Counterfactual Analysis of 

International Trade Disputes

This project aims to precisely measure the impact of international trade disputes on U.S. agricultural exports. We accomplish this task by developing novel and innovative methods based on machine learning techniques to construct credible counterfactual trade flows for causal inference. These benchmarks allow us to obtain a more precise identification of the trade destruction effects caused by trade disputes involving the United States.

Domestic Consequences of Foreign Direct Investment

This project assesses the impact of foreign direct investment on agriculture in the United States. We accomplish this task by developing a novel dataset on foreign investment activities and linking it to firm-level productivity and efficiency measures. By comparing firms with and without foreign ownership, we disentangle the impact of foreign investment on labor and capital productivity. This research provides essential knowledge on the functioning of markets in light of changing trade and investment environments.

Pesticide Exposure and Cognitive Development

This project evaluates the impact of non-occupational pesticide exposure on the cognitive development of children and teenagers. The research efforts concentrate on the San Joaquin Valley in California, for which we have access to high-resolution pesticide data. We build measures of pesticide exposure at the school-catchment zone level, match this data to student-level academic performance data, and analyze the relationship using counterfactual evaluation methods.