Annual Washington Area International Trade Symposium (WAITS) Conference

The Washington Area International Trade Symposium (WAITS)

The Washington Area International Trade Symposium (WAITS) is a forum that highlights trade research at institutions in the Washington D.C. area. Its primary activity is sponsoring an annual research conference where scholars present their latest academic work. Researchers from George Washington University, American University, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Census Bureau, the Federal Reserve Board, Georgetown University, George Mason University, the Inter-American Development Bank, Johns Hopkins University (SAIS), the U.S. International Trade Commission, the University of Maryland, and the World Bank have all participated in the symposium.

Event: 11th Washington Area International Trade Symposium

Date: Friday, May 6, 2022

Location: The Commons, 6th floor, Elliott School of International Affairs | George Washington University

In Person Registration

Virtual Registration

Conference Program

08:15-08:40: Breakfast

08:40-08:45: Opening Remarks

Session I: Trade, Automation, and Labor Market

8:45-9:30: Mine Senses (JHU SAIS), “Trade, Human Capital, and Income Risk” | Discussant: Ricardo Reyes-Heroles (Federal Reserve Board)

9:30-10:15: Katherine Stapleton (World Bank), “AI Firms and Wages: Evidence from India”  | Discussant: Cristina Tello-Trillo (US Census Bureau)

10:15-11:00: Maurice Kugler (GMU), “U.S. Robots and Their Impacts in the Tropics: Evidence from Colombian Labor Markets” | Discussant: Danielle Trachtenberg (Inter-American Development Bank)

10:00-11:15 Coffee Break

Session II: Immigration

11:15-12:00: Charly Porcher (Georgetown), “A Revealed-Preference Approach to Measuring Information Frictions in Migration Decisions”  | Discussant: Erhan Artuc (World Bank)

12:00-12:45: Eunhee Lee (Maryland), “High-skill Immigration, Offshore R&D, and Firm Dynamics” | Discussant: Ariel Weinberger (GWU)

12:45-13:30: Lunch

Session III: Trade Frictions and Spillovers

13:30-14:15: Carter Mix (Federal Reserve Board), “The Aggregate Effects of Supply-Chain Delays” | Discussant: Xiang Ding (Georgetown)

14:15-15:00: Valentina Bruno (American), “Dollar and Exports” | Discussant: Ryan Kim (JHU SAIS) 

15:00-15:45: Mauricio Moreira (Inter-American Development Bank), “Fighting Climate Change: Does Latin America’s Trade Policy Help or Hinder?” | Discussant: Robert Blecker (AU)

15:45-16:00: Coffee Break

Session IV: International Firms

16:00-16:45: Nikolas Zolas (U.S. Census Bureau), “International Patenting with Heterogeneous Firms” | Discussant: Anh Pham (GMU)

16:45-17:30: Yingyan Zhao (GWU), “No Country for Dying Firms: Evidence from India” | Discussant: Tristan Reed (World Bank)

10th Annual Washington Area International Trade Symposium (WAITS) Conference

Thursday, April 29, 2021 and Friday, April 30, 2021

Sessions Included: “Trade Liberalization and Labor Market Outcomes: Evidence from U.S. Matched Employer-Employee Data”, “Foreign Competition Along the Quality Ladder”, “Disentangling the Effects of the 2018-2019 Tariffs on a Globally Connected U.S. Manufacturing Sector”, “Foreign Influence: The International Transmission of Gender Equality”, “Linkages with Multinationals: The Effects of Domestic Firms’ Exports”, “Quality Misallocation, Trade, and Regulations”, “Industry Linkages from Joint Production”, “Trade, Technology, Size, and the Division of Labor”, “Spatial Misallocation, Informality, and Transit Improvements: Evidence from Mexico City”, “Game of Zones: Taking a Chance or Playing it Safe?”

Hosted by American University

Click here for the full agenda.

9th Annual Washington Area International Trade Symposium (WAITS) Conference

April 26, 2019
Sessions Included: “Regional Spillovers through Multi-Market Firms: The Product Replacement Channel”, “Non-Tariff Barriers and Bargaining in Generic Pharmaceuticals”, “Training and Labor Adjustment to Trade”, “Trade, Jobs, and Worker Welfare”, “Family Leave Law and the Demand for Female Labor: Evidence from a Trade Shock”, “Robots, Tasks, and Trade”, “Testing Stolper- Samuelson with a Natural Experiment”, What are the Price Effects of Trade: Evidence from the U.S. and Implication for Quantitative Trade Models”, and “Your (Country’s) Reputation Precedes You: Information Asymmetry, Externalities and the Quality of Exports”

Hosted by the Institute for International Economic Policy

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8th Annual Washington Area International Trade Symposium (WAITS) Conference

April 27, 2018
Sessions Included: “Policy Credibility and Firm Growth in the Global Economy”, “Policy Credibility and Firm Growth in the Global Economy”, “Uncertainty and Firm Growth in the Global Economy”, “Uncertainty and Trade Elasticities”, “Information and Exports: Firm-Level Evidence from an Outline Platform”, “The Impact of Trade on Managerial Incentives and Productivity”, Investment Responses to Trade Liberalization: Evidence from U.S. Industries and Establishments”, “Goods and Factor Market Integration: A Quantitative Assessment of the EU Enlargement”, “Assessing Market (Dis)Integration in Pre-Modern China and Europe”, “The Trade Effects of the New Silk Road”, “How Does Industry Comparative Advantage Affect Establishments?”, “Endogenous Trade Policy in a Global Value Chain: Evidence from Chinese Micro-level Processing Trade”

Hosted by the Institute for International Economic Policy

Click here for the full agenda.

