What is the response of US governors to the COVID-19 pandemic? In this research note, we explore the determinants of implementing stay-at-home orders, focusing on governors' characteristics. In our most conservative estimate, being a Democratic governor increases the probability of implementing...

This paper examines the economic consequences of terror attacks and the channels through which terrorism affects local economies. I rely on an exhaustive list of terror attacks over the period 1970-2013 in the U.S. and exploit the inherent randomness in the success or failure of terror attacks...

We perform an empirical investigation of the socioeconomic determinants and consequences of all mass shootings in the U.S. from 2000 to 2015. We first manually search for and collect information on perpetrators. We find that approximately 40% (45%) of shooters were in financial distress...

This paper investigates the effects of local smoking bans on different out-comes using county and time variation over the last 20 years in the US. First, I find no evidence that local smoking bans in bars, restaurants and workplaces decrease the prevalence of smoking. The estimates are very...

In this paper, we examine the short-term consequences of COVID-19 and evaluate the impacts of stay-at-home orders on employment and wages in the United States. Guided by a pre-analysis plan, we document that COVID-19 increased the unemployment rate, decreased hours of work and labor force...

In this ongoing project, we examine the short-term consequences of COVID-19 on employment and wages in the United States. Guided by a pre-analysis plan, we document the impact of COVID-19 at the national-level using a simple difference and test whether states with relatively more confirmed...