Results

Journal article

Journal of Health Economics:

The value of a park in crises: quantifying the health and wellbeing benefits of green spaces using exogenous variations in use values

Most people consider parks important for their quality of life, yet systematic causal evidence is missing. We exploit exogenous variations in their use values to estimate causal effects. Using a representative household ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The value of green spaces

Using wellbeing data to assess benefits for residents....Read more...

Blog

Nature:

We need to predict the people disasters will hit, not just the places

Local authorities can deal with natural hazards more effectively if they know ahead of time who will be affected, writes Jonathan Colmer....Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The value of a park in crises: quantifying the health and wellbeing benefits of green spaces using exogenous variations in use values

Most people consider parks important for their quality of life, yet systematic causal evidence is missing. We exploit exogenous variations in their use values to estimate causal effects. Using a representative household ...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics:

Do carbon offsets offset carbon?

We develop and implement a new method for identifying wasted subsidies and use it to provide systematic evidence of the misallocation of carbon offsets in the Clean Development Mechanism - the world's largest carbon offs...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Globalization and conflicts: the good, the bad, and the ugly of corporations in Africa

Using a novel georeferenced datataset on the affiliates and headquarters of multinational enterprises between 2007 and 2018 together with georeferenced conflict data for the African continent, this work establishes a cau...Read more...

Blog

Vox EU:

Managing to cope with natural disasters

Human-induced climate change is making disasters more frequent and more intense. Policy could help reduce the economic costs of climate change by helping firms withstand extreme weather events. This column explores how m...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Disaster management

Climate change is making natural disasters more frequent, yet little is known about the capacity of firms to withstand such disasters and adapt to their increased frequency. We examine this issue using the latest wave of...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economic Studies:

Does pricing carbon mitigate climate change? Firm-level evidence from the European Union Emissions Trading System

In theory, market-based regulatory instruments correct market failures at least cost. However, evidence on their efficacy remains scarce. Using administrative data, we estimate that, on average, the European Union Emissi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Fantastic beasts and where to find them

Fantastic beasts are magical creatures that cannot be seen unless one looks for them with the eye of the wizard, but that still play a significant role in the world. The fantastic beasts we hunt and find in the present p...Read more...

Journal article

Management Science:

Does employee happiness have an impact on productivity?

This paper provides evidence from a natural experiment on the relationship between positive affect and productivity. We link highly detailed administrative data on the behaviors and performance of all telesales workers a...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Health Economics:

The causal effect of a health treatment on beliefs, stated preferences and memories

The paper estimates the causal effect of a health treatment on patients? beliefs, preferences and memories about the treatment. It exploits a natural experiment which occurred in the United Kingdom during the COVID-19 va...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Talking therapy: Impacts of a nationwide mental health service in England

Mental health problems impose significant costs, yet healthcare systems of-ten overlook them. We provide the first causal evidence on the effectiveness of a nationwide-scaled mental health service in England for treating...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Geopolitics and the electric vehicle revolution

Rising demand for electric vehicles (EVs) is changing the geopolitical landscape, as the world pivots away from fossil fuels towards the green minerals critical to the EV supply chain. Benjamin Jones, Viet Nguyen-Tien, R...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists:

Climate-related natural disasters and voting behavior: evidence from environmental legislation in the US Senate

This study investigates whether US senators are more likely to vote in favor of environmentally friendly legislation following damages caused by climate-related natural disasters. We combine senatorial scores of roll cal...Read more...

Journal article

The World Economy:

The electric vehicle revolution: critical material supply chains, trade and development

The emergence of a mass market for electric vehicles (EVs) offers development opportunities for countries that have abundant resources of cobalt, nickel, lithium, copper, aluminium and manganese. Not surprisingly, develo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Managerial input and firm performance. Evidence from a policy experiment

We study the effects of a subsidy program designed to boost small and medium enterprises' export capabilities through a Temporary Export Manager (TEM), hired for at least 6 months to provide consulting on how to reach fo...Read more...

Blog

VoxEU:

Why natural experiments won the Nobel

Josh Angrist, David Card, and Guido Imbens shared the Nobel in 2021 for their pioneering work on natural experiments that, in the words of the committee, "revolutionised empirical research". Steve Pischke tells Tim Phill...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Happy to help: NHS volunteering in Covid-19 times

The Covid-19 crisis prompted thousands to register as NHS Volunteer Responders, helping vulnerable people with small daily tasks like shopping. Christian Krekel and colleagues find big increases in wellbeing among those ...Read more...

Blog

LSE Covid-19:

Happy to help: how a UK micro-volunteering programme increased people's wellbeing

Levels of wellbeing increased significantly for individuals who participated in the NHS Volunteer Responders (NHSVR) programme, with effects lasting months after the volunteering period had ended, write Paul Dolan, Chris...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Geography:

Colonial legacies: shaping African cities

Institutions persisting from colonial rule affect the spatial structure and conditions under which 100s of millions of people live in Sub-saharan African cities. In a sample of 318 cities, Francophone cities have more co...Read more...

