Results

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Employer screening and optimal unemployment insurance

Field experiments show that employers are less likely to consider long-term unemployed job-seekers for interviews. We study the implications for optimal unemployment insurance (UI). Based on a structural model of job sea...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Location choice when the number of jobs matters: matching in spatial equilibrium

The idea that people want to go to where the jobs are is intuitive yet is absent from the standard quantitative spatial modelling approach in which location choices are guided by prices, without reference to quantities (...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...

CEP discussion paper

Trade and the end of antiquity

What caused the end of antiquity, the shift of economic activity away from the Mediterranean towards northern Europe? We assemble a large database of coin flows between the 4th and 10th century and use it to document the...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Sports Economics:

Was Covid-19 a game changer for the Tokyo and Beijing Olympics?

No, it was not. We do not find evidence that the COVID-19 pandemic affected the distribution of medals in a systematic way. Countries that suffered a higher share of deaths due to the pandemic, or that imposed stricter l...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Putting quantitative models to the test: an application to Trump's trade war

The primary motivation behind quantitative modeling in international trade and many other fields is to shed light on the economic consequences of policy changes. To help assess and potentially strengthen the credibility ...Read more...

Journal article

AEA Papers and Proceedings :

Negative weights are no concern in design-based specifications

Recent work shows that popular partially linear regression specifications can put negative weights on some treatment effects, potentially producing incorrectly signed estimands. We show that this is not an issue in desig...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

The Review of Economic Studies:

Using disasters to estimate the impact of uncertainty

Uncertainty rises in recessions and falls in booms. But what is the causal relationship? We construct cross-country panel data on stock market returns to proxy for first- and second-moment shocks and instrument these wit...Read more...

Journal article

European Economic Review:

Remote talks: changes to economics seminars during Covid-19

This paper analyzes the consequences of the change in the presentation mode of economics seminars triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. The composition of seminar speakers changed significantly. The share of seminars held ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The social footprint of globalization: towards the introduction of strategic industries in quantitative trade models

We argue that our understanding of industrial policy in the presence of 'strategic' industries that exert positive externalities on the national economy may benefit from an extension of quantitative general equilibrium t...Read more...

Journal article

Spatial Economic Analysis:

The social footprint of globalisation: towards the introduction of strategic industries in quantitative trade models

We argue that our understanding of industrial policy in the presence of `strategic? industries that exert positive externalities on the national economy may benefit from an extension of quantitative general equilibrium t...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Robot adoption, worker-firm sorting and wage inequality: evidence from administrative panel data

Leveraging the geographic dimension of a large administrative panel on employer-employee contracts, we study the impact of robot adoption on wage inequality through changes in worker-firm assortativity. Using recently de...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Do role models matter in large classes? New evidence on gender match effects in higher education

We study whether female students benefit from being taught by female professors, and whether such gender match effects differ by class size. We use administrative records of a German public university, covering all progr...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The spillover effect of services offshoring on local labour markets

I provide new empirical evidence on the direct and indirect impact of services off-shoring on local employment and wages, using a unique dataset on firms in the UK for the period 2000-2015. Exploiting variation in firms'...Read more...

CVER Research Paper

On Track to Success? Returns to vocational education against different alternatives

Many countries consider expanding vocational curricula in secondary education to boost skills and labour market outcomes among non-university-bound students. However, critics fear this could divert other students from mo...Read more...

Journal article

European Economic Review:

All these worlds are yours, except India: the effectiveness of cash subsidies to export in Nepal

This paper studies the impact of a `textbook? ad-valorem export subsidy on firm-level export performance. The Cash Incentive Scheme for Exports (CISE) program offered by the government of Nepal offers a cash subsidy to f...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

All these worlds are yours, except India: the effectiveness of cash subsidies to export in Nepal

This paper studies the impact of a `textbook' ad-valorem export subsidy on firm-level export performance. The Cash Incentive Scheme for Exports (CISE) program offered by the government of Nepal offers a cash subsidy to f...Read more...

