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Dave Donaldson
Professor of Economics, MIT
Dave Donaldson teaches and carries out research on topics at the intersection of International/Intranational Trade, Development Economics, Economic History and Environmental Economics. He has studied, among other topics: the welfare and other effects of market integration, the impact of improvements in transportation infrastructure, how trade might mediate the effects of climate change, and how trade affects food security and famine. This work has been awarded the 2017 John Bates Clark Medal, given by the American Economic Association to the US-based economist under the age of forty who is judged to have made the most significant contribution to economic thought and knowledge, as well as an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship and several grants from the National Science Foundation. He currently serves as a co-editor at the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, as an editorial board member at the Journal of Economic Literature, the Journal of International Economics, the Review of Economic Studies, and the Quarterly Journal of Economics, and as a program director (for Trade) at the International Growth Centre. A native of Toronto, Canada, Donaldson obtained an undergraduate degree in Physics from Oxford University and a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics.
Recent work by Dave Donaldson
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How does trade affect income inequality? Evidence from Ecuador
New measures of export and import exposure at the individual level show that international trade increases earnings inequality in Ecuador
Published 02.10.23
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Ghosting the tax authority: Fake firms and tax fraud in Ecuador
Ghost firms help real firms evade significant sums in tax, but the tax authority developed an innovative way to recover the revenue from cheating firms
Published 13.10.22
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The role of trade in economic development
Welfare gains from trade openness are dependent on whether trade results in a reallocation of resources towards or away from distorted sectors
Published 06.04.22
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Rise of the satellites: Data revolutions in development economics research
Satellite data are increasingly used to measure developing economies in areas including urban land use, agriculture and the environment
Published 13.04.18
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How high intra-national trade costs limit the gains of globalisation
High trade costs and mark-ups on transportation within African countries reduce the surplus and market access of remote consumers
Published 22.09.17