We estimate annual discontinuities in remotely-sensed crop yields at all international land borders and link them to changes in the economic freedom index by the Fraser Institute, a country-level measure of institutional quality. Each point of the ten-point index increases the discontinuity by...

Religious adherence has been hard to study in part because it is hard to measure. We develop a new measure of religious adherence, which is granular in both time and space, using anonymized mobile phone transaction records. After validating the measure with traditional data, we show how it can...

Agricultural producers make investment decisions based on beliefs about future returns. This article investigates how changes in beliefs about input availability affects the adoption of conservation practices. We develop a theoretical model to examine how a producer's beliefs about water...

Tile drainage was first demonstrated in the United States in 1835 as a method to adapt agriculture to excessive water in soils. Subsequently, innovations in coordinated drainage enterprises, engineering, and tile manufacture led to drainage over large portions of the U.S. Midwest and Southeast....

Nitrogen (N) fertilizer use in agricultural production is a significant determinant of surface water quality. As climate changes, agricultural producers are likely to adapt at extensive and intensive margins in terms of land and per acre input use, including fertilizers. These changes can affect...

US crops face higher losses as growing season temperatures rise and destructive disasters become commonplace. The Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) easement programs offer an adaptation strategy to improve agricultural resilience. Easements impact agricultural production directly by...

This paper highlights the role of agriculture in the American economy and society over time and points to farmer historical and contemporary responses to varying climatic conditions. It indicates the importance of water as an input to agricultural production and identifies possible impacts of...

Global climate change is already impacting water resources and, in many areas, reducing the amount of water available for drinking, sanitation, and agriculture. Water conservation can be a means to mitigate the economic damages associated with water scarcity, including scarcity arising from...

This paper investigates a unique policy designed to maintain employment during the privatization of East German firms after the fall of the Iron Curtain. The policy required new owners of the firms to commit to employment targets, with penalties for non-compliance. Using a dynamic model, we...

What are the prospects for economic growth in the United States and other advanced countries over the next several decades? U.S. growth for the past 150 years has been surprisingly stable at 2% per year. Growth theory reveals that in the long run, growth in living standards is determined by...