Journal article

World Trade Review:

Reopening Pandora's box in search of a WTO-compatible industrial policy? The Brazil-taxation dispute

We critically assess the Appellate Body (AB) report on the Brazil-Taxation dispute, taken to the World Trade Organisation by the European Union and Japan, and encompassing seven different Brazilian industrial programmes ...Read more...

CentrePiece article

TV superstars: how a new technology disrupted the entertainment industry

The rollout of television to virtually every household in the United States in the mid-twentieth century created a potentially huge audience for people working in the entertainment industry. As Felix Koenig explains, thi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Technical change and superstar effects: evidence from the roll-out of television

Technical change that improves economies of scale can generate fast income growth among top earners at the expense of everyone else. I test this classic ?superstar model? in the labor market for entertainers where the hi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Reopening Pandora's box in search of a WTO-compatible industrial policy? The Brazil-taxation dispute

The Brazil-Taxation dispute concerns the complaints taken to the World Trade Organisation by the European Union and Japan against seven different Brazilian industrial subsidy programmes. One concerned the automotive sect...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

When income effects are large: labor supply responses and the value of welfare transfers

I estimate the long-run income effect of welfare transfers on individual labor supply. Using Italian administrative data on the universe of survivor insurance recipients, I implement a regression discontinuity design aro...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

The interconnections between services and goods trade at the firm-level

In this paper we study how international trade in goods and services interact at the firm level. Using a rich dataset on Belgian firms for the period 1995?2005, we show that: i) firms are much more likely to source servi...Read more...

CentrePiece article

Brexit: the economics of international disintegration

Pro-Brexit rhetoric mixes up two distinct interpretations of what made people vote to Leave the European Union ? and they have very different policy implications. As Thomas Sampson explains, those voters wanting to recla...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The interconnections between services and goods trade at the firm-level

In this paper we study how international trade in goods and services interact at the firm level. Using a rich dataset on Belgian firms during the period 1995-2005, we show that: i) firms are much more likely to source se...Read more...

Journal article

National Institute Economic Review:

Local economic effects of Brexit

This paper studies local economic impacts of the increases in trade barriers associated with Brexit. Predictions of the local impact of Brexit are presented under two different scenarios, soft and hard Brexit, which are ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Economic Perspectives:

Brexit: the economics of international disintegration

On June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom held a referendum on its membership in the European Union. Although most of Britain's establishment backed remaining in the European Union, 52 percent of voters disagreed and handed a...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

How local are labor markets? Evidence from a spatial job search model

This paper models the optimal search strategies of the unemployed across space to characterize local labor markets. Our methodology allows for linkages between numerous areas, while preserving tractability. We estimate t...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Brexit: the economics of international disintegration

This paper reviews the literature on the likely economic consequences of Brexit and considers the lessons of the Brexit vote for the future of European and global integration. Brexit will make the United Kingdom poorer b...Read more...

Journal article

Annual Review of Economics:

Quantitative spatial economics

The observed uneven distribution of economic activity across space is influenced by variation in exogenous geographical characteristics and endogenous interactions between agents in goods and factor markets. Until the pa...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

Is modern technology responsible for jobless recoveries?

Since the early 1990s, recoveries from recessions in the US have been plagued by weak employment growth. We investigate whether a similar problem afflicts other developed economies, and whether technology is a culprit. W...Read more...

Journal article

American Economic Review:

A structural model of the retail market for illicit drugs

We estimate a model of illicit drugs markets using data on purchases of crack cocaine. Buyers are searching for high-quality drugs, but they determine drugs' quality (i.e., their purity) only after consuming them. Hence,...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

The Stimulative Effect of an Unconditional Block Grant on the Decentralized Provision of Care

Understanding the impact of central government grants on decentralized health care provision is of crucial importance for the design of grant systems, yet empirical evidence on the prevalence of flypaper effects in this ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Quantitative spatial economics

The observed uneven distribution of economic activity across space is influenced by variation in exogenous geographical characteristics and endogenous interactions between agents in goods and factor markets. Until recent...Read more...

