The number of studies investigating neighbourhood effects has increased rapidly over the last two decades. Although many of these studies claim to have found evidence for neighbourhood effects, most 'evidence' is likely the result of reversed causality. The main challenge in modelling...

We analyze the extent to which endogenous cultural amenities affect the spatial equilibrium share of high-human-capital employees. To overcome endogeneity, we draw on a quasi-natural experiment in German history and exploit the exogenous spatial distribution of baroque opera houses built as a...

This paper concerns public input provision as an instrument for redistribution under international outsourcing by using a model-economy comprising two countries, North and South, where firms in the North may outsource part of their low-skilled labor intensive production to the South. We consider...

Using firm level data on 70,000 enterprises in 107 countries, this paper finds important effects of access to finance, business regulations, corruption, and to a lesser extent, infrastructure bottlenecks in explaining patterns of job creation at the firm level. The paper focuses on how the...

Culture as reflected in social and religious norms may be pivotal to social organization in a decentralised economy where local authorities are responsible for the provision of local public goods. We distinguish between individualist and collectivist cultures to argue that collectivist culture...

Following market liberalisation, the vehicle population in China has increased dramatically over the past few decades. This paper examines the causal impact of the opening of a heavily used high speed rail line connecting two megacities in China in 2015, Chengdu and Chongqing, on air pollution....

We evaluate the impact of a place-based infrastructure development scheme directed towards India's most "backward" districts, on the performance of microenterprises. "Backward" districts were selected based on a transparent score-based assignment mechanism. Using a Fuzzy Regression Discontinuity...