We show that the creation of the first integrated multi-modal pan-European transport network during Roman times influences economic integration over two millennia. Drawing on spatially highly disaggregated data on excavated Roman ceramics, we document that contemporary interregional trade was...

We study how NAFTA changed the geography of violence in Mexico. We propose that this open border policy increased trafficking profits of Mexican cartels, resulting in violent competition among them. We test this hypothesis by comparing changes in drug-related homicides after NAFTA's introduction...

We study the distributional consequences of monetary policy-induced credit supply in the labor market. To this end, we construct a novel dataset that links worker employment histories to firm financials and banking relationships in Germany. Firms in relationships with banks that are more exposed...

Financial sector wages have increased extraordinarily over the last decades. We address two potential explanations for this increase: (1) rising demand for talent and (2) firms sharing rents with their employees. Matching administrative data of Swedish workers, which include unique measures of...

Wage transparency rules arguably enable workers better to assess their contribution to firm value, allowing them to make wage demands that more accurately reflect their value for the employing firm and to lower wage gaps in turn. This paper contains a formal analysis of transparency rules and...

We present a semiparametric method to estimate group-level dispersion, which is particularly effective in the presence of censored data. We apply this procedure to obtain measures of occupation-specific wage dispersion using top-coded administrative wage data from the German IAB Employment...

This paper explores students' expectations about the returns to completing higher education and provides first evidence on \textit{perceived} signaling and human capital effects. We elicit counterfactual labor market expectations for the hypothetical scenarios of leaving university with or...

Motherhood continues to pose significant challenges to women's careers, and a correct assessment of its effects is crucial for understanding the persistent gender inequality in the labor market. We show that the prevalent approach to estimate post-birth earnings losses - so called "child...

This paper studies the relationship between occupational employment, occupational wages, and rising wage inequality. We document that in all occupations, entrants and leavers earn less than stayers. This suggests selection effects that are negative for growing occupations and positive for...

We present a natural field experiment on promoting pay equity through simple modifications to the salary review process involving 623 middle managers and 8,951 subordinate employees of a large technology firm.We first document a gender gap not only in salary levels but also in salary increases....