SHINNOSUKE (SHIN) KIKUCHI
OFFICE CONTACT INFORMATIONMIT Department of Economics
77 Massachusetts Avenue, E52-470
Cambridge, MA 02139
skikuchi@mit.edu
https://economics.mit.edu/people/phdstudents/shinnosuke-kikuchi

HOME CONTACT INFORMATION
45 Hayward St. Apt 2332
Cambridge, MA 02142
Mobile: 617-251-2932

MIT PLACEMENT OFFICER
Professor David Autor
dautor@mit.edu
617-253-4669

MIT PLACEMENT ADMINISTRATOR
Ms. Shannon May
shmay@mit.edu
617-324-5857

DOCTORALSTUDIES

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)PhD, Economics, Expected completion May 2025DISSERTATION: “Essays in Trade and Macroeconomics”
DISSERTATION COMMITTEE AND REFERENCES
Professor Daron Acemoglu
MIT Department of Economics
77 Massachusetts Avenue, E52-446
Cambridge, MA 02139
617-253-1927
daron@mit.edu

Professor Arnaud Costinot
MIT Department of Economics
77 Massachusetts Avenue, E52-534
Cambridge, MA 02139
617-324-1712
costinot@mit.edu

Professor David Atkin
MIT Department of Economics
77 Massachusetts Avenue, E52-550
Cambridge, MA 02139
203-936-9367
atkin@mit.edu
PRIOR
University of TokyoEDUCATION MA in Economics

2019

University of Tokyo
BA in Economics
summa cum laude and Valedictorian
CITIZENSHIPJapan

LANGUAGES

Japanese (native)

FIELDS

Primary Fields: Trade, Macro2016

GENDER:

Secondary Fields: Labor, Political EconomyMaleSHINNOSUKE (SHIN) KIKUCHIOCTOBER 2024-- PAGE 2

TEACHING
EXPERIENCE

14.05 Intermediate Macroeconomics (Undergrad)
TA to Professor Christian Wolf
14.452 Economic Growth (PhD)
TA to Professor Daron Acemoglu, Chris Edmond
14.453 Economic Fluctuations (PhD)
TA to Professor Iván Werning

2021, 2022, 2024

RELEVANTPOSITIONS

Visiting Associate Researcher, Keio University
Research Assistant to Professor Daron Acemoglu
Research Assistant to Professor David Autor
Research Assistant to Professor Joshua AngristSeasonal Analyst, Macroeconomics, Goldman Sachs
Business Analyst (full-time), McKinsey & Company

2022-2024
2019-2022
2019-20212019
2018-20192017-2018

GRANTS

Advance Cutting-Edge Humanities and Social Sciences
Research, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science,“A Comprehensive Study on Disinformation and Political
Polarization with a Focus on East Asian Countries”(JPJS00123811919)
Joint project. PI: Yuko Kasuya (Keio University)
JPY 114,673,000 ($ 770,000)

2023-2029

Project Research Program of Joint Usage and ResearchCenter, Hitotsubashi IER“Business network and agglomeration of workers withcognitive tasks in the urban metropolitan area”(IERPK2306)
Joint with Shota Komatsu, Juan Nelson Martínez
Dahbura, Kentaro Nakajima, Takanori Nishida, Kensuke
Teshima, and Junichi Yamasaki
JPY 600,000 ($ 4,000)

2023

George and Obie Shultz Fund, MIT Economics“Technological Change and Upskilling”
Joint with Todd Lensman$ 10,000

2022

George and Obie Shultz Fund, MIT Economics“Government Size and Spatial Growth”
Joint with Jie Zhou
$ 12,000

2021

Grant-in-Aid for JSPS Fellows, Japan Society for thePromotion of Science

2019

2021, 2022
2021, 2022

SHINNOSUKE (SHIN) KIKUCHIOCTOBER 2024-- PAGE 3“Impacts of Disruptive Technology on Labor Markets andOptimal Policy Responses” (19J20069)
JPY 3,100,000 ($ 20,800)
FELLOWSHIPS
AND HONORSPRESENTATION
AND SEMINARS

