Lauren Dai

Lauren Dai

San Francisco Bay Area
4K followers 500+ connections

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About

Building the future of paid leave @Cocoon. Previously at Stripe. At Cocoon, we're…

Activity

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Experience

  • Cocoon Graphic

    Cocoon

    San Francisco Bay Area

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    San Francisco Bay Area

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    San Francisco Bay Area

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    San Francisco Bay Area

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    Greater New York City Area

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    New York, NY

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    New York, NY

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    New York, NY

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    Beijing, China

Education

  • Harvard University Graphic

    Harvard University

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    Activities and Societies: Harvard Undergraduate Women in Business, Smart Woman Securities, Harvard China Care, Cabot Entrepreneurship Series

    • Graduated summa cum laude
    • John H. Williams Award for best overall record in economics department
    • Thesis on value-added trade: “The Comparative Advantage of Nations: How Global Supply Chains Change Our Understanding of Comparative Advantage”
    • Prizes: John Dunlop Thesis Prize in Business and Government, Hoopes Prize
    • Harvard Kennedy School Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government, Associate Working Paper No. 15:…

    • Graduated summa cum laude
    • John H. Williams Award for best overall record in economics department
    • Thesis on value-added trade: “The Comparative Advantage of Nations: How Global Supply Chains Change Our Understanding of Comparative Advantage”
    • Prizes: John Dunlop Thesis Prize in Business and Government, Hoopes Prize
    • Harvard Kennedy School Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government, Associate Working Paper No. 15: http://www.hks.harvard.edu/centers/mrcbg/publications/awp/awp15
    • Honors: Phi Beta Kappa Senior 48, John Harvard Scholar, Detur Prize for academic excellence

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    Activities and Societies: NJ State Scholar Athlete 2009, NJ Governor’s School in the Sciences Scholar 2008

    SAT: 800 V, 780 M, 790 W

Publications

  • Features, Senior Theses Collection — June 25, 2013 10:48 pm The Comparative Advantage of Nations: How Global Supply Chains Change Our Understanding of Comparative Advantage

    Harvard Political Review

    Does China have a comparative advantage in iPhones because it exports iPhones? Official trade statistics demonstrate that China has an unusually sophisticated export basket for its per-capita income level—a basket that includes iPhones, of course (Rodrik 2006, 4). Anyone who understands the iPhone supply chain, however, can tell you that China has a comparative advantage in the assembly of iPhones. Just because a country is the final exporter of a good does not mean that it is responsible…

    Does China have a comparative advantage in iPhones because it exports iPhones? Official trade statistics demonstrate that China has an unusually sophisticated export basket for its per-capita income level—a basket that includes iPhones, of course (Rodrik 2006, 4). Anyone who understands the iPhone supply chain, however, can tell you that China has a comparative advantage in the assembly of iPhones. Just because a country is the final exporter of a good does not mean that it is responsible for the majority of that good’s production. Global supply chains change our understanding of comparative advantage because we can no longer look at official gross export statistics to see who produces goods for whom. Because of the global fragmentation of supply chains, we must isolate how much value-added a nation contributes to the production of a good in order to illuminate the true comparative advantage of nations.

    Misguided perceptions of competitiveness based on gross trade statistics affect the political debate by contributing to calls for protectionist trade policies which hurt consumers, jobs, and the economy. In an era in which fears of losing competitiveness have reached new highs in the US, the value-added approach to trade presents a healthy antidote to protectionist arguments. Value-added measures of trade demonstrate that far from losing competitiveness in advanced manufacturing industries like electronics, the US continues to have a robust and growing comparative advantage in these industries. Indeed, the dramatic difference in trend for the US between analyzing comparative advantage using the value-added and gross trade approaches emphasizes the importance of helping policymakers interpret official trade statistics correctly. My research provides strong support for the use of value-added measures of trade in order to obtain an accurate picture of the comparative advantage of nations in today’s globalized economy.

    See publication

  • The Comparative Advantage of Nations: How Global Supply Chains Change Our Understanding of Comparative Advantage

    Harvard Kennedy School, Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government

    Abstract: As global supply chains proliferate and countries use more intermediate imports to produce exports, gross exports paint an increasingly misleading picture of comparative advantage. This paper uses the newly available World Input Output Database to decompose gross exports into domestic value-added and imported intermediate components in order to demonstrate that value-added measures of trade provide a better understanding of comparative advantage from the perspective of trade in tasks…

