Migration and trade are often linked through ethnic networks boosting bilateral trade. This study uses migration to quantify the importance of Ricardian technology differences for international trade. The framework provides the first panel estimates connecting country-industry productivity and...

Previous research suggests that entrepreneurs value autonomy more than non-entrepreneurs do across countries and institutional contexts. However, most evidence exists for contexts with more or less entrepreneurship-facilitating and stable institutional frame-work conditions while we do not know...

Using data on the presence of the Goethe Institutes (GI) in 134 importer countries between 1978 and 2014, we study the effect that language learning opportunities abroad have on German exports. We employ a gravity model of trade with a single exporter and use the Poisson-Pseudo Maximum...

This paper analyzes empirically whether individuals' decisions to start an own business can be influenced via television (TV). To identify its effect, we utilize exogenous regional variation in the availability of TV that conveyed images conducive to entrepreneurship and the notion that...

Can TV influence the entrepreneurial decisions of individuals? To identify causal effects, we utilize a quasi-natural experiment, namely that during the division of Germany after WWI into the capitalistic West Germany and the socialistic East Germany, West TV was exogenously available only in...

This paper investigates whether language priming activates different cultural identities and norms associated with the language communicated; bilingual subjects are given Chinese instructions in the Chinese treatment and English instructions in the English treatment. The main findings are: (1) in...

To investigate the relation between trust and formal institutions, we analyze bilateral trade patterns in a sample of 16 European countries between 1996-2009. Trust in trading partners has a significant positive effect on bilateral trade. However, our results suggest that trust and formal...

We argue that societies with a stronger tendency towards postmaterialist life goals tilt the tax structure towards personal income taxes and away from corporate taxation. We provide empirical evidence for this correlation in OECD countries. To address endogeneity issues we then use an...

This paper examines the effects that windfalls from international commodity price booms have on net foreign assets in a panel of 145 countries during the period 1970-2007. The main finding is that windfalls from international commodity price booms lead to a significant increase in net foreign...

Gender stereotypes are well established also among women. Yet, a recent literature suggests that learning from other women experience about the effects of maternal employment on children outcomes may increase female labor force participation. To further explore this channel, we design a...