European Center for Advanced Research in Economics and Statistics

Title: A Global Perspective on the Incidence of Monopoly Distortions

Abstract: We develop a semi-parametric framework to measure the unequalincidence of monopolistic markup distortions in the global economy. Nesting abroad class of quantitative trade models, our framework identifies two channelsthrough which trade integration reshapes the welfare cost of markups: (1)change in markup dispersion through pro-competitive effects, and (2)international profit-shifting, which represents zero-sum transfers betweencountries through excess profit payments. We present a dual interpretation ofthe latter channel: markups function as shadow tariffs that distort theterms of trade in favor of high-markup exporters. Drawing on global firm-leveldata on markups and profit ownership, we find that internationalprofit-shifting has significantly lowered the welfare cost of markups forhigh-income countries while magnifying it for low-income nations. Thisasymmetry arises because high-income countries supply higher markup goods andreceive a disproportionate share of global excess profits. We estimate thatthese transfers represent an 8.2% tariff burden on low-income countries, farexceeding the preferential tariff benefits they receive under existing tradeagreements.

Title: Feeding the Gap: Gender Stereotypes and FoodConsumption


Abstract: When do gender stereotypes emerge and intensify?Although stereotypes affect education, occupation, and parenting, thoseoutcomes are measured only later in life, making the initial divergence hard toidentify. We use food consumption as a high-frequency revealed outcomeobservable from childhood onward. Using U.S. household barcode panel data, wedocument persistent gender differences across the food basket, including a 20%gap in red meat consumption. Engel-curve estimations and supplementary online surveysindicate that these gaps are not explained by physiological needs, observables,or information differences. We then link consumption to attitudinal measuresand show that gender-stereotypical views mediate a substantial share of themeat gap. Turning to panel identification, we find that the meat gender gapbegins in late childhood, widens sharply during adolescence, and stabilizesthereafter. This pattern is consistent with the gender-intensificationhypothesis-that gender differences widen in adolescence. We corroborate ourresults using secondary datasets on implicit and explicit associations betweengender-career and gender-science across age. Overall, consumption offers atractable behavioral marker on when gender stereotypes emerge and intensify, withimplications for the timing of equality-oriented policies and for environmentaland health interventions targeting meat consumption.

Title : Health Beliefs and the Long Run Effects ofMedical Information

Abstract : This paper studies the role of information on theevolution of beliefs and smoking in the United States in the 20th and early21st centuries. We develop a dynamic and dynastic model of smoking, mortalityand beliefs. The information about the harmfulness of smoking comes from threedifferent sources: (i) medical information or public health messages, includingobfuscation from the tobacco industry, (ii) learning from individual healthshocks,  and (iii) social learning, understood as the diffusion of informationand beliefs within and across social groups over time. We estimate the modelusing data on smoking behavior, health information and data on beliefs on theeffect of smoking on health that cover several decades and different socialgroups. The estimated model shows that each of these mechanisms played animportant role in the formation of beliefs about the harmfulness of smoking andthat social learning was particularly important for low-educated individuals.

Essays in gender economics