Most
academic research in economics addresses real world problems, and
much of it is stimulated by current policy challenges. Yet, very
often, the gap between academic analysis and policy needs is wide
and the dialogue between scholars and policy makers is difficult.
Bridging this gap has been an important objective of my professional
agenda, and to achieve it I have developed a series of projects that
propose and apply rigorous scholarly methods to answer specific
policy questions and to address current economic challenges. I also
have benefited tremendously from insightful discussions with a
number of colleagues and policy makers from international
organizations, national governments, and think tanks.
My research has been supported and used for policy decisions by
leading international organizations, e.g., the
Economic Research and Statistics Division (the World Trade
Organization, WTO), the United Nations Conference on Trade and
Development (UNCTAD), the European Commission (EC), the Economic
and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) of the
United Nations (UN), the Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the
Arab Monetary Fund (AMF), the Development Research Group (The
World Bank), the Trade and Integration Finance, Competitiveness
and Innovation Division (The World Bank), the Inter-American
Development Bank (IADB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), national
governments, e.g., the United States International
Trade Commission (USITC), the Federal Ministry for Economic
Affairs and Energy (German Government), Global Affairs Canada
(Government of Canada), the Department of Foreign Affairs and
International Trade (Government of Canada), the Department for
International Trade (UK Government), the Chamber of Commerce and
Industry (Düsseldorf, Germany), the Department for Business,
Energy & Industrial Strategy (UK Government), Industry Canada
(Government of Canada), the Ministry of the Economy (Armenian
Government), the Deutsche Bundesbank (DBB), the Bank of Spain
(BoS), the Bank of England (BoE) , and think tanks
and research institutes, e.g., the Center for
International Economics (ifo Institute), the Kiel Institute for
the World Economy (IfW Kiel), the Bertelsmann Stiftung, Public
Policy Forum (PPF) Canada, the Asia-Pacific Research and Training
Network on Trade (ARTNeT), the Center for Corporate Reputation
Management (Drexel University), the International Growth Center
(London School of Economics, LSE), and the Centre for Corporate
Reputation (Oxford University).
In addition, I have devoted significant efforts to make scholarly
methods and cutting-edge academic research accessible to policy
makers and to applied economists. My contributions to the book "An
Advanced Guide to Trade Policy Analysis: The Structural Gravity
Model", the accompanying Gravity
Course, the method papers on general equilibrium analysis with
the PPML estimator (CESifo,
2015) and PPML estimations with high-dimensional fixed effects
(CESifo,
2017), the Global
Sanctions Database, the International
Trade and Production Database for Estimation, and the Domestic
and International Common Language (DICL) database are
representative outcomes of these efforts.
The objective of this mini course is to serve as a practical guide for trade policy analysis with the gravity model of trade. The course offers a comprehensive and balanced approach between theory and empirics: It describes best practices for estimating the partial equilibrium effects of trade policy within ...
Course MaterialsThis workshop is developed for and was delivered at the Economic Research and Statistics Division of the World Trade Organization. The objective of the workshop is to present and discuss alternative methods to calculate and aggregate bilateral trade costs. Specifically, it reviews the latest estimation techniques and calibration methodologies and introduces a novel hybrid procedure to construct "estibrated" bilateral trade costs, which include estimated components but also match the trade flows data perfectly.