Research
Job Market Paper
Sun, Sand, and Services: Tourism and Household Welfare in Jamaica - Current Draft: (02/02/26)
Abstract
Tourism services have seen marked growth over the previous two decades. A number of lower and middle-income countries have sought to take advantage of this boom in demand for tourism in the hopes of driving economic development. Even so, there remain significant questions about the ability of tourism to contribute to robust and inclusive prosperity for local populations in developing countries. I address this gap in the literature by investigating these questions in Jamaica, an upper middle-income country that has made the export of tourism services the foundation of its development strategy. I combine an incredibly rich and granular dataset of tourist expenditure surveys from the Jamaican Ministry of Tourism, with a detailed nationally representative household expenditure survey, both spanning nearly two decades. Linking tourist activity and individual households across consistent spatial units, I employ a shift-share instrumental variable identification strategy to estimate the effects of changes in tourism revenues on the welfare of local households. I find increases in real consumption and welfare for urban households, working in mid-skilled occupations in non-tourism services and manufacturing. I discuss the implications of these findings for our understanding of the welfare impacts of tourism specialization in developing countries, and for the design of policies that aim to harness and scale tourism in service of development.Slides: Job Market Paper: Slides
Presented at: Center For The Study of African Economies Annual Conference (March 2025);
Upcoming: 2025 Global Labor Organization JOPE Conference (Dec 2025); ASSA Annual Meetings - Poster Session (Jan 2026);
Working Papers
Nowcasting Global Trade from Space with Serkan Arslanalp, Seung Mo Choi, Parisa Kamali, Robin Koepke, Michele Ruta, Mario Saraiva, Alessandra Sozzi, and Jasper Verschuur
● IMF Working Paper (05/2025)
Abstract
We introduce a nowcasting model of global maritime trade, leveraging satellite-based big data on vessel movements. This provides a timely indicator of global trade as shipping accounts for about 80 percent of worldwide merchandise trade by volume. Our approach mimics key features of the way statisticians compile trade data—measuring the customs value of imported and exported goods, forming import and export price deflators, and then estimating import and export volumes. We show how global and regional nowcasts can be obtained using port-level data from IMF PortWatch and highlight important enhancements to the platform since its beta launch in November 2023. Finally, we demonstrate how the monthly nowcasts can be used to monitor fragmentation and regionalization in global maritime trade. Climate and Consumption: Using Vegetation Indices to Link Climate and Household Welfare in Mali _with Jeremy Foltz_ - Current Draft: (09/24/25)
Abstract
A large literature has estimated the effects of climate change on agricultural yields. That work assumes, but rarely tests, that changes in yields translate directly into changes in household wellbeing. Such assumptions elide the rather large literature on resilience to climate and other shocks. This work uses satellite derived yield data (GCVI) to analyze the relationship between agricultural productivity and household welfare, as measured by overall and food expenditure in the West African Sahel. We use remotely-sensed vegetation indices as a proxy for crop yields, as well as a granular household level dataset from 85\% of Mali's administrative communes between 2011 and 2019. Calculating commune-level indices for each growing season, we are then able to estimate their effects on household level expenditures for two growing seasons per household. As expected, we find that changes in yields have a statistically significant effect on overall household expenditure as well as other expenditure categories (food, leisure, etc.) for rural dwellers. This effect for rural dwellers is, however, relatively muted to changes in the values of vegetation indices, with GCVI to expenditure elasticities in the range of 0.10. Such low expenditure elasticities for changes in yields indicates a large degree of resilience to climate-related variation in agricultural productivity by Malian rural households. We draw conclusions based on this work for policy makers and for researchers interested in using remote sensed data for climate change and resilience research. Tourist Demand, Hotel Competition, and Aggregate Welfare: Evidence from Jamaica Draft coming Tuesday, Feb 10, 2026
Abstract
Tradable service exports have become increasingly important components of the economies for many lower- and middle-income countries. Two aspects of this transition that have not received significant attention are the interaction between importer preferences, market structures, and local economic engagement, and the role that these interactions play in achieving development outcomes. There is also much we do not know about the scope of government policies to optimize market structures to achieve development aims. This paper sheds light on these topics by analyzing tourist demand and hotel supply in Jamaica, as well as the impacts of market structure on tourist expenditures, tax revenues, and employment. I estimate a short-run equilibrium model of the Jamaican accommodations industry, with a nested logit demand system. I then conduct counterfactual simulations varying taxation, entry, and ownership structures. I find a distinct tension between optimal market structure for tax revenues and downstream tourist spending and the optimal structure for increasing accommodation employment. Inelastic consumer preferences for particular resort types constrain available choices for the government, and make the first-best market structure unattainable. I recommend policies for achieving second-best outcomes. Beaches or Books: Tourism Shocks and Human Capital Accumulation