Journal article

World Bank Economic Review:

Migration and urbanization in post-apartheid South Africa

Although Africa has experienced rapid urbanization in recent decades, little is known about the process of urbanization across the continent. This paper exploits a natural experiment, the abolition of South African pass ...Read more...

Journal article

Economics of Education Review:

Oil discoveries and education provision in the postbellum South

This paper studies the effect of oil wealth on the provision of education in the early 20th century United States. Using information on the location and discovery of major oil fields, I find that oil wealth increased loc...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade shocks and credit reallocation

The effect of trade liberalization on welfare and economic activity remains one of the most important questions in economics. The literature identifies a number of key determinants that reduce the potential gains from tr...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Public Economics:

Quantifying the intangible impact of the Olympics using subjective well-being data

Hosting the Olympic Games costs billions of taxpayer dollars. Following a quasi-experimental setting, this paper assesses the intangible impact of the London 2012 Olympics, using a novel panel of 26,000 residents in Lond...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Quantifying the intangible impact of the Olympics using subjective well-being data

Hosting the Olympic Games costs billions of taxpayer dollars. Following a quasi-experimental setting, this paper assesses the intangible impact of the London 2012 Olympics, using a novel panel of 26,000 residents in Lond...Read more...

Journal article

Management Science:

What you don't know. . .can't hurt you? A natural field experiment on relative performance feedback in higher education

This paper studies the effect of providing feedback to college students on their position in the grade distribution by using a natural field experiment. This information was updated every six months during a three-year p...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Oil discoveries and education spending in the Postbellum South

This paper studies the effect of oil wealth on the provision of education in the early 20th century United States. Using information on the location and discovery of major oil fields, I find that oil wealth increased loc...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Guarding the guardians

Good government requires some restraints on the powerful but how can those be imposed if there is no-one above them? This article studies the equilibrium allocation of power and resources established by self-interested i...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Can raising instructional time crowd out student pro-social behaviour? Unintended consequences of a German high school reform

We study whether raising instructional time can crowd out student pro-social behaviour. To this end, we exploit a large educational reform in Germany that has raised weekly instructional hours for high school students by...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The host with the most? The effects of the Olympic Games on happiness

We show that hosting the Olympic Games in 2012 had a positive impact on the life satisfaction and happiness of Londoners during the Games, compared to residents of Paris and Berlin. Notwithstanding issues of causal infer...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economics and Statistics:

Resource windfalls, political regimes, and political stability

We study theoretically and empirically whether natural resource windfalls affect political regimes. We show that windfalls have no effect on democracies, while they have heterogeneous political consequences in autocracie...Read more...

CentrePiece article

The path from cause to effect: mastering 'metrics

How should researchers interested in social and economic policy untangle cause and effect? A new book by Joshua Angrist and Jorn Steffen Pischke shows how the five core econometric tools -randomised trials, regression, ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Vertical transmission of overweight: evidence from English adoptees

We examine the vertical transmission of overweight drawing upon a sample of English children, both adopted and non-adopted, and their families. Our results suggest strong evidence of an intergenerational association of o...Read more...

Journal article

Water Economics and Policy:

Invention and diffusion of water supply and water efficiency technologies: insights from a global patent dataset

This paper identifies over 50,000 patents filed worldwide in various water-related technologies between 1990 and 2010, distinguishing between those related to availability (supply) and conservation (demand) technologies....Read more...

CentrePiece article

Video killed the radio star? Evidence from YouTube and iTunes

Making video clips of a song unavailable on YouTube has no effect on its sales on iTunes; but album sales suffer when video clips of a song from it are made unavailable on YouTube. These findings of a study by Tobias Kre...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

Industry compensation under relocation risk: a firm-level analysis of the EU emissions trading scheme

When regulated firms are offered compensation to prevent them from relocating, efficiency requires that payments be distributed across firms so as to equalize marginal relocation probabilities, weighted by the damage cau...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Fracking growth

This paper estimates the effect of the shale oil and gas boom in the United States on local economic outcomes. The main source of exogenous variation to be explored is the location of previously unexplored shale deposits...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Video killed the radio star? Online music videos and digital music sales

Sampling poses an interesting problem in markets with experience goods. Free samples reveal product quality and help consumers to make informed purchase decisions (promotional effect). However, sampling may also induce c...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Human resource management: how much do firms really need?

More complete systems of human resource management (HRM) could deliver really extensive gains in employee motivation, according to an analysis of representative data from British workplaces by Michael White and Alex Brys...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Does uncertainty reduce growth? Using disasters as natural experiments

A growing body of evidence suggests that uncertainty is counter cyclical, rising sharply in recessions and falling in booms. But what is the causal relationship between uncertainty and growth? To identify this we constru...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Neighbors, Knowledge, and Nuggets: Two Natural Field Experiments on the Role of Incentives on Energy Conservation

There is increasing research on the exogenous impact of descriptive social norms on economic behavior. The research to date has a number of limitations: 1) it has not de-coupled the impact of the norm and the knowledge r...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The financial resource curse

This paper presents a model of financial resource curse, i.e. episodes of abundant access to foreign capital coupled with weak productivity growth. We study a two-sector, tradable and non-tradable, small open economy. Th...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The geography of inter-state resource wars

We establish a theoretical as well as empirical framework to assess the role of resource endowments and their geographic location for inter-State conflict. The main predictions of the theory are that conflict tends to be...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Science: why the gender gap?

