measurement error and propensity score matching to control for self-selection into exporting, we analyze Colombia’s manufacturing sectors from 1981 to 1991. New exporters achieve a 4% annual increase in labor-augmenting and unskilled labor relative productivity, with no change in Hicks-neutral productivity. Unskilled labor-augmenting productivity grows by 8% annually, aligning with machinery asset expansion, while TFP rises by 3% per year.

Conference Presentations (* scheduled):

• 2024: SEA (Washington, DC)

• 2023: V International Scientific Conference of Economics and Management Researchers (Baku, AZ)