The research on the location choice for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) is traditionally restricted to a choice between countries. The within-country location choice is less prominent in the literature. If within-country location decisions are considered it is mostly limited to Greenfield...

In contrast to empirical evidence, recent theories of cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&As) assume perfect knowledge transfers - from high to low productivity firms - between acquirer and target. Using the Melitz (2003) model of heterogeneous firms, we develop a matching model of...

Applying the methodology developed by Duranton and Overman (2005, 2008), we analyze localization and dispersion of firms in China. Using a unique and detailed dataset on manufacturing firms in China, we are able to follow the changes in location patterns of firms between 2002 and 2008. Our...

Technological progress and trade potentially affect wages and employment. Technological progress can make jobs obsolete and trade can increase unemployment in import competing sectors. Empirical evidence suggests that both causes are important to explain recent labour market developments in many...

By combining two large data sets (on international trade flows and on mergers and acquisitions M&As), we are able to test two implications of Neary's (2003, 2004a) recent theoretical work. Analyzing M&As in a General Oligopolistic Equilibrium (GOLE) model incorporating strategic interaction...

After World War II, town twinning became popular, notably in Germany. This was mainly a reaction to the war experience, and it was aimed at creating renewed international understanding and co-operation between German cities and cities in other countries. The contacts created by town twinning...

We construct a unique data set to analyze whether or not a large temporary shock had an impact on German city growth and city size distribution. Following recent work by Davis and Weinstein (2001) on Japan, we take the strategic bombing of German cities during WWII as our example of such a...

Place names, or toponyms, provide insight into the initial geographical characteristics of settlements. We present a unique dataset of 3,705 German toponyms that includes the date of the first historical record mentioning the settlement and the date it was granted city rights. We show that the...

In this paper we want to shed some light on the empirical relevance of the new economic geography. Using one of the central features of the core new economic geography models, namely that wages have the tendency to fall the further one moves away from centres of economic activity, we investigate...

We study the post-war effects of the bombing of German cities during WWII on urban growth and use the synthetic control method (SCM) to construct comparison units for affected West-German cities. The reason to use SCM is that cities might experience structural changes that have nothing to do...