Walter Steingress

Senior Economist

Walter Steingress is a Senior Economist in the International Studies Division of the International Department. His primary interests lie within the field of international macroeconomics. Walter’s other research interests include migration and international trade. Before joining the Bank of Canada, Walter held an appointment at the Bank of France. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Montreal and holds a master’s degree from Boston University.

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Senior Economist
International Economic Analysis
International Studies Division

Bank of Canada
234 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON, K1A 0G9

Curriculum vitae

Latest

Estimating the Effect of Exchange Rate Changes on Total Exports

Staff Working Paper 2019-17 Thierry Mayer, Walter Steingress
This paper shows that real effective exchange rate (REER) regressions, the standard approach for estimating the response of aggregate exports to exchange rate changes, imply biased estimates of the underlying elasticities. We provide a new aggregate regression specification that is consistent with bilateral trade flows micro-founded by the gravity equation.
Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Exchange rates, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F1, F11, F12, F3, F31, F32

Market Size and Entry in International Trade: Product Versus Firm Fixed Costs

Staff Working Paper 2018-43 Walter Steingress
This paper develops a theoretical framework to infer the nature of fixed costs from the relationship between entry patterns in international markets and destination market size. If fixed costs are at the firm level, firms take advantage of an intrafirm spillover by expanding firm-level product range (scope).
Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): Firm dynamics, International topics, Trade Integration JEL Code(s): F, F1, F12, F14, F2, F23

The Political Impact of Immigration: Evidence from the United States

Staff Working Paper 2018-19 Anna Maria Mayda, Giovanni Peri, Walter Steingress
In this paper we study the impact of immigration to the United States on the vote for the Republican Party by analyzing county-level data on election outcomes between 1990 and 2010. Our main contribution is to separate the effect of high-skilled and low-skilled immigrants, by exploiting the different geography and timing of the inflows of these two groups of immigrants.
Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): International topics, Labour markets JEL Code(s): F, F2, F22, J, J6, J61

Product Sophistication and the Slowdown in Chinese Export Growth

Staff Discussion Paper 2017-15 Mark Kruger, Walter Steingress, Sri Thanabalasingam
Chinese real export growth decelerated considerably during the last decade. This paper argues that the slowdown largely resulted from China moving to a more sophisticated mix of exports: China produced more sophisticated goods over which it had pricing power instead of producing greater volumes of less sophisticated products.
Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Discussion Papers Topic(s): Development economics, Exchange rates, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F1, F14, F17, O, O1, O10

The Causal Impact of Migration on US Trade: Evidence from Political Refugees

Staff Working Paper 2017-49 Walter Steingress
Immigrants can increase international trade by shifting preferences towards the goods of their country of origin and by reducing bilateral transaction costs. Using geographical variation across U.S. states for the period 2008 to 2013, I estimate the respective causal impact of immigrants on U.S. exports and imports.
Content Type(s): Staff Research, Staff Working Papers Topic(s): International topics, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): F, F1, F14, F2, F22, J, J6, J61

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Refereed Journal

  • "The Causal Impact of Migration on US Trade: Evidence from Political Refugees"
    Canadian Journal of Economics, forthcoming, 2018.
  • "Financial constraints in China: Firm-level evidence"
    (with Sandra Poncet & Hylke Vandenbussche), China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 411-422, September 2010.

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Education

  • Ph.D. in Economics, University of Montreal (2014)

Research Fields

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Walter Steingress

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