New, “big” data sources allow measurement of city characteristics and outcome variables higher frequencies and finer geographic scales than ever before. However, big data will not solve large urban social science questions on its own. Big data has the most value for the study of cities when...

Should China build mega-cities or a network of linked middle-sized metropolises? Can Europe's mid-sized cities compete with global agglomeration by forging stronger inter-urban links? This paper examines these questions within a model of recombinant growth and endogenous local amenities. Three...

Large retailers have significant positive spillovers on nearby businesses, and both private and public mechanisms exist to attract them. We estimate these externalities using detailed geographic establishment data and exogenous variation from national chain bankruptcies. We show that local...

For the past forty years, United States Presidents have repeatedly called for a reduction in the country's dependence on fossil fuels in general and foreign oil specifically. Stronger efficiency standards and higher taxes on motor fuels are a step in this direction, but achieving even greater...

This paper presents a model of strategic interaction in which a third party intervenes on behalf of a government in its conflict with insurgents. It examines whether it is better for the intervenor to adopt an input-based strategy (i.e., specify the total resources it will spend) or an...

The study of urban and local politics in the United States has long been hindered by a lack of centralized sources of election data. We introduce a new dataset of nearly 55,000 electoral contests that encompasses races for seven distinct local political offices in most medium and large cities...

We study the global distributive consequences of the “Great Reflation.” The conventional wisdom holds that the increases in interest rates resulting from high inflation in the United States will have a negative impact on the rest of the world (and developing countries in particular) due to...

What impact do mass civil society groups have on public policy? We study this issue by analyzing opposition to national prohibition by German-American groups and associations in the early twentieth century, before and after state-sponsored suppression of them that coincided with U.S. entry to...

Carbon sequestration — the process of moderating global climate change by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and storing it in long-term mineral, organic, and oceanic reservoirs — is an important ecosystem service provided by protected natural areas. One type of carbon sequestration...

Senior government executives make many decisions, not-infrequently difficult ones. Cognitive limitations and biases preclude individuals from making fully value-maximizing choices. And the “groupthink” tradition has highlighted ways group-aided decision-making can fail to live up to its...