We examine the persistence of the association between subjective health assessments of both first and second-generation migrants with that of their country of origin. To mitigate potential selection bias, we use European data containing records from 30 countries, including over 90 countries of...

We document the spatial diffusion of Friedrich Froebel’s radical invention of kindergartens in 19th-century Germany. The first kindergarten was founded at Froebel’s birthplace. Early spatial diffusion can be explained by cultural proximity, measured by historical dialect similarity, to...

Foreign direct investments (FDI) are an important determinant of economic growth. Countries try to attract mobile capital in order to foster economic development, albeit FDI might increase regional inequality since the many different regions of a country usually do not receive FDI in equal...

This paper does three things. First, based on a limited number of theoretically established dimensions, it proposes a new de facto indicator for the rule of law. It is the first such indicator to take the quality of legal norms explicitly into account. Second, using this indicator we shed new...

This paper considers the distribution of output and productive factors among members of a fully integrated economy (FIE). We demonstrate that each member's shares of total output and of total factors will be equal. This implies that growth in shares is random. If output and factor shares evolve...

We review the aid effectiveness literature to assess whether foreign aid given to areas of limited statehood can be expected to promote economic and social outcomes in the recipient country. We distinguish different types of aid, motives for granting it, recipient country policies and...

Usually, studies analyzing terrorism focus on the total number of casualties or attacks in a given county. However, per capita rates of terrorism are more likely to matter for individual welfare. Analyzing 214 countries from 1970-2014, we show that three stylized findings are overturned in terms...