In this paper we show that the recent model by Duranton (AER, 2007) performs remarkably well in replicating the city size distribution of West Germany, much better than the simple rank-size rule known as Zipf's law. The main mechanism of this theoretical framework is the "churning" of industries...

This paper develops a novel procedure for proxying economic activity with day-time satellite imagery across time periods and spatial units, for which reliable data on economic activity are otherwise not available. In developing this unique proxy, we apply machine-learning techniques to a...

In the literature technical change is mostly assumed to be exogenous and specified as a function of time. However, some exogenous external factors other than time can also affect technical change. In this paper we model technical change via time trend (purely external non-economic) as well as...

In this paper we show that the recent model by Duranton (AER, 2007) performs remarkablywell in replicating the city size distribution of West Germany, much better than the simplerank-size rule known as Zipf´s law. The main mechanism of this theoretical framework is thechurning of industries...

We compare a set of econometric studies that measure the effect of net internal migration in neoclassical models of long-run real income convergence and derive 67 comparable effect sizes. The precision-weighted estimate of beta convergence is about 2.7%. An increase in the net migration rate of...

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...

Teleworking may increase the willingness to accept a longer commute. This paper presents new evidence of the effect of teleworking on the length of commutes. We use novel panel data from the Netherlands, for the years 2008-2018, and find stronger effects compared to studies that use older data....

This paper examines how firms in an emerging economy are affected by violence due to drug trafficking. Employing rich longitudinal plant-level data covering all of Mexico from 2005 2010, and using an instrumental variable strategy that exploits plausibly exogenous spatiotemporal variation in the...

We propose using sign restrictions to identify regional labor demand shocks in a panel VAR of US federal states. Observed migration responds significantly, but less persistently than the residual-based migration measure constructed by Blanchard and Katz (1992)

We examine the mechanism by which human capital affects economic growth and convergence, using provincial level panel data from China. We specify alternative measures of human capital and apply them to an enhanced growth model which we estimate parametrically, nonparametrically, and with a...