This paper studies the spread of the Black Death as a proxy for the ow of medieval trade between 1346 and 1351. The Black Death struck most areas of Europe and the wider Mediterranean. Based on a modified version of the gravity model, we estimate the speed (in kilometers per day) of transmission...

The paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the natural resource curse, which postulates a negative link between natural resource abundance and economic growth. It shows empirically that resource-rich countries appear to have a less developed financial system and investigates a potential...

Was the collapse of world trade between 1928 and 1937 caused by higher transport costs, increased protectionism or the collapse of the gold standard? Using recent advances in the estimation of gravity equations, I examine the partial and general equilibrium effects of bilateral distance,...

We nest an extended two-way fixed effect (ETWFE) estimator for staggered difference-in-differences within the structural gravity model. To test the ETWFE, we estimate the effects of regional trade agreements (RTAs). The results suggest that RTA estimates in the current gravity literature may be...

This paper proposes a Skewed Stochastic Volatility (SSV) model to model time varying, asymmetric forecast distributions to estimate Growth at Risk as introduced in Adrian, Boyarchenko, and Giannone's (2019) seminal paper "Vulnerable Growth". In contrary to their semi-parametric approach, the SSV...

We study the statistical properties of heterogeneous agent models. Using aBewley-Hugget-Aiyagari model we compute the density function of wealth and in-come and use it for likelihood inference. We study the finite sample properties of themaximum likelihood estimator (MLE) using Monte Carlo...

Experimenters have to make theoretically irrelevant decisions concerning user interfaces and ordering or labeling of options. Such presentation decisions affect behavior and cause results to appear contradictory across experiments, obstructing utility estimation and policy recommendations. The...

This study analyses the situation of the Brazilian population vis-à-vis the Social Security System (SSS) using data from PNAD. We chose the 1982, 1992 and 2002 PNAD data to give a series of pictures of the Brazilian population at equal intervals but under different legal instances with respect...

Measuring economic uncertainty is crucial for understanding investment decisions by individuals and firms. Macroeconomists increasingly rely on survey data on subjective expectations. An innovative approach to measure aggregate uncertainty exploits the rounding patterns in individuals' responses...