Gordon B. Pye Dissertation Fellow, MIT Economics
Best Teaching Assistant of the Year, MIT Economics
The Nakajima Foundation ScholarshipResearch Fellow, Japan Society for the Promotion ofScience
Valedictorian, University of Tokyo
summa cum laude, University of Tokyo, Economics

2023-2024
2022-2023
2019-2024
20192016
2016

2024: Kyoto University, Musashi University, Hitotsubashi-Keio-UTokyo
conference on Frontiers in Macro, Hitotsubashi University, Keio University,
Kobe University, Aoyama-Gakuin University, Waseda University, Ryukoku
University, NBER Japan Project Meeting, Summer Workshop on Economic
Theory2023: Columbia University Japan Economic Seminar, Osaka University,Hitotsubashi University, University of Tokyo, JSQPS Winter Meeting, Kyoto
Applied Micro Conference, NBER Japan Project Meeting, Summer Workshop
on Economic Theory
2022: Keio University, Econometric Society Asian Meeting, Japan Applied
Econometrics Conference, Japan Macroeconomics Conference, Canon Global
Institute End of Year Macroeconomics Conference
2020: Waseda University
2019: Econometric Society Asian Meeting

PROFESSIONAL
ACTIVITIESCo-President, MIT Graduate Economic AssociationStudent Organizer, MIT Macro Lunch
Founder, Econ PhD Application Assistance andMentoring Program for Female Students in Japan2021-2022
2020-2023
2019-PresentRESEARCHPAPERS“The Evolution of Comparative Advantage: Why Skill Abundance No
Longer Matters” (Job Market Paper)This paper shows that a country's relative skill abundance no longer implies acomparative advantage in skill-intensive sectors. Where once this empirical
relationship was strong, it weakened in the 1990s and disappeared by the2000s. The decline is most evident in countries and sectors with higher
automation, with no significant variation due to offshoring. Using a multisector quantitative trade model incorporating both automation and offshoring, ISHINNOSUKE (SHIN) KIKUCHIOCTOBER 2024-- PAGE 4

show that automation, not offshoring, is the most plausible driver, and thatskill abundance would have remained important after 2000 without
automation. Automation increases skill premia in high-automation, developed
countries and increases welfare globally, while offshoring has smaller, more
evenly distributed welfare gains.
“The Granular Origins of Agglomeration” (with Daniel G O’Connor)
A few large firms dominate many local labor markets. How does that
granularity affect the geography of economic activity? And what does it mean
for the efficiency of firm entry? To answer these questions, we propose a new
economic geography model featuring granular firms subject to idiosyncraticshocks. We show that average wages increase in the size of the local labormarket due to that granularity and provide a sufficient statistic for thecontribution of our mechanism. We further prove that too few firms enter inequilibrium. Using Japanese administrative data on manufacturing, we provide
evidence consistent with our mechanism and quantify it. Our mechanism
implies that markets with around 2 firms per sector have an elasticity of wages
to population of 0.05 and firms capture only 85% of their contribution toproduction in profits. In large markets like Tokyo, the elasticity is around 0.001,
and firm entry is approximately efficient. Enacting optimal place-basedindustrial policy would increase the number of firms in modest-sized cities bymore than 30% and actually decrease the number of firms and people in Tokyo.
“Decomposing the Rise of the Populist Radical Right” (with Oren Danieli,Noam Gidron, and Ro’ee Levy)
Reject & Resubmit at Journal of Political Economy
Support for populist radical right parties in Europe has dramatically increased
in recent years. We decompose the rise of these parties from 2005 to 2020 into
four components: shifts in party positions, changes in voter attributes (opinionsand demographics), changes in voter priorities, and a residual. We merge twowide datasets on party positions and voter attributes and estimate voter
priorities using a probabilistic voting model. We find that shifts in party
positions and changes in voter attributes do not play a major role in the recent
success of populist radical right parties. Instead, the primary driver behind
their electoral success lies in voters’ changing priorities. Particularly, voters
are less likely to decide which party to support based on parties’ economicpositions. Rather, voters—mainly older, non-unionized, low-educated men—increasingly prioritize nativist cultural positions. This allows populist radical
right parties to tap into a preexisting reservoir of culturally conservative voters.
Using the same datasets, we provide a set of reduced-form evidence supporting
our results. First, while parties’ positions have changed, these changes are notconsistent with the main supply-side hypothesis for populist support. Second,on aggregate, voters have not adopted populist right-wing opinions. Third,
voters are more likely to self-identify ideologically based on their cultural
rather than their economic opinions.

