The commonly-used satellite images of nighttime lights fail to capture the true brightness of most cities. We show that night lights are a reliable proxy for economic activity at the city level, provided they are first corrected for top-coding. We present a stylized model of urban luminosity and...

We propose a model of "trade" between high income and low-income groups where the rich being scared of the spread of infection hires the poor to engage them in exposure-intensive outdoor activities as workers in the household industry. People who endure hardships and sustain exposure to...

In a general equilibrium model with online, entertainment and informal sectors employing skill, unskilled, and capital, we show that Covid-19 could cause polarization pushing contact-intensive entertainment industry on the brink of collapse while other two survive. Dual roles of factor-intensity...

This paper estimates the size of the media multiplier, a model-based measure of how far media coverage magnifies the economic response to shocks. We combine monthly aggregated and anonymized credit card activity data from 114 card issuing countries in 5 destination countries with a large corpus...

We propose a model of “trade” between high income and low-income groups where the rich being scared of the spread of infection hires the poor to engage them in exposure-intensive outdoor activities as workers in the household industry. People who endure hardships and sustain exposure to...

In a general equilibrium model with online, entertainment and informal sectors employing skill, unskilled, and capital, we show that Covid-19 could cause polarization pushing contact-intensive entertainment industry on the brink of collapse while other two survive. Dual roles of factor-intensity...

This paper provides new insight into the firm-level employment impacts of trade cost changes at the industry level in the Austrian services sector. We apply a two-part model of firm survival (exit) and firm growth. Separate regressions for firm entry rates at the industry-region level complete...

The commonly-used satellite images of nighttime lights fail to capture the true brightness of most cities. We show that night lights are a reliable proxy for economic activity at the city level, provided they are first corrected for top-coding. We present a stylized model of urban luminosity and...

We study the link between subnational capital cities and urban development using a global data set of hundreds of first-order administrative and capital city reforms from 1987 until 2018. We show that gaining subnational capital status has a sizable effect on city growth in the medium run. We...

We study the link between subnational capital cities and urban development using a global data set of hundreds of first-order administrative and capital city reforms from 1987 until 2018. We show that gaining subnational capital status has a sizable effect on city growth in the medium run. We...