His research interests include using natural experiments and novel datasets to get a better grasp of policy issues in trade, development, and migration.
Research
International trade, development, migration and corruption
Pierre-Louis sees himself as an applied-micro economist who uses natural experiments and novel datasets to get a better grasp of policy issues in trade and development. For example, his latest working paper uses the exodus of the Vietnamese Boat People as a natural experiment to establish causal evidence of a long-run developmental impact of immigration (ie export creation).
His research also often shows that trade policies can impact developing countries in many unexpected ways. In a recent paper in the Journal of Development Economics, he shows how the combination of US trade preferences for Africa with quotas on China has inadvertently transformed Africa into a trade corridor for Chinese apparel exporters.
His current projects are on production fragmentation and development in Factory Asia, on the politics of China’s trade with Africa, on PayPal remittances, on the Dutch Disease in Indonesia, and on foreign investment in Mozambique.