Education
Undergraduate
B.A., Economics, International University of Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan), 1997
*** spent sophomore year at the University of Wisconsin - RC (Richland Center, Wisconsin) as a US government sponsored exchange student
Graduate
M.A., Economics, Miami University (Oxford, Ohio), 1998
Thesis Title: “The Effect of Foreign Aid on Growth in Less Developed Countries”
M.A., Statistics, Miami University (Oxford, Ohio), 2001
Thesis Title: “The Effects of Newborns on Family Income Packages: A Cross-National Analysis Using Panel Data”
Ph.D., Economics, Syracuse University, 2007
Thesis Title: “Essays in International Trade and Firm-Level Productivity”
Thesis Committee
Professor Mary Lovely (Primary Advisor) 131 Eggers Hall Syracuse University Syracuse, NY 13244-1020 (315) 443 9048 melovely@maxwell.syr.edu | Professor Devashish Mitra 133 Eggers Hall Syracuse University Syracuse, NY 13244-1020 (315) 443 6143 dmitra@maxwell.syr.edu |
Professor Jan Ondrich 426 Eggers Hall Syracuse University Syracuse, NY 13244-1020 (315) 443 9052 jiondrich@maxwell.syr.edu | Professor David Richardson 349 Eggers Hall Syracuse University Syracuse, NY 13244-1020 (315) 443 4339 jdrichar@maxwell.syr.edu |
Research Fields
Primary: international trade
Secondary: public economics, Former Soviet Union studies, Latin American studies
Teaching Experience
Fall, 1999 – Spring, 2000 | STA 261, Miami University, teaching assistant for Professor Robert Schaeffer |
Fall, 2000 – Spring, 2001 | STA 261, Miami University teaching (student evaluations in pdf format) |
Fall, 2001 – Spring, 2002 | ECN 102, Syracuse University teaching assistant for Professor Don Dutkowsky |
Fall, 2002 – Spring, 2005 | ECN 302, Syracuse University teaching assistant for Professor Jan Ondrich |
Summer, 2005 | ECN 302/602, ECN 481/681 Syracuse University teaching assistant for Professor Don Dutkowsky |
Fall, 2005 | ECN 601, Syracuse University teaching assistant for Professor David Richardson |
Research Experience and Other Employment
Aug., 1998 – Jan., 1999 | IMF, Kyrgyzstan, Research/Office Assistant |
Jan. – Jun., 1999 | UNDP, Kyrgyzstan, National Project Manager |
Jun., 2003 | Syracuse University, Research Assistant for Professor Devashish Mitra at dmitra@maxwell.syr.edu |
Jul. – Aug., 2003 | Syracuse University, Research Assistant for Professor Gary Engelhardt at gvengelh@maxwell.syr.edu |
Starting Nov., 2005 | Kiel Institute for World Economics, Research Economist |
Research
Publications
"Teaching Locals New Tricks: Foreign Experts as a Channel of Technology Transfers" (with James Markusen) Journal of Development Economics, Vol. 88, No. 1, 2009, pp. 120-131
"Learning by Exporting: Does It Matter Where One Learns?" Economic Development and Cultural Change, Vol. 56, No. 4, 2008, pp. 871-894
Edited Volumes
Whither Oil Money? Redistribution of Oil Revenues in Azerbaijan (with M.Luecke), The Economics and Politics of Oil in the Caspian Basin, Richard Pomfret, Routledge, 2007, pp. 172-207
Working papers
“Orphanhood and Critical Periods in Children’s Human Capital Formation: Long-Run Evidence from North-Western Tanzania” (with Jens Hagen and Toman Omar Mahmoud), Kiel Working Paper No. 1649
"Factors Affecting Location Decisions of the Economic Headliners – Exporters and Foreign-Owned Firms – in China", Kiel Working Paper No. 1645
“Scope for Export-Led Growth in a Large Emerging Economy: Is India Learning by Exporting?” (with Saleh Sahabeh Tabrizy), Kiel Working Paper No. 1633
"Linkages between Technology Choice and Exporting: Evidence from Argentina " (with Gabriela Schmidt), Kiel Working Paper No. 1620
"Export Subsidies in a Heterogeneous Firms Framework: Evidence from Colombia" (with Christian Helmers), Kiel Working Paper No. 1476
Research Work Mentioned in Popular Media
AllAfrica.com “HIV/Aids Reduces Children's Education Chances”, 12 June 2008
Work in progress
“The Role of Competition, Trade and Foreign Ownership in Innovative Activities of Chinese Firms” (with Gesche Niggemann and Saleh Sahabeh Tabrizy)
By 2006 China for the first time spent more on research and development than Japan and became the world’s second highest investor in R&D after the United States. “To keep up, OECD countries need to make their research and innovation systems more efficient and find new ways to stimulate innovation in today’s increasingly competitive global economy,” announced the head of the OECD’s Science and Technology Policy division. In this study we investigate the pattern of innovative activities (both R&D and non-R&D) for a sample of 1,020 Chinese manufacturing firms and use logistic regression to estimate the role that competition, trade and foreign ownership – three factors commonly touted as the main drivers of innovation – play in the innovative process. We find that firms engaged in international trade are 6-8 percent more likely to engage in either process or product innovation and that foreign ownership increases the chances of engaging in product innovation by 13 percent. The role of competition, measured in terms of the number of domestic and foreign competitors or the imports’ share in domestic market, is found to be insignificant.
“Modes of Exporting: Who Trades Through Intermediaries?” (with Horst Raff)
Using cross-country firm-level evidence, this paper explores the issue of heterogeneity within exporters and the choice between direct and indirect modes of exporting. We support the existing literature in that all types of exporters are larger, more likely to be foreign owned, invest more in research and development, and import a higher share of their materials. Further, we find that indirect exporters, i.e. firms who trade through intermediaries, are similar to non-exporters and are significantly different from either direct exporters or firms that opt for a mixed strategy. Specifically, indirect exporters invest less in research and development, are less likely to be foreign owned, and are less likely to have a collage educated manager. Importantly, indirect exporters have significantly worse access to external finance as compared to other types of exporters. In addition, the labor productivity of the indirect exporters is no different from the labor productivity of non-exporters. Finally, we find that the choice between direct and indirect modes of exporting is driven strongly by the importing behaviour of the firm: firms who import materials directly are a lot less likely to resort to trade through intermediaries.
"Why Some Firms do not Export: a Look into the Perceived Obstacles to Exporting"
Exporters are more productive than non-exporters, be it because of the self-selectioninto exporting or because of the beneficial effects of the activities in the international market. This edge in terms of productivity is obvious when we look at the productivity distribution of firms in virtually any country of the world – the distribution of exporters dominates that of non-exporters. However, the graphs overlap over a certain range. This implies that there are equally productive non-exporters who choose not to export. Why? This paper links firms’ performance measures to the perceived obstacles to exporting and, consequently, to the preferences regarding foreign markets.
“Post-Training Wages: Employer-Supported vs. Self-Financed Training”
The theories of on-the-job training contain two common predictions. First, on-the-job training should increase wages. Second, employer will pay for the firm-specific training whereas the cost for the general training will lie on the worker. Using matched employee- and firm-level data from African economies on 3,259 employees, of which 856 have participated in training, we find that, controlling for worker characteristics, individuals who pay for their training are more likely to receive a wage increase as a result of this training.
“Employee Training and Firm-Level Productivity”
Employing neighboring matching technique on a sample of 880 firms in Bangladesh, we find that a firm providing training during 2002 is about 5 percent more productive than a firm, identical based on a number of characteristics, including total factor productivity in 2001, but choosing not to provide training.