CentrePiece article

In brief... Investing in roads

Between 1990 and 2010, China constructed an extensive modern road network, including a national system of limited access highways. Vernon Henderson and colleagues investigate the impact on the growth of Chinese cities an...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

The price of development: The Penn?Balassa?Samuelson effect revisited

The Penn?Balassa?Samuelson effect is the stylized fact about the positive correlation between cross-country price level and per-capita income. This paper provides evidence that the price?income relation is actually non-l...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Highways, Market Access and Urban Growth in China

We investigate the effects of the construction of the national highway system in China on local economic outcomes. The analysis employs three main approaches. The first is based on a structural model of Ricardian trade t...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Political Economy:

Carbon taxes, path dependency, and directed technical change: evidence from the auto industry

Can directed technical change be used to combat climate change? We construct new firm-level panel data on auto industry innovation distinguishing between ?dirty? (internal combustion engine) and ?clean? (e.g., electric, ...Read more...

Journal article

The Economic Journal:

Evaluating a decade of mobile termination rate regulation

We re-consider the impact that regulation of call termination on mobile phones has had on mobile customers' bills. Using a large panel covering 27 countries, we find that the 'waterbed' phenomenon, initially observed unt...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

European integration and the gains from trade

This chapter discusses whether and how .new quantitative trade models.(NQTMs) can be fruitfully applied to quantify the welfare effects of trade liberalization, thus shedding light on the trade-related effects of further...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Evaluating a decade of mobile termination rate regulation

We re-consider the impact that regulation of call termination on mobile phones has had on mobile customers? bills. Using a large panel covering 27 countries, we find that the ?waterbed? phenomenon, initially observed unt...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

Heterogeneous firm-level responses to trade liberalization: a test using stock price reactions

This paper presents novel empirical evidence on key predictions of heterogeneous firm models by examining stock market reactions to the Canada?United States Free Trade Agreement of 1989 (CUSFTA). I derive testable predic...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Urban Escalators and Inter-regional Elevators: The Difference that Location, Mobility and Sectoral Specialisation make to Occupational Progression

This paper uses evidence from the (British) Longitudinal Study to examine the influence on occupational advancement of the city-region of residence (an escalator effect) and of relocation between city-regions (an elevato...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Risk and evidence of bias in randomized controlled trials in economics

The randomized controlled trial (RCT) has been a heavily utilized research tool in medicine for over 60 years. Since the early 2000?s, large-scale RCTs have been used in increasingly large numbers in the social sciences ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The marginal income effect of education on happiness: estimating the direct and indirect effects of compulsory schooling on well-being in Australia

Many economists and educators favour public support for education on the premise that education improves the overall well-being of citizens. However, little is known about the causal pathways through which education shap...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

When the Cat is Near, the Mice Won't Play: The Effect of External Examiners in Italian Schools

We use a natural experiment to show that the presence of an external examiner has both a direct and an indirect negative effect on the performance of monitored classes in standardized educational tests. The direct effect...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Market Size, Competition, and the Product Mix of Exporters

We build a theoretical model of multi-product firms that highlights how competition across market destinations affects both a firm's exported product range and product mix. We show how tougher competition in an export ma...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Measuring the (Income) Effect of Disability Insurance Generosity on Labour Market Participation

We analyze the employment effect of a law that provides for a 36 percent increase in the generosity of disability insurance (DI) for claimants who are, as a result of their lack of skills and of the labour market conditi...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Heterogeneous Firm-Level Responses to Trade Liberalisation: A Test Using Stock Price Reactions

