Simon Galle

Galle, Simon & Lorentzen, Linnea (2024)

The unequal effects of trade and automation across local labor markets

150, s. 1- 26. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jinteco.2024.103912 - Full text in research archive

We quantify the joint impact of the China shock and automation of labor, across US commuting zones (CZs) in the period 2000–2007. To this end, we employ a multi-sector gravity model of trade with Roy-Fréchet worker heterogeneity across sectors, where labor input can be automated. Automation and increased import competition from China are both sector-specific; they lead to contractions in a sector’s labor demand and a decline in relative income for CZs more specialized in that sector, amplified by a voluntary reduction in hours worked and an increase in frictional unemployment. The estimated model fits well with the aggregate performance of manufacturing subsectors and with the variation across CZs in changes in average income, the hourly wage, hours worked, the employment rate and employment in manufacturing. By itself, the China shock has stronger distributional effects than automation, but its impact on aggregate gains is less than a third of automation’s impact.

Galle, Simon; Rodriguez-Clare, Andres & Yi, Moises (2022)

Slicing the Pie: Quantifying the Aggregate and Distributional Effects of Trade

90(1) , s. 331- 375. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdac020 - Full text in research archive

We develop a multi-sector gravity model with heterogeneous workers to quantify the aggregate and group-level welfare effects of trade. The model generalizes the specific-factors intuition to a setting with labor reallocation, leads to a parsimonious formula for the group-level welfare effects from trade, and nests the aggregate results in Arkolakis et al. (2012). We estimate the model using the structural relationship between China-shock driven changes in manufacturing employment and average earnings across US groups defined as commuting zones. We find that the China shock increases average welfare but some groups experience losses as high as four times the average gain. However, adjusting for plausible measures of inequality aversion barely affects the welfare gains. We also develop and estimate an extension of the model that endogenizes labor force participation and unemployment, finding similar welfare effects from the China shock.

Bjorvatn, Kjetil; Galle, Simon, Berge, Lars Ivar Oppedal, Miguel, Edward, Posner, Daniel, Tungodden, Bertil & Zhang, Kelly (2021)

Elections and selfishness

69, s. 1- 6. Doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2020.102267 - Full text in research archive

Elections affect the division of resources in society and are occasions for political elites to make appeals rooted in voters' self-interest. Hence, elections may erode altruistic norms and cause people to behave more selfishly. We test this intuition using Dictator Games in a lab-in-the-field experiment involving a sample of more than 1000 individuals in Kenya and Tanzania. We adopt two approaches. First, we experimentally prime participants to think about the upcoming or most recent elections and find that this priming treatment reduces how much money participants are willing to give to other players. Second, we compare results obtained across lab rounds in Kenya taking place right before the country's 2013 national elections and eight months prior, and find that selfishness is greater in the lab round more proximate to the election. Our results suggest that elections may affect social behavior in important—and previously unrecognized—ways.

Berge, Lars Ivar Oppedal; Bjorvatn, Kjetil, Galle, Simon, Miguel, Edward, Posner, Daniel, Tungodden, Bertil & Zhang, Kelly (2019)

Ethnically Biased? Experimental Evidence from Kenya

18(1) Doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvz003 - Full text in research archive

Ethnicity has been shown to shape political, social, and economic behavior in Africa, but the underlying mechanisms remain contested. We utilize lab experiments to isolate one mechanism—an individual’s bias in favor of coethnics and against non-coethnics—that has been central in both theory and in the conventional wisdom about the impact of ethnicity. We employ an unusually rich research design involving a large sample of 1,300 participants from Nairobi, Kenya; the collection of multiple rounds of experimental data with varying proximity to national elections; within-lab priming conditions; both standard and novel experimental measures of coethnic bias; and an implicit association test (IAT). We find very little evidence of an ethnic bias in the behavioral games, which runs against the common presumption of extensive coethnic bias among ordinary Africans and suggests that mechanisms other than a coethnic bias in preferences must account for the associations we see in the region between ethnicity and political, social and economic outcomes.

Galle, Simon (2025)

De Nobelprijs Economie: afschaffen of opwaarderen?

[Popular Science Article]. 90 Doi: https://www.tijdschriftkarakter.be/de-nobelprijs-economie-afschaffen-of-opwaarderen/

De Nobelprijs Economie ligt onder vuur. Critici stellen dat economie geen echte wetenschap is en dat de prijs een misleidende autoriteit verleent aan een discipline die vaak ideologisch gemotiveerd is. Sommigen pleiten zelfs voor afschaffing. Valt de prijs alsnog te rechtvaardigen, en zo ja, hoe?

Carpena, Fenella & Galle, Simon (2023)

Aarhus presentation of: "The Labor Market Effects of Technical Change: A Simple Model."

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Galle, Simon & Lorentzen, Linnea (2022)

Presentation of The Unequal Effects of Trade and Automation across Local Labor Markets

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Galle, Simon & Lorentzen, Linnea (2022)

SETC Presentation of: "The Unequal Effects of Trade and Automation across Local Labor Markets."

[Conference Lecture]. Event

Galle, Simon & Lorentzen, Linnea (2022)

NCRDEM Presentation of "The Unequal Effects of Trade and Automation across Local Labor Markets."

[Conference Lecture]. Event