In this article we estimate the long-run aggregate elasticity of substitution between skilled and unskilled workers. This is an important parameter as it allows us to compute the skill biased technological progress (SBTP) from the evolution of relative wages. However, it is hard to estimate...

The diffusion of knowledge in the world generates positive externalities if knowledge flows increase the productivity of R&D. Our work analyzes knowledge diffusion and knowledge externalities in generating innovation and in determining productivity. We first estimate the determinants of...

We estimate the impact of the Covid-induced shift to working from home (WFH) on offline consumer spending within cities. The analysis builds on a postcode-level panel (2019–2023) of novel cellphone mobility and payment card transaction data for 50 German metropolitan areas (MAs)....

This paper considers cost-reducing R&D investment with spillovers in a Cournot oligopoly with minority shareholdings. We find that, with high market concentration and sufficiently convex demand, there is no scope for cross-ownership to improve welfare regardless of spillover levels. Otherwise,...

Since objective news coverage is vital to democracy, captured media can seriously distort collective decisions. The current paper develops a voting model where citizens are uncertain about the welfare effects induced by alternative policy options and derive information about those effects from...

We study a policy game between exporting and importing countries in vertically linked industries. In a successive international Cournot oligopoly, we analyse incentives for using tax instruments strategically to shift rents vertically, between exporting and importing countries, and horizontally,...

Search engines are important access channels to news content of traditional newspapers with Google alone responsible for 35% of online visits to news outlets in the European Union. Yet, the effects of Google Search on market competition and information diversity have received scant attention....

Standard media economics models imply that increased platform competition decreases ad levels and that mergers reduce per-viewer ad prices. The empirical evidence, however, is mixed. We attribute the theoretical predictions to the combined assumptions that there is no advertising congestion and...

This paper studies the effect of landownership concentration on school enrollment for nineteenth-century Prussia. Prussia is an interesting laboratory given its decentralized educational system and the presence of heterogeneous agricultural institutions. We find that landownership concentration,...

Applying the methodology developed by Duranton and Overman (2005, 2008), we analyze localization and dispersion of firms in China. Using a unique and detailed dataset on manufacturing firms in China, we are able to follow the changes in location patterns of firms between 2002 and 2008. Our...