Does the pattern of social connections between individuals matter for macroeconomic outcomes? If so, how does this effect operate and how big is it? Using network analysis tools, we explore how different social structures affect technology diffusion and thereby a country’s rate of...

We estimate the causal effect of early retirement on mortality for blue-collar workers. To overcome the problem of endogenous selection, we exploit an exogenous change in unemployment insurance rules in Austria that allowed workers in eligible regions to withdraw from the workforce up to 3.5...

We study the relationship between geography and growth. To do so, we first develop a dynamic spatial growth theory with realistic geography. We characterize the model and its balanced growth path and propose a methodology to analyze equilibria with different levels of migration frictions. We...

The paper presents new stylized facts on the direction of capital flows. We find (i) international capital flows net of government debt and/or official aid are positively correlated with growth; (ii) sovereign debt flows are negatively correlated with growth only if debt is financed by another...

Between 1958 and 1961, China experienced one of the worse famines in her history. Birth rates fell during these years and recovered immediately afterwards. The famine also adversely affected the health of these cohorts. This paper provides nonparametric estimates of the total effects of the...

The theory of international trade has paid scant attention to market institutions. Neither neoclassical theory nor new trade models typically specify the process by which supply and demand meet. Yet in the real world, intermediaries play a central role in materializing the gains from exchange...

This paper examines the relationship between differences in civil society development under communism and divergence in the nature and pace of political and economic reform and transformation after 1989. We put together a unique data set on dissident activities for the 27 former centrally...

This paper develops a simple model of international trade with intermediation. We consider an economy with two islands and two types of agents, farmers and traders. Farmers can produce two goods, but in order to sell these goods in centralized (Walrasian) markets, they need to be matched with a...

This paper estimates the effect of the decision to import intermediate goods and capital equipment on Total Factor Productivity (TFP) at the firm level on a panel of Spanish firms covering the period between 1991 and 2002. We use two alternative approaches. In the first, we estimate TFP using...

Recently, Blanchard and Kremer (BK) argued that disorganization has led to the output decline in the former Soviet Union. In this paper we introduce liquidity and credit constraints into the BK model and show how these problems can alleviate the hold-up problem. We argue further that barter...