SHINNOSUKE (SHIN) KIKUCHIOCTOBER 2024-- PAGE 5“Welfare Effects of Polarization: Occupational Mobility over the Lifecycle” (with Sagiri Kitao)
What are the welfare effects of polarization: wage and employment losses of
middle-class workers relative to low- and high-skill groups? We build a modelof overlapping generations who choose consumption, savings, labor supply,and occupations over their life cycles, and accumulate human capital. We
simulate a wage shift observed since the early 1980s and investigate
individuals’ responses. Polarization improves welfare of young individuals thatare high-skilled, while it hurts low-skilled individuals across all ages andespecially younger ones. The gain of the high-skilled is larger for generations
entering in later periods, who can fully exploit the rising skill premium.
RESEARCH IN
PROGRESS“Geography of Business Interactions: Evidence from Business Card
Exchange Data” (with Shota Komatsu, Juan Nelson Martínez Dahbura,Kentaro Nakajima, Takanori Nishida, Kensuke Teshima, and JunichiYamasaki)
In-person business meetings are a critical driver of agglomeration benefits, yet
the scarcity of data has hindered exploration into their nature. This study
leverages a novel dataset obtained from a business card exchange application,used by 0.4 million workers in Tokyo, to examine the impact of geographicaldistance on business card exchanges and other types of business networks. By
analyzing the moving of firms, we find a distinct pattern in how the frequencyof business card exchanges decreases with distance, particularly noting asignificant drop beyond a 500-meter radius. Additionally, we observe that therate of decline in these exchanges due to distance closely correlates with thelevel of industry agglomeration, and we find similar drops in other types ofbusiness networks such as patent collaborations. These findings highlight thepivotal role of very local interaction in fostering agglomeration benefits.
“Optimal Industry Mix with Granular Shocks” (with Daniel G O’Connor)
When firms are subject to granular and industry-wide shocks, regions
overspecialize, leaving workers overexposed. Using German employeremployee matched data, we study the optimal industrial policy incorporating
heterogeneity in occupation, industry, and region.
“Trade, Deindustrialization, and Service-led Growth” (with Tishara Gargand Edward Wiles)
We examine the impact of trade liberalization on structural change patterns inIndia. Leveraging district-level variations in sectoral composition, we find thatdistricts with greater tariff reductions experienced larger declines inSHINNOSUKE (SHIN) KIKUCHIOCTOBER 2024-- PAGE 6

manufacturing employment shares. By extending Matsuyama’s 1992 model ofdeindustrialization to include a non-tradable service sector, we demonstrate
analytically and through simulations that India's observed deindustrializationand service-led growth can be qualitatively attributed to trade liberalization.
We aim to structurally estimate the model parameters to quantify the role oftrade liberalization in driving these structural changes.
“Long-run Implications of Labor Market Power in the United States”(approved US Census Project)
POLICY
PAPERS/NOTES“Automation and the Disappearance of Routine Work in Japan” (withIppei Fujiwara and Toyoichiro Shirota)
Discussion Paper 23-E-082, Research Institute of Economy, Trade andIndustry (RIETI)Revise & Resubmit at Journal of the Japanese and International Economies“Heterogeneous Vulnerability to the COVID-19 Crisis and Implications
for Inequality in Japan” (with Sagiri Kitao and Minamo Mikoshiba)
Discussion Paper 20-E-039, Research Institute of Economy, Trade andIndustry (RIETI).

PUBLICATION“Who suffers from the COVID-19 shocks? Labor market heterogeneity
and welfare consequences in Japan” (with Sagiri Kitao and MinamoMikoshiba),
Journal of the Japanese and International Economies 59 (2021): 101117.