ERIC VERHOOGEN

Professor, Department of Economics and School of International and Public Affairs
Vice Dean, School of International and Public Affairs
Co-Director, Center for Development Economics and Policy
Columbia University

Welcome. My main research area is industrial development -- firms, innovation, productivity, trade, industrial policy, labor markets in developing countries. A number of my papers have been concerned with the process of quality upgrading -- how firms raise quality when they sell to richer countries, and the consequences for labor and other input markets. Recently I've been working on technology adoption and productivity estimation, among other topics. Links to my academic papers and other writings are below. Feedback welcome.

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Google Scholar profile

Mailing address: 420 W. 118th St., Room 1022, MC 3308, New York, NY 10027
Office: IAB 1119
Tel: (212) 854-4428
Email: eric.verhoogen@columbia.edu
Twitter: @EricVerhoogen

Office hours: by appointment

• “Organizational Barriers to Technology Adoption: Evidence from Soccer-Ball Producers in Pakistan.” With David Atkin, Azam Chaudhry, Shamyla Chaudry, and Amit Khandelwal. Sept. 2016. Appendix A. Appendix B. Forthcoming, Quarterly Journal of Economics. (Slides.)


• Media coverage: Canada AM (national morning news), Marketplace (American Public Media), The Atlantic online, The New Republic online, Wall Street Journal Real Time Economics blog, NBER Digest, Columbia News, Valor Econômico (Brazil), The Nation (Pakistan), phys.org, Chris Blattman's blog, Stephen Dubner's TMSIDK podcast (at 29:54)
• IGC Video: "Footballs in Pakistan: An Innovation Story"
• Related article: "How Labor Standards Can Be Good for Growth" Harvard Business Revew (online). pdf.


• “On the Origins and Development of Pakistan’s Soccer-Ball Cluster.” With David Atkin, Azam Chaudhry, Shamyla Chaudry, Amit Khandelwal, and Tariq Raza. World Bank Economic Review (ABCDE Conference Papers & Proceedings), 2016.


• “Mark-up and Cost Dispersion Across Firms: Direct Evidence from Producer Surveys in Pakistan.” With David Atkin, Azam Chaudhry, Shamyla Chaudry, and Amit Khandelwal. American Economic Review Papers & Proceedings, May 2015. Online appendix. (.bib)


• “Exports and Within-Plant Wage Distributions: Evidence from Mexico.” With Judith A. Frías and David S. Kaplan. American Economic Review Papers & Proceedings, v. 102, no. 3, pp. 435-440, May 2012. Online appendix. (.bib)


• “Prices, Plant Size, and Product Quality.” With Maurice Kugler. Review of Economic Studies, vol. 79 no. 1, pp. 307-339, Jan. 2012. Online appendix. (.bib)


• Earlier versions: (1) “The Quality-Complementarity Hypothesis: Theory and Evidence from Colombia.” NBER working paper #14418, Oct. 2008. (2) “Product Quality at the Plant Level: Plant Size, Exports, Output Prices and Input Prices in Colombia.” PER Discussion Paper 0708-12, Columbia University, Jan. 2008.


• “Plants and Imported Inputs: New Facts and an Interpretation.” With Maurice Kugler. American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings, v. 99 no. 2, pp. 501-507, May 2009. (.bib) Supplementary material: Appendix Table 1.


• “Class-Size Caps, Sorting, and the Regression Discontinuity Design.” With Miguel Urquiola. American Economic Review, v. 99 no. 1, pp. 179-215, March 2009. (.bib)


• “Trade, Quality Upgrading and Wage Inequality in the Mexican Manufacturing Sector.” Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 123, no. 2, pp. 489-530, May 2008. (.bib) Appendix II, Erratum.


