Person: Jaud, Melise
Office of the Chief Economist for Middle East and North Africa, The World Bank
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Author Name Variants
Jaud, Melise, Jaud, Mélise
Fields of Specialization
International trade and development, Political economy of growth, Middle East, Africa
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Office of the Chief Economist for Middle East and North Africa, The World Bank
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Last updated:January 31, 2023
Biography
Mélise Jaud is an economist in the Chief Economist Office of the World Bank’s Middle East and North Africa region. Her research covers international trade in particular the determinants and impacts of firms' export dynamics and growth, food safety issues in trade, and policy reforms in developing and transition countries. Prior to joining the World Bank she worked as an economic advisor to the Ministry of Agriculture in Mozambique. She received her PhD in economics from the Paris School of Economics.
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Publication Trade Policy and Market Power: Firm-Level Evidence(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2019-10) Asprilla, Alan; Berman, Nicolas; Cadot, Olivier; Jaud, MeliseThis paper identifies the effect of trade policy on market power through new data and a new identification strategy. It uses a large data set containing export values and quantities by product and destination for all exporting firms in 12 developing and emerging countries over several years, merged with destination-product-specific information on tariffs and non-tariff barriers. Market power is identified by observing how exporting firms price discriminate across markets in reaction to variations in bilateral exchange rates. Pricing-to-market is prevalent in all regions of the sample, even among small firms, although it is increasing in firm size, in accordance with theory. More importantly, the effect of non-tariff measures is not isomorphic to that of tariffs: the observed pricing-to-market behavior suggests that, although tariffs reduce the market power of foreign firms through classic rent-shifting effects, non-tariff measures alter market structure and reinforce the market power of non-exiting firms, domestic and foreign ones alike.Publication Champions Wanted: Promoting Exports in the Middle East and North Africa(Washington, DC: World Bank, 2015-04-08) Jaud, Mélise; Freund, CarolineWhile other emerging regions were thriving, MENA's aggregate export performance over the past two decades has been consistently weak. Using detailed firm-level export data from Customs administrations, this report explains why. One central finding is that the size distribution of MENA's exporting firms is suggestive of a critical weakness at the top. With the exception of the top firm, MENA's elite exporters are smaller and weaker compared to their peers in other regions. The largest exporter is alone at the top-Zidane without a team. MENA countries have failed to nurture a group of export superstars which critically contribute to export success in other regions. Part of the reason behind weak export performance is the lack of a competitive real exchange rate. The deleterious effects of an uncompetitive currency can be traced all the way down to the firm, hurting expansion at the intensive and extensive margin and preventing the emergence of export take-offs. The lack of heavy weight exporters at the top of the distribution also reflects the region's failure to push for trade and business climate reforms energetically. Finally, MENA's prevalent cronyism and corruption under pre-Arab Spring regimes (at least) confirms that business-government ties led to distortionary allocation of favors and rent dissipation by beneficiary firms, with little evidence that those firms developed into national champions or helped lift the region's export performance. The possibility of state capture in itself should call for caution when advocating any form of government intervention. In contrast, some interventions, like export promotion programs show effects on small exporters. However, because these firms are marginal in trade, such programs cannot be game changers. More broadly, the success of MENA countries in promoting export growth and diversification as well as generating jobs depends heavily on their ability to create an environment where large firms can invest and expand exports and new, efficient firms can rise to the top.Publication A Second Look at the Pesticides Initiative Program : Evidence from Senegal(2011-04-01) Cadot, Olivier; Jaud, MeliseThis paper investigates whether the Pesticides Initiative Program has significantly affected the export performance of Senegal' shorticulture industry. The authors apply two main microeconometric techniques, difference-in-differences and matching difference-in-differences, to identify the effect of the Pesticides Initiative Program on exports of fresh fruits and vegetables. They use a unique firm-level dataset containing data on sales, employment, and exports by product and destination markets, as well as firm enrolment year, over 2000-2008. The results suggest that wile the program had no significant effect on exports pooled over all products and destinations, it had a positive effect when considering fresh fruits and vegetables exports to the European Union.Publication Finance, Comparative Advantage, and Resource Allocation(World Bank, Washington, DC, 2012-06) Kukenova, Madina; Jaud, Melise; Strieborny, MartinThe authors show that exported products exit the US market sooner if they violate the Heckscher-Ohlin notion of comparative advantage. Crucially, this pattern is stronger when exporting country has a well-developed banking system, measured by a high ratio of bank credit over the GDP. Banks thus push firms away from exports that are facing an uphill battle on a competitive foreign market due to a suboptimal use of the domestic factor endowment. The results imply a disciplining role for bank credit in terminating inefficient trade flows. This constitutes a new channel through which finance improves resource allocation in the real economy.Publication Financial Development and Survival of African Agri-food Exports(2011-05-01) Kukenova, Madina; Jaud, MeliseThis paper investigates the link between export survival of agri-food products and financial development. It tests the hypothesis that financial development differentially affects the survival of exports across products based on their need of external finance. The authors test whether exports of products that are relatively more reliant on external capital survive longer when initiated in more financially developed countries. The results suggest that agri-food products that require more external finance indeed sustain longer in foreign markets if the exporting country is more financially developed.