This paper presents novel empirical evidence on key predictions of heterogeneous firm models by examining stock market reactions to the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement of 1989 (CUSFTA). Using the uncertainty su...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Is the Sky the Limit? An Analysis of High-Rise Office Buildings

Modern central business districts are characterised by high-rise office buildings. Helsley and Strange (2008) argue that skyscrapers are caused by agglomeration economies and a prize for being the tallest, so a reputatio...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Penn-Belassa-Samuelson Effect in Developing Countries: Price and Income Revisited

It is conventional wisdom that richer countries have a higher price level than poorer countries. This paper provides evidence that the price-income relationship is non-linear and that it turns negative, or at best flat, ...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

Where is the Economics in Spatial Econometrics?

Spatial econometrics has been criticized by some economists because some model specifications have been driven by data-analytic considerations rather than having a firm foundation in economic theory. In particular this 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

Trade Liberalization and Heterogeneous Firm Models: An Evaluation Using the Canada - US Free Trade Agreement

We examine the qualitative and quantitative predictions of a heterogeneous firm model a la Melitz (2003) in the context of the Canada - US Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA) of 1989. We calibrate our model to the pre-trade li...Read more...

SERC/Urban and Spatial Programme Discussion Paper

In Search of 'W'

This paper provides a survey and critique of how spatial links are taken into account in empirical analysis by applied economists/regional scientists. Spatial spillovers and spatial interrelationships between economic va...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Economic Geography: A Review of the Theoretical and Empirical Literature

This paper reviews the new economic geography literature, which accounts for the uneven distribution of economic activity across space in terms of a combination of love of variety preferences, increasing returns to scale...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Mapping Prices into Productivity in Multisector Growth Models

Two issues related to mapping a multi-sector model into a reduced-form value-added model are often neglected: the composition of intermediate goods, and the distinction between value added productivity and gross output p...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Testing the 'Waterbed' Effect in Mobile Telephony

This paper examines the impact of regulatory intervention to cut termination rates of calls from fixed lines to mobile phones. Under quite general conditions of competition, theory suggests that lower termination charges...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Job Creation and Job Destruction in the Presence of Informal Labour Markets

Recessions and policy interventions in labour markets in developing countries are characterized not only by changes in the unemployment rate, but also by changes in the proportion of formal or protected jobs. This reallo...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Productivity Growth and Employment: Theory and Panel Estimates

Theoretical predictions of the effect of TFP growth on employment are ambiguous, and depend on the extent to which new technology is embodied in new jobs. We estimate a model for employment, wages and investment with an ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Instrumental Variables for Binary Treatments with Heterogeneous Treatment Effects: A Simple Exposition

This note provides a simple exposition of what IV can and cannot estimate in a model with a binary treatment variable and heterogeneous treatment effects. It shows how linear IV is a misspecification of functional form a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Impact of the Labour Market on the Timing of Marriage and Births in Spain.

The main purpose of this paper is to show how the labour market affects Spanish individual fertility decisions. Spain is an interesting case due to its huge fertility decline. Our hypothesis is that precarious Spanish la...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

City Size Distributions As A Consequence of the Growth Process

The size distribution of cities in many countries follows some broadly regular patterns. Any good theory of city size distributions should (i) be able to account for this regularity, but also (ii) rely on a plausible eco...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Spanish Unemployment Persistence and the Ladder Effect

This paper aims to examine unemployment persistence in Spain by the soucalled 'ladder' effect. This arises when highly-skilled workers who do not find a job matching their skills accept jobs which previously were occup...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Union Membership Wage Premium: An Analysis Using Propensity Score Matching

This paper estimates the size of the union membership wage premium by comparing wage outcomes for unionised workers with 'matched' non-unionised workers. The method assumes selection on observables. For this identifyin...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Explaining Currency Crises: A Duration Model Approach

This paper is an empirical investigation into the duration of exchange rate episodes characterized by the absence of speculative attacks. We estimate a duration model for OECD countries during the 1970-1997 period. Speci...Read more...