Michael Tueting

About me

I am a Ph.D. student in Economics at the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland. My research covers topics in Regional Economics, Development Economics, and International Trade.

From September 23 through June 24, I am visiting Adam Storeygard at Tufts.

I am passionate about the spatial distribution of economic activity and the role of spatial frictions.

You can find my CV here.

Work in Progress

  • Transportation and Climate Resilience.
  • Skill Supply, Firm Size, and Economic Development, with Charles Gottlieb and Markus Poschke.
  • Abstract.

    In this paper, we examine the joint distribution of workers' skills by firm size and study how it evolves across country income levels. We then use a span-of-control model with worker skill heterogeneity to disentangle the impact of barriers to firm growth and skill supply on economic development and to simulate the effect of scarcer skill endowments on the skill composition of different firms, relative wages by firm size, the size distribution of firms, and aggregate productivity.

  • How Large are Language Barriers in Africa?, with Roland Hodler and Paul Schaudt.
  • Abstract.

    In this paper, we estimate the elasticity of intra-national trade costs with respect to language differences in Africa. Our proposed estimation strategy does not require bilateral trade data on the sub-national level but recovers the elasticity non-linearly from observed population growth and changes in the African transportation network between 1970 and 2015 using a market access approach.

  • R&D and Trade: Seed Varieties in Africa, with Anne Krahn.
  • Teaching