Working Papers

  • “Trade Liberalization and Product Innovation: Evidence from China” (Latest Version)

    Abstract: Does market access to high-income countries increase product innovation? I investigate this by exploiting variation in firm-level export activities and the removal of externally imposed export quotas following China's accession to the WTO in 2001. I find that improved access to high-income countries accounts for 26.35\% of the observed increase in product innovation by Chinese firms between 2000 and 2007. Additionally, I find that these gains are driven to a large extent by increased revenue and knowledge about the variety of new products obtained by trading with high-income countries.

  • "Import Competition and Technology Upgrading: Evidence from China's WTO Accession", with Felix Fosu

    Abstract: This paper investigates whether import competition affects firms' technology upgrading, an essential source of economic growth. The identification exploits the cross-sectional variation in tariff uncertainty generated by China's accession to the World Trade Organization in 2001. We find that the reduction of import tariffs decreases firms’ incentives to import advanced technology.

  • “Childcare Subsidy and Chain Migration“

    Abstract: I estimate the causal effect of subsidized daycare on family-sponsored or “chain“ migration. To estimate the causal effect, I draw on a reform that generated an exogenous decrease in the price of daycare in Quebec relative to the rest of Canada. Using a difference in differences approach on confidential administrative data, I show that subsidized daycare decreases chain migration in an economically and statistically meaningful way. In particular, my favoured specification suggests that decreasing the price of daycare to $5/day resulted in a nearly six percentage point decrease in the probability of immigration through family sponsorship in Quebec. My findings are consistent with the idea that family-sponsored migrants can be a substitute for publicly subsidized childcare and serve to benefit the network they immigrate to. In this way, looser restrictions on family-based migration may represent an alternative to publicly subsidized childcare.

  • “Assessing Trends and Patterns of the Effect of COVID-19 on Public Transit Revenue in the City of Calgary“, with Lindsay M. Tedds and Gillian Petit

    Abstract: Using monthly public transit revenue data from January 2015 to December 2021, we investigate the effect of COVID-19 on public transit revenues in the large urban municipality of Calgary in Alberta, Canada. We find that revenue from transit fares dropped immediately and significantly after the declaration of a state of emergency in March 2020 for all transit fare types. While revenues began to slowly recover, nearly two years following the state of emergency, transit fare revenue continue to be significantly lower than the pre-pandemic baseline in most cases. Only revenues from transit fares for school-aged children and low-income persons have recovered to the pre-pandemic baseline, suggesting these groups are relatively more dependent on public transit compared to non-low-income adult users. With revenues from transit fares continuing to be 60% below the pre-pandemic baseline, replacing this lost revenue is essential to maintaining service standards for those dependent on public transit. However, there are no simple answers to this problem, given the ongoing shock to adult ridership. Over the short term, transit will need increased support from other revenue sources, such as local property taxes or transfers from higher orders of government. Over the longer term, the City of Calgary will need to weigh the trade-offs from pursuing fare increases, lowering service standards, and/or expansion of services to serve more riders with objectives such as addressing climate change, labour mobility, accessibility, and social inclusion.

Work in Progress

  • "Innovation Responses to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Firm Level Evidence from Canada", with Felix Fosu

    Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly and negatively impacted the world economy. On the one hand, the decline in revenue, coupled with firms' uncertainty about the future, might have stifled or decreased firms' investments in innovation activities. On the other hand, investment in innovation might have increased due to the generous stimulus support from the government, and forward-looking firms seeking accelerated growth and larger market share after the pandemic crisis. As a result, it is unclear whether the COVID-19 pandemic has negatively or positively affected firms' innovation investment. In this project, we aim to empirically estimate firms' innovation response to COVID-19 using administrative firm-level data in the context of Canada.

Other Reports

  • Economic Security Policy and Canada's National Action Plan to End Gender-Based Violence: Is there a Role for Cash Transfers in Addressing intimate Partner Violence" with Anna Cameron and Lindsay M. Tedds

    Abstract: Feminist political economy draws attention to how gender-based violence (GBV) is a product of structural gender inequality, which has its basis in unequal access to productive resources and broader material relations of inequality. If this is the case, strategies, policies, and programs that both ensure victims and survivors that can achieve economic security must form a vital component of any serious plan to address GBV. We will draw on intersectional and systems-analysis approaches to produce a synthesis of the existing literature and knowledge base concerning basic income as a tool for addressing GVV, both as a support in exit and recovery and as a preventative mechanism.