Tarikua Erda

Thank you so much!!

Thank you, Belinda!!

Thanks also to my husband, family, and friends for cheering me on at every step of this process, and of course, to my lab RA, Mechal 🐶, for outstanding moral sup-pawt ☺️

Super grateful for my advisors–– @econsandy.bsky.social, Jeff Shrader, Suresh Naidu, Xavier Giroud––for their incredible support! Special thanks to @rmetcalfe.bsky.social (placement officer) + many faculty, mentors, & collaborators @ Columbia, Chicago Fed, and beyond for feedback and encouragement.

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!

New blog post on the policy lesson from my research for rebuilding after the recent devastating floods in València

By expanding firms' credit access, gov't relief spending can revitalize economies as they rebuild

Thank you for inviting me @nadaesgratis.bsky.social
@jordipaniagua.bsky.social

Lean hoy el revelador post de @tarikuaerda.bsky.social resumiendo su investigación sobre la recuperación tras inundaciones en USA y lo que podemos aprender sobre los ajustes tras la DANA en @nadaesgratis.bsky.social

Check out this Chicago Fed Insights article summarizing Tarikua Erda's work (she's on the market!!), particularly the qualitative survey on manufacturing firms:

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

chicagofed.org/publications...

Access article here: chicagofed.org/publications...

My job market paper here: tarikuaerda.com/jmp

Huge thanks to all the orgs who made the survey design and launch possible–Chicago Fed (esp Thomas Walstrum), Wisconsin Center for Manufacturing and Productivity, NIST Manufacturing Extension Partnerships, and Center for Industrial Research and Service at Iowa State U

This qualitative survey complements (and corroborates) the main findings from my quantitative analyses in my #EconJMP: federal disaster spending expands firms’ financing access, revitalizes regional economies

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...

How do firms respond when faced with climate shocks? Tarikua Erda's research examines how firms adjust physical capital investment and entry/exit decisions, providing key evidence to a long-standing puzzle. (Among other interesting projects: www.tarikuaerda.com)

Super excited about the research agenda I’m building on climate change, productivity, and the role of gov’t spending by using novel, high-quality data sources

In other papers, I also study labor market frictions like discrimination & info asymmetry. Check those out here:

tarikuaerda.com

11/11 🧵✅

I’m currently surveying manufacturing firms in the US to complement my analyses with Census data, esp to learn more about their incentives and barriers for investment + experiences with natural disasters and climate adaptation

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My JMP shows: gov't disaster spending revitalizes local economies by facilitating capital replacement and reallocation

Does this mean disasters are 'good'? NO! But *if* they happen, gov’t spending is critical for recovery ➡️ a timely policy insight as climate change intensifies disaster risk

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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...

8/n

Key mechanism: federal disaster spending facilitates access to financing: smaller firms, which normally face more credit barriers relative to larger ones, actually invest more after flooding and see higher productivity gains

7/n

Bottomline: physical capital adjusts relatively quickly and productively after flooding

▶️ surviving plants build back better
▶️ used machinery is reallocated from less to more productive firms (including from less productive exiters to viable entrants)

These factors ⬆️ aggregate productivity

6/n

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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My paper addresses a long-standing question in climate economics on the impact of climate change on physical capital (e.g., machines, bldgs).

Early models predicted: rigidity of physical capital would delay responses to rapid weather shocks, amplifying climate damages. I test this empirically

2/n

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?

🧵 1/n