This paper uses newly digitized data to study the effects of federal minimum wage and maximum hour regulations on the industrial development of the U.S. South. The Fair Labor Standars Act of 1938 was introduced at a time of large regional wage disparities. This paper brings new evidence on how national labor market regulations affects regional development, and builds a multi-sector quantitative spatial model featuring input-output linkages to quantify the worker selection forces on the labor supply side versus the technology adoption channels on the labor demand side.

Can developing countries in today’s world replicate the export-led model of growth by using industrial policies following the success stories of the last century? We show how small open economies face an “openness dilemma” balancing the gains from trade by entering into regional free trade agreements and achieving economies of scale by using industrial policies.

This essay develops a framework to study industrial policies in modern globally integrated economies and reviews recent theoretical and empirical advances in the literature.

This paper studies the welfare implications and transition dynamics of pension reform using an overlapping generation DSGE model. (Pre-PhD work)