Research
Economic development · International economics · Political economy · Chinese economy
Job Market Paper
All Labors Are Equal, But Some Labor Is More “Equal” Than Others: Labor Terms of Trade and the Capitalist World-System
I compute labor terms of trade for more than 170 countries over 1990–2017 using multi-regional input–output tables, providing the first systematic worldwide estimates. The global distribution has three or four distinct layers. Countries mostly stayed in place through the early 2000s, but after the global financial crisis the bottom and lower-middle layers moved up markedly.
Publications
China’s reforms combined an overwhelmingly gradual transition with geographically concentrated episodes of shock-style restructuring. The severity of adjustment reflected pre-reform industrialization and class relations, and provinces exposed to more concentrated restructuring did not subsequently grow faster.
Using provincial panel data from 1990 to 2021, we link China’s fertility decline to the organization of social reproduction. Formal-sector employment is positively and robustly associated with birth rates.
We compare surplus absorption in the United States and China since 2000. The U.S. has increasingly relied on government deficits, which may prove unsustainable, while China has relied heavily on investment.
Renewed U.S. sanctions have drawn mixed reactions in China: liberals defend the U.S.-led order, nationalists rally behind Chinese firms, and leftists call for delinking from neoliberal globalization. Beijing has pushed back but has not fundamentally changed U.S.–China economic ties.
Revise & Resubmit
Counting the Zones of the Capitalist World-System: New Evidence on the Global Income Hierarchy, 1950–2023
Work in Progress
Measuring the Hierarchy of Global Capitalism
Using an index benchmarked to the income of four classical imperial powers, I find the world hierarchy has been strikingly stable since 1950: only twelve economies reached the top layer in six decades.
Can China Overcome the Semi-Peripheral Trap?
I also translate and edit for the People’s Food Sovereignty Network. See Political Economy of Food.