Stereotypes, role models played by teachers and social norms influence girls? academic self-concept and push girls to choose humanities rather than science. Do recruiters reinforce this strong selection by discriminating...Read more...

CEE/Education and skills discussion paper

Do Professors Really Perpetuate the Gender Gap in Science? Evidence from a Natural Experiment in a French Higher Education Institution

Stereotypes, role models played by teachers and social norms influence girls? academic self-concept and push girls to choose humanities rather than science. Do recruiters reinforce this strong selection by discriminating...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Giant oilfields and civil conflict

We use new data to examine the effects of giant oilfield discoveries around the world since 1946. On average, these discoveries increase per capita oil production and oil exports by up to 50 percent. But these giant oilf...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

HRM and Workplace Motivation: Incremental and Threshold Effects

The HRM-performance linkage often invokes an assumption of increased employee commitment to the organization and other positive effects of a motivational type. We present a theoretical framework in which motivational eff...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Resource Windfalls, Political Regimes, and Political Stability

We study theoretically and empirically whether natural resource windfalls affect political regimes. We document the following regularities. Natural resource windfalls have no effect on the political system when they occu...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Do Giant Oilfield Discoveries Fuel Internal Armed Conflicts?

We use new data to examine the effects of giant oilfield discoveries around the world since 1946. On average, these discoveries increase per capita oil production and oil exports by up to 50 percent. But these giant oilf...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Agglomeration in the Periphery

i. This discussion paper is a completely revised version of SERCDP0047, published April 2010....Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Minimum Wages and Schooling: Evidence from the UK's Introduction of a National Minimum Wage

This paper uses the introduction of the national minimum wage in the UK in April 1999 as a `natural experiment? to analyse the impact of minimum wages on enrolment in schooling. At the time of its introduction, only work...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Human Resource Management and Productivity

In this chapter we examine the relationship between Human Resource Management (HRM) and productivity. HRM includes incentive pay (individual and group) as well as many nonpay aspects of the employment relationship such a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Credibility Revolution in Empirical Economics: How Better Research Design is taking the Con out of Econometrics

This essay reviews progress in empirical economics since Leamer?s (1983) critique. Leamer highlighted the benefits of sensitivity analysis, a procedure in which researchers show how their results change with changes in s...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Do Oil Windfalls Improve Living Standards? Evidence from Brazil

We use variation in oil output among Brazilian municipalities to investigate the effects of resource windfalls. We find muted effects of oil through market channels: offshore oil has no effect on municipal non-oil GDP or...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Importance of Relative Performance Feedback Information: Evidence from a Natural Experiment using High School Students

We study the effect of providing relative performance feedback information on performance under piece-rate incentives. A natural experiment that took place in a high school offers an unusual opportunity to test this effe...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Leader Behavior and the Natural Resource Curse

We discuss political economy mechanisms which can explain the resource curse, in which an increase in the size of resource rents causes a decrease in the economy?s total value added. We identify a number of channels thro...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Is Seniority-Based Pay Used as a Motivation Device? Evidence from Plant Level Data

In this paper we use data from industrial plants to investigate if seniority-based pay is used as a motivational device for production workers. Alternatively, seniority-based pay could simply be a wage setting rule not n...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Impact of an Innovative Human Resource Function on Firm Performance: the Moderating Role of Financing Strategy

The current study examined the impact of the human resource function and financing strategy on the financial performance of 104 UK manufacturing firms. Hypotheses are drawn from a resource-based perspective on human reso...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Do Organisational Climate and Strategic Orientation Moderate the Relationship Between Human Resource Management Practices and Productivity?

Contingency formulations of Human Resource Management (HRM) theory suggest that the effectiveness of HRM practices should vary across firms. This study examined whether the relationship between HRM practices and producti...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Looking for HRM/Union Substitution: Evidence from British Workplaces

In this paper we test the HRM/union substitution hypothesis that human resource management (HRM) practices act as a substitute for unionization. We use British workplace data between 1980 and 1998 which allows us to exam...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

It's a Family Affair: the Effect of Union Recognition and Human Resource Management on the Provision of Equal Opportunities in the UK

Equal opportunities policies and family-friendly practices are examined using data from the 1998 Workplace Employee Relations Survey in order to assess (i) their associations with union recognition and strategic human re...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

UK Philips Curves and Monetary Policy

This paper documents some stylized facts on evolving UK Phillips curves, and shows how these differ from their US versions. We interpret UK Phillips curve dynamics in a positive theory of monetary policy u how policy-mak...Read more...