Brian Daza

Ph.D. Candidate in Economics
University of Michigan
2026–27 Job Market Candidate

I focus on questions that sit within the union of macroeconomics and international trade. I use both structural and empirical tools to study how globalization, domestic frictions, and government policy interact with economic growth and distribution.

Job Market Paper · CV

Job Market Paper

“Wealth Dynamics and Path Dependence”
Latest Draft

Abstract: I show that in an open economy, financial constraints make the steady-state specialization depend on the initial allocation of wealth across firms, and reduce the speed of adjustment towards comparative advantage. In a dynamic multisector general equilibrium model with heterogeneous entrepreneurs, each firm’s ability to expand depends on market prices, persistent productivity shocks, and its current wealth. As a result, sectoral production and growth depend on how the distribution of wealth aligns with productivity. In a closed economy, relative prices respond to local scarcity: when the most productive entrepreneurs in a sector have lower levels of wealth, the resulting lower supply increases the sector’s relative price and accelerates wealth accumulation through higher profits, which allows the sector to catch up. In an open economy, prices are instead tied to terms of trade, and sectors favored by the initial wealth distribution grow faster and larger. In a quantitative version of the model calibrated to data from Peru, increasing borrowing limits to mimic US levels considerably accelerates reallocation: after five years, the change in sectoral real-output composition is nearly as large as after twenty years under Peruvian borrowing limits.

Other Current Research

“Government Spending Multipliers and Distribution of Commodity Booms in the Spatial Economy”
Latest Draft (February, 2025) · RSIE Discussion Paper 690

Abstract
This paper studies the effects of local government spending and examines an empirical puzzle: while income, wages, and household expenditure rise following spending increases,local employment and firm value added do not. I exploit plausibly exogenous variation in public investment spending in Peru, where a commodity boom in the 2000s and ex ante defined natural resource revenue-sharing rules generated resources windfalls to local governments even to non-extractive provinces. Using these transfers as an instrument for public investment purchases, I estimate an open-economy relative local multiplier of 0.376. To explain the disconnect between rises in wages, expenditures, and income gains, and no response in local production, I propose a spatial transmission mechanism: government spending raises local demand, which is met through trade with other regions rather than only local production. I formalize this mechanism in a spatial trade model, where local fiscal shocks propagate through goods market linkages. The model’s equilibrium conditions map to a Spatial Auto-Regressive (SAR) specification, which I estimate to quantify indirect effects. The SAR results confirm that trade spillovers substantially amplify the aggregate effects of local spending. These findings imply that local multiplier estimates, which do not incorporate spatial propagation, likely understate the broader economic impact of fiscal policy.
“Teenage Labor, Trade, and Market Access”
Preliminary Results Available by Request

Abstract
This paper studies how, due to incomplete markets and limited labor-market access, child and teenage labor can remain persistent during periods of rapid aggregate growth The paper combines household survey data with district-level exposure to trade shocks in Peru, where GDP per capita grew steadily and poverty rates halved during the 2000s-2010s, but child and teenage labor rates remained high, especially in rural areas. Preliminary results suggest that teenage labor responds to trade shocks, but with heterogeneous effects across space depending on how shocks are transmitted to teenagers. In places with lower access to markets and high levels of home production, positive income shocks are associated with lower reductions or increases in the labor participation of teenagers, as their work opportunity cost increases. These results are analyzed through a model in which schooling, teenage labor, and occupational choice respond to wage growth, household production opportunities, and idiosyncratic risk.

Pre-Doctoral Research

“The effect of women’s entrepreneurship on corporate social responsibility”
joint with Jorge Dávalos, Maria Angela Prialé, and Frances Ninahuanca
Management Research 2023. Link in Scopus
“Effect of the increase of the educational supply on schooling and adolescent work in rural Peru”.
Revista de Investigación Educativa Peruana No 12. pp. 53-86. 2020. Link to Original in Spanish

Teaching

Teaching Evaluations Summary · Full Instructor Reports (From Fall 2022 to Winter 2026)

University of Michigan - Graduate Student Instructor
- Econ 500 - Quantitative Methods (Master’s): Fall 2023, Fall 2024
- Econ 502 - Applied Macroeconomics (Master’s): Winter 2024
- Econ 414 - Growth Theory (Undergraduate): Winter 2026
- Econ 442 - International Finance (Undergraduate): Winter 2025, Fall 2025
- Econ 102 - Introduction to Macroeconomics (Undergraduate): Fall 2022, Winter 2023
Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos - Undergraduate Teaching Assistant
- Introduction to Economics: 2014, 2017

Music Playlists

At the start of every semester, I ask my students to share some music recommendations with me. You can find their suggestions in the following links: Econ 414 - Winter 2026 · Econ 442 - Fall 2025 · Econ 442 - Winter 2025 · Econ 500 - Fall 2023 · Econ 500 - Fall 2024

Brian Daza, 2026 · Contact: bdaza@umich.edu

"But we'd need a musician first." 🌎 👒🦜