Working papers from the Global Institute provide critical insights on trade, immigration, and other major international issues, along with in-depth analysis of monetary policy challenges affecting the U.S. economy and its deep financial and economic ties with Mexico.
Research Department Working Papers
Trade Costs and Inflation Dynamics
This paper exploits bilateral trade flows of final and intermediate goods together with the structure of static trade models that deliver gravity equations to identify exogenous changes in trade costs between countries. The authors then use a local projections approach to assess the effects of trade cost shocks on consumer price (CPI) inflation.
March 04, 2025
Research Department Working Papers
An Anatomy of U.S. Establishments’ Trade Linkages in Global Value Chains
Global value chains (GVC) are a pervasive feature of modern production, but they are hard to measure. Using U.S. Census microdata, this paper develops novel measures of the linkages between U.S. manufacturing establishments’ imports and exports. The paper documents three new GVC patterns.
December 27, 2024
Research Department Working Papers
Structural Change in Sub-Saharan Africa: An Open Economy Perspective
This paper studies the evolution of manufacturing value added shares in 11 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries through the lens of an open economy model of structural change.
December 24, 2024
Research Department Working Papers
Real Exchange Rates and the Global Financial Cycle
This paper looks at the effect of fluctuations in the global financial cycle on real exchange rates.
November 26, 2024
Research Department Working Papers
The Problem of Quality Change in Historical Price Statistics: An Illustrative Example Using Baedeker Travel Guides
This paper uses a novel dataset on the prices of the travel guidebooks published by the German publishing house Baedeker between 1832 and 1944 to construct a hedonic price index for guidebooks. Comparing these indexes to the list prices of these guidebooks, the paper shows that the failure to adjust for improvements in the quality of the guidebooks over time imparts a substantial upward bias to measured inflation.
November 26, 2024
Research Department Working Papers
What Imports to Import Prices?
This study offers new insights into exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) using U.S. import price indexes by country-of-origin, covering two decades of monthly data.
October 25, 2024
Research Department Working Papers
The Postpandemic U.S. Immigration Surge: New Facts and Inflationary Implications
This paper combines administrative data on border encounters and immigration court records with household survey data to document two new facts about these immigrants: They tend to be hand-to-mouth consumers and low-skilled workers that complement the existing workforce. The authors build these features into a model with capital, household heterogeneity and population growth to study the inflationary effects of this episode.
October 01, 2024
Globalization Institute Working Paper
The Contribution of Foreign Holdings of U.S. Treasury Securities to the U.S. Long-Term Interest Rate: An Empirical Investigation of the Impact of the Zero Lower Bound
This paper finds empirical evidence of a possible structural break in the relationship between the foreign holdings of U.S. Treasury securities and the U.S. long-term interest rate occurring at the time when U.S. monetary policy became constrained at the zero-lower bound (ZLB).
September 25, 2024
Globalization Institute Working Paper
Exchange Rate Determination Under Limits to CIP Arbitrage
Recent theories of exchange rate determination have emphasized limited UIP arbitrage by international financial institutions. New regulations since 2008 have also led to imperfect CIP arbitrage. This paper shows that under limited CIP arbitrage the exchange rate and CIP deviation are jointly determined by equilibrium in the FX spot and swap markets.
September 23, 2024
Globalization Institute Working Paper
Deindustrialization and Industry Polarization
This paper adds to recent evidence on deindustrialization and documents a new pattern: increasing industry polarization over time.
August 05, 2024