Overview
Daniel Yi Xu is the David Rubenstein Distinguished Professor of Economics at Duke University, a Faculty Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a Research Fellow at the Center for Economic Policy Research, and a Senior Fellow at the Asian Bureau of Finance and Economic Research.
His research focuses on the intersection of productivity, international trade, and industrial organization. Professor Xu’s current research agenda involves the use of large-scale microdata to model and estimate a broad range of dynamic individual firm decisions and to examine how these decisions impact resource allocation, industry performance, and economic growth, particularly in developing and emerging economies.
His most recent work has been published in leading economics journals, including the American Economic Review, Journal of Political Economy, Review of Economic Studies, RAND Journal of Economics, Review of Economic Dynamics, and Management Science. Professor Xu is currently a co-editor of the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics and an associate editor of the RAND Journal of Economics. He previously served as co-editor for the Review of Economics and Statistics and the Journal of Development Economics. Additionally, he has been an associate editor for the American Economic Journal: Applied, Economic Journal, Journal of Industrial Economics, Journal of International Economics, Quantitative Economics, and the Review of Economics and Statistics.
Current Appointments & Affiliations
Recent Publications
O-Ring Production Networks
Journal Article Journal of Political Economy · January 1, 2024 We document strong skill matching in Turkish firms’ production networks. Additionally, in the data, export demand shocks from rich countries increase firms’ skill intensity and their trade with skill-intensive domestic partners. We explain these patterns u ... Full text CiteHow Costly Are Markups?
Journal Article Journal of Political Economy · July 1, 2023 We study the welfare costs of markups in a dynamic model with hetero- geneous firms and endogenous markups. We provide aggregation re- sults summarizing the macro implications of micro-level markup het- erogeneity. We calibrate our model to US Census of Ma ... Full text CiteTax Policy and Lumpy Investment Behaviour: Evidence from China’s VAT Reform
Journal Article Review of Economic Studies · March 1, 2023 We incorporate the lumpy nature of firm-level investment into the study of how tax policy affects investment behaviour. We show that tax policies can directly impact the lumpiness of investment. Extensive-margin responses to tax policy are key to understan ... Full text CiteRecent Grants
Excellence in Research: The impact of online comparison websites on the remittance industry
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by Spelman College · 2018 - 2021Fiscal Incentives and Firm Growth
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2017 - 2018Collaborative Research: International Buyer-Seller Matches
ResearchPrincipal Investigator · Awarded by National Science Foundation · 2014 - 2017View All Grants