JM update: So excited to head to NYU Stern for a postdoc before starting as an AP of Finance at Stern @ NYU-Abu Dhabi in Fall 2026!

Thrilled to join this vibrant research community + be closer to Addis, where I grew up and became fascinated by the entrepreneurship, env't & labor issues I now study!

TL;DR: Firms say financing barriers + uncertainty about value-add of new tech hold them back from upgrading machinery

But if an unexpected major flood forced them to rebuild *and* they had access to insurance & gov't loans, they would use it as an "opportunity to modernize"

Check out this Chicago Fed Insights article summarizing my #EconJMP work, particularly the qualitative survey on manufacturing firms:

What factors drive/constrain firms' machinery investment? How might those change in post-disaster setting?

www.chicagofed.org/publications...

This is consistent with my prior paper on post-disaster bank-lending, which shows that gov't disaster spending (indirectly) expands small/young firms access to bank credit, in turn, supporting job creation and wage recovery in flooded regions

tarikuaerda.com/resources/pa...

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3⃣ As exiters sell off their assets and survivors upgrade, local entrants and young plants acquire more second-hand capital and build up their capacity

Figure shows: after flooding, investment share in brand new capital ⬆️ among older plants but ⬇️ among younger ones

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I show 3 key findings:

1⃣ Plant exit rates rise after flooding, especially for the least productive plants

2⃣ Survivors sell/scrap their capital (see figure). Then they invest in replacement machines and see 4.5% higher labor productivity, suggesting they adopt better tech as they rebuild

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I use an event study design + confidential plant-level US Census Bureau data with rich info on plants’ productivity + capital stock, investments, & scrapping (eg see pic from 1982 survey). I cover >340 federally-declared major floods 1977-2017

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I’m on the #EconJobMarket! I study labor, climate, entrepreneurship & innovation

www.tarikuaerda.com/jmp

My #EconJMP examines how how manufacturing firms respond to flooding. Do flooded firms build back better? Or do they suffer unrecoverable losses that weaken aggregate productivity?

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