    Abstract: As global supply chains proliferate and countries use more intermediate imports to produce exports, gross exports paint an increasingly misleading picture of comparative advantage. This paper uses the newly available World Input Output Database to decompose gross exports into domestic value-added and imported intermediate components in order to demonstrate that value-added measures of trade provide a better understanding of comparative advantage from the perspective of trade in tasks and by industry. Focusing on the United States, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, and Mexico, this paper makes three main contributions. First, it finds that while advanced economies continue to dominate at the upstream of supply chains and emerging economies remain prominent in downstream tasks, participation in global supply chains has been dynamic over time. In particular, from 1995-2009, Taiwan experienced a dramatic shift from contributing value-added in final goods to focusing on value-added in intermediates, taking on an important role in the middle of supply chains. Second, this paper finds that long-term trends in comparative advantage can diverge significantly when trade is understood in terms of domestic value-added in exports instead of gross exports. Notably, while gross trade statistics tell a sobering story of the decline of US competitiveness in the electronics industry, value-added trade statistics reveal the continued robustness of US comparative advantage in electronics manufacturing. Third, using the value-added approach, this paper finds that contrary to popular fears, rather than losing comparative advantage in advanced manufacturing, US comparative advantage is growing most robustly in the highest technology manufacturing industries.

    See publication

Honors & Awards

  • John Dunlop Thesis Prize in Business and Government

    Harvard Kennedy School Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government

    The John Dunlop Thesis Prize in Business and Government is an annual award for Harvard undergraduates, provided by the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government at Harvard Kennedy School.

    Established in 2007, the award is given to the Harvard College graduating senior who writes the best thesis on a challenging public policy issue at the interface of business and government.

  • John H. Williams Prize

    Harvard University, Department of Economics

    The John H. Williams Prize was established in 1958 by his former colleagues at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York in recognition of his distinguished career as an economist. The prize is awarded annually by the Department of Economics to a summa honors senior graduating with the best overall record.

  • John Harvard Scholar

    Harvard University

    According to the Harvard College Handbook for Students, students of the sophomore, junior, and senior classes in the top 5% of their respective classes will be designated John Harvard Scholars, based on the grade point average of the previous academic year.

  • Thomas Temple Hoopes Prize

    Harvard University

    From the estate of Thomas T. Hoopes, Class of 1919, Harvard has received a fund from which to grant annual awards to undergraduates on the basis of outstanding scholarly work or research. The fund provides undergraduate prizes to be given for the purpose of "promoting, improving, and enhancing the quality of education . . . in literary, artistic, musical, scientific, historical, or other academic subjects made part of the College curriculum under Faculty supervision and instruction…

    From the estate of Thomas T. Hoopes, Class of 1919, Harvard has received a fund from which to grant annual awards to undergraduates on the basis of outstanding scholarly work or research. The fund provides undergraduate prizes to be given for the purpose of "promoting, improving, and enhancing the quality of education . . . in literary, artistic, musical, scientific, historical, or other academic subjects made part of the College curriculum under Faculty supervision and instruction, particularly by recognizing, promoting, honoring, and rewarding excellence in the work of undergraduates and their capabilities and skills in any subject, projects of research in science or the humanities, or in specific written work of the students under the instruction or supervision of the Faculty."

  • Phi Beta Kappa Senior 48

    Phi Beta Kappa Alpha Iota Chapter, Harvard University

    To be elected to Alpha-Iota of Massachusetts, the Harvard College chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, a student must possess a record outstanding scholarly achievement, showing both depth of study and breadth of intellectual interest.

    Undergraduates are elected to the Harvard College chapter of Phi Beta Kappa three times a year. The elections take place in the meetings of committees who carefully consider transcripts and confidential letters of recommendation. In the Junior 24 and Senior 48…

    To be elected to Alpha-Iota of Massachusetts, the Harvard College chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, a student must possess a record outstanding scholarly achievement, showing both depth of study and breadth of intellectual interest.

    Undergraduates are elected to the Harvard College chapter of Phi Beta Kappa three times a year. The elections take place in the meetings of committees who carefully consider transcripts and confidential letters of recommendation. In the Junior 24 and Senior 48 elections, the election committees pay particular attention to the difficulty and intellectual coherence of the candidate's program.

  • Detur Prize for academic excellence

    Harvard University

    The Detur Book Prize is one of the oldest prizes at Harvard College. It recognizes sophomores who attained very high academic standing in their first year at the College and honors them with a book of their choice.

Languages

  • English

    Native or bilingual proficiency

  • Chinese, Mandarin

    Native or bilingual proficiency

  • Spanish

    Elementary proficiency

Organizations

  • Harvard Undergraduate Women in Business

    Executive Board: Fundraising Chair 2011; Advisory Board Chair 2012

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    • Led committee team in securing a record $120,000 in corporate sponsorship • Organized sponsor career fair with a record 30+ companies, attended by nearly 1000 registrants for the 2011 Intercollegiate Business Convention, and spearheaded sponsor online, magazine, and merchandise ads

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