BENJAMIN  FABER

Associate Professor of Economics

Research Interests

• International economics, development economics

Working Papers

• Responsible Sourcing? Theory and Evidence from Costa Rica, with Alonso Alfaro-Ureña (Banco Central de Costa Rica), Cecile Gaubert (UC Berkeley), Isabela Manelici (LSE) and Jose Pablo Vasquez (LSE) (November 2022)


Revise and resubmit at American Economic Review



Links to: NBER Working Paper, CEPR Discussion Paper, Article at VoxDev.org, Article at VoxEU.org



Research question: What are the average and distributional implications of "Responsible Sourcing" policies by multinationals in host countries?


• Scaling Agricultural Policy Interventions, with Lauren Bergquist (Yale), Thibault Fally (UC Berkeley), Matthias Hoelzlein (Notre Dame), Ted Miguel (UC Berkeley) and Andres Rodriguez-Clare (UC Berkeley) (August 2023)


Revise and resubmit at Econometrica



Links to: NBER Working Paper, CEPR Discussion Paper, Article at VoxEU.org, Article at VoxDev.org



Research question: We develop and calibrate a rich but tractable GE model to explore the average and distributional implications of scaling up local policy interventions in agriculture.

Selected Work in Progress

• The Gains from Trade from Rural-Urban Migration, with Dennis Egger (Oxford), Ming Li (CUHK) and Wei Lin (CUHK)


Research question: Does rural-urban migration cause flows of trade and investment, and what is their incidence in spatial equilibrium?


• The Gains from Online Integration, with Victor Couture (UBC), Cecile Gaubert (UC Berkeley), Yizhen Gu (Peking University), Ming Li (CUHK) and Wei Lin (CUHK)


Research question: What are the local and aggregate effects of the spread of broadband and mobile internet in China over the past decades?


• Senior Migration, Local Economic Development and Spatial Inequality, with Marco Badilla (UC Berkeley), Antoine Levy (UC Berkeley) and Mathilde Muñoz (UC Berkeley)


Research question: Do migration flows after retirement reduce or reinforce regional inequality? Can lagging regions foster economic development by attracting mobile seniors?

Policy Reports

• Artisanal Mining, Livelihoods, and Child Labor in the Cobalt Supply Chain of the Democratic Republic of Congo, with Benjamin Krause (UC Berkeley) and Raul Sanchez de la Sierra (Chicago Harris) (May 2017)


Links to: French Version



Research question: Analysis of the context and trade-offs for Responsible Sourcing practices in the Copperbelt of DR Congo.

Publications

• Measuring Welfare and Inequality with Incomplete Price Information, with David Atkin (MIT), Thibault Fally (UC Berkeley) and Marco Gonzalez-Navarro (UC Berkeley) (July 2023)


Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2024, Vol. 139(1), pp. 419–475



Links to: NBER Working Paper, CEPR Discussion Paper



Research question: Measuring changes in household welfare requires a combination of detailed microdata that are seldomly available. We propose and implement a new approach using widely available expenditure survey microdata that is grounded in theory.


• Firm Heterogeneity in Consumption Baskets: Evidence from Home and Store Scanner Data, with Thibault Fally (UC Berkeley) (May 2021)


Review of Economic Studies, 2022, Vol. 89(3), pp. 1420–1459



Links to: NBER Working Paper, Article at VoxEU.org, CEPR Discussion Paper



Research question: A growing literature has documented the role of firm heterogeneity for income inequality. This paper explores the implications for household price indices.


• Connecting the Countryside via E-Commerce: Evidence from China, with Victor Couture (UBC), Yizhen Gu (Peking University) and Lizhi Liu (Georgetown) (July 2020)


American Economic Review: Insights, 2021, Vol. 3(1), pp. 35-50



Links to: NBER Working Paper, CEPR Discussion Paper, Article at VoxDev.org, Article at VoxChina.org, Featured in World Development Report 2020, Featured in AEA Research Highlights



Research question: To what extent, and how, does e-commerce trading access reduce the rural-urban economic divide in developing countries?


• Tourism and Economic Development: Evidence from Mexico's Coastline, with Cecile Gaubert (UC Berkeley) (May 2018)


American Economic Review, 2019, Vol. 109(6), pp. 2245-93



Links to: NBER Working Paper, CEPR Discussion Paper, Article at VoxEU.org, Article at VoxDev.org, Article in Houston Chronicle, AEA Research Highlights



Research question: What are the long-term economic consequences of tourism in developing countries?


• Retail Globalization and Household Welfare: Evidence from Mexico, with David Atkin (MIT) and Marco Gonzalez-Navarro (UC Berkeley) (May 2016)


Journal of Political Economy, 2018, Vol. 126(1), pp. 1-73 (Lead Article)



Links to: NBER Working Paper, CEGA Working Paper, Article at VoxEU.org, IGC Blog, CEGA Research Brief, CATO Research Brief, Article at MicroeconomicInsights.org, Article at VoxDev.org, Featured in 2019 World Bank Global Investment Report



Research question: What are the implications of foreign retail entry for household welfare in developing countries?


• Trade Integration, Market Size, and Industrialization: Evidence from China’s National Trunk Highway System (February 2014) (Online Appendix) (Earlier version with counterfactual analysis)


Review of Economic Studies, 2014, Vol. 81(3), pp. 1046-70



Links to: The Economist's Free Exchange Column



Research question: Are falling trade costs a force for the diffusion of production to peripheral regions, or do they reinforce the concentration of production in space?