Contact Information
Department of Economics
Northwestern University
2211 Campus Drive
Evanston, IL 60208
Phone: 646-642-2599
Email: sebastiansardon2026@u.northwestern.edu
Education
Ph.D., Economics, Northwestern University, 2026 (expected)
MA, Economics, Northwestern University, 2021
BA, Economics, Universidad de Piura, 2017
Primary Field
Development Economics
Secondary Fields
International Trade, Political Economy, Economic Growth
Curriculum Vitae
Job Market Paper
“Trade, Land Consolidation, and Agricultural Productivity”
The agricultural sector features a large productivity gap between rich and developing countries, as well as substantial barriers inhibiting trade between them. In this paper, I assess whether removing such barriers can boost productivity in the developing world, and if so, through which channels. I study a 1997 USDA ban lift on avocado exports from the Mexican state of Michoacan to the U.S. Using a triple difference strategy and newly linked confidential census microdata (1970–2022), I find that the value of output per hectare increases by around 50% in treated areas suitable for avocado cultivation. Consistent with a model of agricultural production with heterogeneous farms, farms larger than 100 hectares roughly double their share of total land in treated areas. In the model, land consolidates because only large farms can afford the fixed costs of switching into avocados, which, unlike maize and other seasonal staples grown at baseline, require large amounts of water year-round. I use remote sensing to build a georeferenced dataset of irrigation investments and find a large investment response in suitable treated areas, on the order of 58% of Michoacan’s baseline agricultural GDP. Finally, I find that these gains only occur in treated areas where land markets are not too frictional. In areas dominated by collective land tenure (ejidos), trade’s effects on investment, consolidation, and productivity all fail to materialize.
Working Papers
“Commodity Booms, Local State Capacity, and Development”
(with Dafne Murillo)
State capacity may shape whether natural resources generate prosperity, as it determines if windfalls are effectively turned into useful projects or wasted. We test this hypothesis studying the 2004-2011 mining boom in Peru, where mines’ profits are redistributed as windfall transfers to local governments. Our empirical strategy combines geological data with the central government’s mining windfalls allocation formula to identify the windfalls’ effects on household incomes and other measures of economic development. Proxying local state capacity with the ability to tax and relying on a triple difference strategy we uncover significant variation in treatment response, with positive effects of windfalls limited to high state capacity localities. We find suggestive evidence that only localities with high state capacity succeed at transforming windfalls into infrastructure stocks, which in turns contributes to structural transformation and market integration. Lastly, social unrest increases in low state capacity localities that receive windfalls but fail to perceive their benefits. Our findings underscore important complementarities between investments in extractive industries and in state capacity.
“Structural Change and Declining Agricultural Productivity in Sub-Saharan Africa”
(with Thomas Bentze, Douglas Gollin, and Christopher Udry, Philip Wollburg)
[Draft coming soon]
Work in Progress
“Land Redistribution and Agricultural Productivity: Evidence from a Peruvian Reform”
(with Dafne Murillo)
“Investment and Deforestation under Uncertain Market Access: Evidence from the Mexican Avocado Boom”
(with Hyoungchul Kim, Prakash Mishra, and James Sayre)
Teaching
Northwestern University:
- Economic Development in Africa, Prof. Christopher Udry | Winter 2025
- Economics of Developing Countries, Prof. Jonas Fin | Fall 2023, Winter 2024, Spring 2024
Download Teaching Evaluations (PDF)
Universidad de Piura
- Impact Evaluation Methods, Prof. Alan Sanchez | Spring 2018
- Intermediate Macroeconomics, Profs. Miguel Martinez-Carrasco and Cesar Calvo | Fall 2015, Fall 2016
References
Prof. Lori Beaman (Committee Co-Chair)
Prof. Christopher Udry (Committee Co-Chair)
Prof. Jacopo Ponticelli