Chris Papageorgiou

This paper examines how firms responded to the disruptions caused by the global supply chain (GSC) shocks induced by the COVID‐19 pandemic. Leveraging firm‐level trade data from France, we analyze shifts in export and import values and prices in response to transportation bottlenecks and pandemic containment measures in partner countries. Our findings reveal that firms adapted to these shocks by temporarily scaling back trade volumes and dropping varieties. During the recovery phase, supply chain bottlenecks stoked price hikes, disproportionately affecting upstream industries. Furthermore, we demonstrate that firms using industrial robots in production and those with prudent inventory management practices were more resilient to the pandemic shock.

In a world where trade retaliation is escalating and fragmentation is on the rise, this paper examines whether Temporary Trade Barriers (TTBs) are implemented for strategic purposes. To do so we construct a novel sectoral measure of retaliation using daily bilateral data on TTB responses in 1220 subsectors across a panel of 25 advanced and emerging market economies during the period 1989-2019. Stylized facts and econometric analysis suggest that within-year responses are more important in terms of intensity and frequency than commonly understood from the existing literature, which has tended to ignore them. We find that retaliation often consists of responses across many sectors and that same-sector retaliation is far from being the norm. In addition, we find that larger countries tend to retaliate more, and that retaliation is more pervasive during periods of higher unemployment and when the trading partner targets a domestic comparative advantage sector.

1. Female labor force participation (FLFP) remains stubbornly below male labor force participation (MLFP). While cultural factors, including related to the historical role of agricultural work in t...

SUMMARY: Are preferences for labour regulations driven by individuals’ own endowments or their beliefs? To address this question, we conducted a cross-country survey on people’s opinions on employment protection legislation – an area where reform has proven to be difficult and personal interests is at stake. We find that individuals’ beliefs contribute two to three times more than their own endowments and personal pay-offs. A randomized information treatment confirms that beliefs can explain views about regulations, but beliefs can also change with new information. Our results are robust to several checks, including to alternative estimation techniques and samples.

With climate change increasing the frequency and intensity of natural disasters, how should central banks respond to these catastrophic events? Looking at IMF reports for 34 disaster-years, which occurred in 16 disaster-prone countries from 1999 to 2017, what emerges is a non-negligible heterogeneity in central banks' responses to climate-related disasters. Using a standard small-open-economy New-Keynesian model with disaster shocks, we show that, consistently with textbook theory, inflation targeting remains the welfare-optimal regime. The best strategy for monetary authorities is to resist the impulse to accommodate in the face of catastrophic natural disasters, and rather to continue to focus on price stability.

We present two new databases we have constructed to explore the electoral consequences of structural economic policy reforms. One database measures reforms in domestic finance, external finance, trade, product, and labor markets covering 90 advanced and developing economies from 1973 to 2014. The other chronicles the timing and results of national elections. We find that liberalizing reforms are associated with economic benefits that accrue only gradually over time. Because of this delay, liberalizing reforms are costly to democratic incumbents when they are implemented close to elections. Electoral outcomes also depend on the state of the economy: Reforms are penalized during contractions but are often rewarded in expansions.

Using a novel database of domestic financial reforms in 90 countries over 1973-2014, we document that global financial liberalization followed an S-curve path: reforms were slow and gradual in early periods, accelerated during the 1990s, and slowed down after 2000. We estimate a learning model that explains these dynamics. Policymakers updated their beliefs about the growth effects of financial reforms by learning from their own and other countries' experiences. Positive growth surprises in advanced economies helped accelerate belief updating worldwide, leading to the global wave of financial liberalization in the 1990s. The 2008 financial crisis, however, caused significant belief reversals. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.

Since Tocqueville (1835), civil society has been recognized as a cornerstone of liberal democracy. But populists claim to be the only legitimate representatives of the people, leaving no space for civil society. Are populism and civil society enemies? To answer this question, we look at voters’ choices in Europe. We find that individuals belonging to associations are less likely by 1.6–2.8 percentage points to vote for populist parties, which is large considering that the average vote share for populist parties is between 12% and 22%. This result survives a large number of robustness checks.