7th Annual Washington Area International Trade Symposium (WAITS) Conference

April 27, 2018
Sessions Included: “Trade, Inequality, and the Endogenous Sorting of Heterogeneous Workers”, “The Local Incidence of Trade Shocks”, “An Empirical Dynamic Model of Trade with Consumer Accumulation”, “The Role of Transfer Prices in Profit Shifting by U.S. Multinationals: Evidence from 2004 Homeland Investment”, “An Anatomy of Foreign Investment News”, “Industry Mix, Local Labor Markets, and the Incidence of Trade Shocks”, “The Impact of Chinese Competition on Mexican Labor Outcomes”, “Trade Creation and Trade Diversion in Deep Agreements”
Keynote Speakers: Keith Maskus

Hosted by the Institute for International Economic Policy

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6th Annual Washington Area International Trade Symposium (WAITS) Conference

April 29, 2016
Sessions Included: “Reassessing the Productivity Gains from Trade Liberalization”, “Learning, Prices, and Firm Dynamics”, “Trade Shocks and the Provision of Local Public Goods”, “The Tradability of Services: Geographic Concentration and Trade Costs”, “Trade Policy in Practice: The TPP from an Insider’s Perspective”, “Misallocation, Trade, and Productivity: Evidence from Chinese Data”, “Global Supply Chains and Trade Policy”, and “Green Innovation and Green Manufacturing: Links Between Environmental Policies, Innovation and Production”. 

Hosted by the Institute for International Economic Policy

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5th Annual Washington Area International Trade Symposium (WAITS) Conference

April 30, 2015
Sessions Included: “Overcoming the Tyranny of History: Evidence from Post-Apartheid South Africa”, “The Impact of Skilled Foreign Workers on Firms: an Investigation of Publicly Traded U.S. Firms”, “Learning and the Value of Relationships in International Trade”, “The Border Labyrinth: Information Technologies and Trade in the Presence of Multiple Agencies”, “Learning and Reputation in Trade” and Trade-induced Quality Upgrading: Transaction-level Evidence from Portugal” 

Hosted by the Institute for International Economic Policy

Click here for the full agenda.

4th Annual Washington Area International Trade Symposium (WAITS) Conference

April 25, 2014
Sessions Included: “Customs: What are the Effects on International Trade”, “Comparative Advantages of Rich and Poor Countries”, “Foreign Rivals are Coming to Town: Responding to the Threat of Foreign Multinational Entry”, “Estimating the Effects of the Container Revolution on World Trade”, “Important Dynamics and Demands for Protection”, “The Structure of Export Entry Costs”, and “Buyer-Seller Relationships in International Trade: Do your Neighbors Matter?”
Keynote Speakers: Michael Moore, Christopher Kurz

Hosted by the Institute for International Economic Policy

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3rd Annual Washington Area International Trade Symposium (WAITS) Conference

April 12, 2013
Sessions Included: “Export Destinations and Input Prices: Evidence from Portugal”, “Menu Costs, Trade Flows, and Exchange Rate Volatility”, “Policy Uncertainty, Trade and Welfare: Theory and Evidence for China”, “Product Switching in a Model of Learning”, “Under the Cover of Antidumping: Does Administered Protection Facilitate Domestic Collusion?”, “Diversification, Cost Structure, and the Stock Returns of Multinational Companies”, “Exchange Rate Pass-through in a Global Value Chains: The Effects of Upstream Suppliers”, and “Entry Costs and Increasing Trade”.
Keynote Speakers: Michael Moore

Hosted by the Institute for International Economic Policy

Click here for the full agenda.

2nd Annual Washington Area International Trade Symposium (WAITS) Conference

April 6, 2012
Sessions Included: “Trade Liberalization and Labor Market Dynamics”, “Globalization, Labor Markets and the Role of Human Capital”, “Protection for Free? The Political Economy of U.S. Tariff Suspensions”, “Exports-at-Risk: The Effect of Multi-Market Contact in International Trade”, “Exports-at-Risk: The Effect of Multi-Market Contact in International Trade”, “Trade Policy and Wage Inequality: A Structural Analysis with Occupational and Sectoral Mobility”, “A Global Database of Foreign Affiliate Activity”, “Trade and Volatility at the Firm and Plant Level”, and “Selection, Reallocation, and Knowledge Spillovers: Identifying the Impact of Multinational Activity on Aggregate Productivity”

Hosted by the Institute for International Economic Policy

Click here for the full agenda.

1st Annual Washington Area International Trade Symposium (WAITS) Conference

March 11, 2011
Sessions Included: “Multi Market Service Firms”, “Trade and Investment under Policy Uncertainty: Theory and Firm Evidence Presentation”, “Trade Liberalization, Firm Heterogeneity, and Wages: New Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data”, “Trade Liberalization, Firm Heterogeneity, and Wages: New Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee Data, “Local Intermediate Inputs, Foreign Direct Investment and the Performance of Domestic Firms: When Firms Share Common Local Input Suppliers”, “The Global Agglomeration of Multinational Firms”, and “Offshoring, Terms of trade and the Measurement of U.S. Productivity Growth”
Keynote Speakers: Michael Moore

Hosted by the Institute for International Economic Policy

Click here for the full agenda.