This paper investigates the effects of financial development and political instability on economic growth in a power-ARCH framework with data for Argentina from 1896 to 2000. Our findings suggest that (i) informal or unanticipated political instability (e.g., guerrilla warfare) has a direct...

The emergence and evolution of modern science since the 17th century has led to three major breakthroughs in the human condition. The first, the Industrial Revolution, started in the late 18th century and is based chiefly on developments associated with the rise of the natural sciences. The...

France sent five thousand men to fight alongside George Washington's army in the American Revolutionary War. We show that the French combatants' exposure to the United States of America increased support for the French Revolution a decade later. French regions (départements) from which more...

This research examines the impact of road construction on rural labor force outcomes in a developing country. A new road built in the Republic of Palau links formerly inaccessible rural areas to more urban wage sector employment. We use two censuses conducted five years apart which perfectly...

Reducing drink drive limits is generally regarded an effective strategy to save lives on the road. Using several new administrative data sources, we evaluate the effect of a stricter limit introduced in Scotland in 2014. This reduction had no effect on drink driving and road collisions....

This paper quantifies the impacts of transport infrastructure investments on economic activity in Haiti, using satellite night-light luminosity as a proxy measure. Our identification strategy exploits the differential timing of rehabilitation projects across various road segments of the primary...

The recent debates on infrastructure spending have led to renewed interest in the measurement of infrastructure and its effects on growth and well-being. This paper updates estimates of one important type of infrastructure capital—highways and streets. We compare BEA's capital measures with...

This paper builds on a previous paper by the authors (Kornfeld and Fraumeni, 2022) that primarily used U.S. Federal Highway Administration Highway Statistics data to disaggregate investment in highways and streets into more detailed types to produce updated estimates of net wealth stocks and...

The United States witnessed an unprecedented crime wave in the second half of the twentieth century, with the total index crime rate more than tripling between 1960-1980. Little is known about the causes of this surge in criminal activity across the country. This paper investigates the role...

"During the Chinese Cultural Revolution many schools stopped normal operation for a long time, senior high schools stopped student recruitment for up to 6 years, and universities stopped recruitment for an even longer period. Such large scale school interruptions significantly reduced the...