• Reprinted in Trade and Inequality, ed. Pinelop Koujianou Goldberg, Oxford University Press, 2015.
• Earlier versions: (1) June 2007: CEPR #6385, BREAD #153, IZA #2913; (2) Jan. 2004: UC Berkeley Center for Labor Economics #67.
• Press mentions: Wall Street Journal, May 24, 2007, page A1 (Volkswagen example drawn in part from this paper.) In Spanish: La Reforma (México D.F.), May 24, 2007, Negocios p. 10. Non-technical summary: SIPA News, Jan. 2009.
• VW photos


• “Fairness and Freight-Handlers: Local Labor Market Conditions and Wage Fairness Perceptions in a Trucking Firm.” With Stephen V. Burks and Jeffrey P. Carpenter. Industrial and Labor Relations Review, vol. 60, no. 4, pp. 477-498, July 2007. (.bib)


• “Comparing Students to Workers: The Effects of Social Framing on Behavior in Distribution Games.” With Jeffrey P. Carpenter and Stephen V. Burks. In J. P. Carpenter, G. Harrison, and J. List eds., Research in Experimental Economics, vol. 10. Amsterdam, Boston: JAI/Elsevier, 2005. (.bib)


• “The Effect of Stakes in Distribution Experiments.” With Stephen V. Burks and Jeffrey P. Carpenter. Economics Letters, vol. 86, no. 2, Feb. 2005. (.bib)


• “Playing Both Roles in the Trust Game.” With Stephen V. Burks and Jeffrey P. Carpenter. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, vol. 51 no.2, pp. 195-216, June 2003. (.bib)

• “Export Destinations and Input Prices.” With Paulo Bastos and Joana Silva. July 2017. Appendix A. Appendix B.  2nd resubmission, American Economic Review.


• Previous version: NBER working paper no. 20143, May 2014. (Also CEPR discussion paper no. 9985.) Appendix. (.bib)


• “Enlisting Employees in Improving Payroll-Tax Compliance: Evidence from Mexico.” With Todd Kumler and Judith A. Frías. April 2015. Appendix.  Revision requested, Review of Economics and Statistics.


• Related article: "Improving Payroll-Tax Compliance Through Decentralized Monitoring," VoxDev, June 2017
• Previous versions: NBER 19385 (first version Aug. 2013, updated April 2015), CDEP-CGEG 7, CEPR 9622, BREAD 395, IZA 7591, Columbia PER discussion paper 1112-07.


• Exports and Wage Premia: Evidence from Mexican Employer-Employee Data.” With Judith A. Frías and David S. Kaplan. Aug. 2009. (.bib)


• Earlier version: “Exporting and Individual Wage Premia: Evidence from Mexican Employer-Employee Data.” With David S. Kaplan. Jan. 2006.

• "Improving Payroll-Tax Compliance Through Decentralized Monitoring," VoxDev, June 2017


• "How Labor Standards Can Be Good for Growth," Harvard Business Revew (online), April 27, 2016. (pdf)


• “Estructura Industrial e Innovación: Notas para una Nueva Estrategia de Desarrollo Industrial en México.” Boletin Informativo Techint, Edición Especial, Oct. 2013. [English version: “Industrial Structure and Innovation: Notes Toward a New Strategy for Industrial Development in Mexico.”] Appendix. (.bib)


• “Heterogeneous Firms, Trade and the Links to Growth,” Plenary talk at International Growth Centre (IGC) Growth Week 2012 (slides).


• “Diferencias de Precios de los Insumos de Origen Nacional y Extranjero en la Industria Colombiana.” With Gilma Beatriz Ferreira Villegas, Maurice Kugler, Germán Pérez Hernández, and Luis Miguel Suarez Cruz. Revista ib de la Información Básica, vol. 1, no. 1, pp. 72-84, Dec. 2011.


• Comment on “The Effect of Mexican Workforce Migration on the Mexican Maquiladora Labor Market,” by Scott E. Atkinson and Marilyn Ibarra, Economía, vol. 8, no. 1, Fall 2007.


• Comment on “Globalization, Migration and Development: The Role of Mexican Migrant Remittances,” by Ernesto López-Córdova. Economía, vol. 6, no. 1, Fall 2005.

• SIPA INAF U8145: Advanced Economic Development for International Affairs, Fall 2015
• Econ G6306: Industrial Development, Fall 2016, Syllabus
• Development Seminar & Colloquium Schedule
• Notes for potential PhD advisees
• Notes for applicants to SIPA or Econ PhD programs

• Center for Development Economics and Policy (CDEP)
• International Growth Centre (IGC)
• Bureau for Research in the Economic Analysis of Development (BREAD))