About

Natalia Ramondo is a Professor in the Department of Economics at Boston University and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the Center for Economic Policy and Research (CEPR), and the CESifo research network. She received her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Chicago, an M.A. from Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, and a B.A. from the Universidad de Buenos Aires. Her research focuses on globalization issues at the intersection of international trade, multinational production, and macroeconomics. She develops theoretical and quantitative frameworks to study the distributional and welfare implications of trade and foreign direct investment, the role of multinational enterprises in global value chains and the environment, and the dynamic responses of firms to shocks in general equilibrium. Prof. Ramondo has published her work in leading economics journals, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, and the Review of Economic Studies. She is frequently invited to present her research at major conferences, leading universities worldwide, as well as at central banks and international organizations. She has received research support from the National Science Foundation and Sloan Foundation. Currently, she serves as an Associate Editor at the Journal of Monetary Economics, the Journal of International Economics, and the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics. At Boston University, she actively mentors graduate students and fosters the department’s research community in international and spatial economics.

Research topics

• Economics
• Industrial organization
• Microeconomics
• Labour economics
• Macroeconomics
• Economic growth
• Market economy
• International trade
• Business
• International economics

Selected publications

• Research Insights: How Does Firm-Embedded Productivity Affect Cross-Country Income Differences?

  2024-12-15 · 1 citations

  reportOpen accessSenior author

  The gap in productivity among countries is a fundamental factor contributing to income disparities across countries. Firm-embedded productivity, encompassing knowledge, expertise, patents, brands, and business models, contributes to approximately one-third of the variation in output per worker across countries. Country-specific factors, such as institutions and natural resources, account for the remaining variation. Policies that enhance firm- embedded productivity, such as tax incentives for R&D and research grants, can help reduce global income inequality.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Global knowledge and trade flows: Theory and measurement

  Journal of International Economics · 2024-06-11 · 3 citations

  articleSenior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Firm-Embedded Productivity and Cross-Country Income Differences

  Journal of Political Economy · 2023 · 10 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Business
  • Industrial organization
  • Economics

  We measure the contribution of firm-embedded productivity to cross-country income differences. By firm-embedded productivity we refer to firm-specific components of productivity, such as blueprints, management practices, and other intangible capital. Using micro-level data for multinational enterprises (MNEs), we compare market shares of the same MNE in different countries and document that they are systematically larger in less developed countries. This indicates that MNEs face less competition and that firm-embedded productivity is scarce in these countries. We implement a measure of firm-embedded productivity based on this observation. Differences in firm-embedded productivity account for one-third of the cross-country variance in output per worker in our sample.

  PublisherDOI

• Global Innovation and Knowledge Diffusion

  American Economic Review Insights · 2023-12-01 · 9 citations

  articleSenior author

  We develop a Ricardian model of trade where countries innovate ideas that diffuse globally. Our key result provides necessary and sufficient conditions for innovation and diffusion to generate max-stable Fréchet productivity, linking generalized extreme value expenditure to knowledge flows. Innovation makes a country technologically distinct, reducing its substitutability with other countries. In contrast, diffusion generates technological similarity, increasing head-to-head competition and substitutability. In an innovation-only model where countries do not share ideas, productivities are independent across countries and expenditure is CES. Consequently, departures from CES reveal diffusion patterns. (JEL F11, O31, O33, O41)

  PublisherDOI

• Trade with Correlation

  American Economic Review · 2023-01-27

  preprintSenior author

  We develop a trade model with correlation in productivity across countries. The model spans the full class of generalized extreme value import demand systems and implies that countries with relatively dissimilar technology gain more from trade. In the context of a multisector trade model, we provide a tractable and flexible estimation procedure for correlation based on compressing highly disaggregate sectoral data into a few latent factors related to technology classes. We estimate significant heterogeneity in correlation across sectors and countries, which leads to quantitative predictions that are significantly different from estimates of models assuming independent productivity across sectors or countries. (JEL C38, F11, F13, F14, L16, O30)

  PublisherDOI

• Replication Data for: Firm-Embedded Productivity and Cross-Country Income Differences

  Harvard Dataverse · 2022-11-09

  datasetOpen accessSenior author

  This is the replication package for "Firm-Embedded Productivity and Cross-Country Income Differences," accepted in 2022 by the Journal of Political Economy

  PublisherDOI

• Global Innovation and Knowledge Diffusion

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Global Knowledge and Trade Flows: Theory and Measurement

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2022-01-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Global Knowledge and Trade Flows: Theory and Measurement

  National Bureau of Economic Research · 2022-10-01 · 4 citations

  reportOpen accessSenior author

  We study the global innovation and diffusion of ideas by introducing trade into the model in Eaton and Kortum (1999) (EK). This extension allows us to use international trade flows and country-level factor costs to estimate both the intensity of innovation within countries over time and diffusion rates across countries. We find significant specialization across the globe: some countries have high innovation rates, while other countries rely on diffusion. Although innovation is correlated with economic growth, there are many high income countries that primarily produce using diffused ideas. Additionally, these patterns shift over time — we estimate that a wave of innovation began in China during the early-2000’s, reducing its reliance on diffused technology.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Firm-Embedded Productivity and Cross-Country Income Differences

  2021-02-04 · 2 citations

  reportOpen accessSenior author

  We measure the contribution of firm-embedded productivity to cross-country income differences. By firm-embedded productivity we refer to the components of productivity that differ across firms and that can be transferred internationally, such as blueprints, management practices, and intangible capital. Our approach relies on micro-level data on the cross-border operations of multinational enterprises (MNEs). We compare the market shares of the exact same MNE in different countries and document that they are about four times larger in developing than in high-income coun-tries. This finding indicates that MNEs face less competition in less-developed coun-tries, suggesting that firm-embedded productivity in those countries is scarce. We propose and implement a new measure of firm-embedded productivity based on this observation. We find a strong positive correlation between our measure and output per worker across countries. In our sample, differences in firm-embedded productivity account for roughly a third of the cross-country variance in output per worker.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Correlation in Quantitative Models

  NSF · $182k · 2019–2020

Frequent coauthors

• Veronica Rappoport

  London School of Economics and Political Science

  35 shared

• Andrés Rodrı́guez-Clare

  32 shared

• Stefania Garetto

  Centre for Economic Policy Research

  29 shared

• Lindsay Oldenski

  29 shared

• Kim J. Ruhl

  University of Wisconsin–Madison

  27 shared

• Milagro Saborío‐Rodríguez

  Centro Agronomico Tropical de Investigacion y Ensenanza Catie

  20 shared

• Nelson Lind

  Emory University

  10 shared

• Anna Gumpert

  LMU Klinikum

  9 shared

Education

• Ph.D.

  University of Chicago

• M.A.

  Universidad Torcuato Di Tella

• B.A.

  Universidad de Buenos Aires

Awards & honors

• Research support from the National Science Foundation
• Research support from the Sloan Foundation