We study the effects of homeownership on labor force participation and unemployment. We exploit housing privatization and restitution after the fall of communism as a source exogenous assignment of homeowner/renter status, using a unique dataset from the city of Brno, Czech Republic. We do not...

We analyze the long-term impact of the resettlement of the Sudetenland after World War~II on residential migration. This event involved expulsion of ethnic Germans and almost complete depopulation of an area of a country and its rapid resettlement by 2 million Czech inhabitants. Results based on...

We exploit a historical experiment that occurred in Czechoslovakia after World War Two to study the drivers of social capital accumulation in an extremely unfavorable environment. Between 1945 and 1948, the Sudetenland became the scene of ethnic cleansing, with the expulsion of nearly three...

We analyze the impacts of three major unexpected border regime changes that occurred during the course of 20th century on population growth along the Austrian-Czech border. Using historical municipal-level census data reaching back to 1880, we find no effects of the dissolution of the...

This paper examines the impact of regional development on democracy building in the Czech Republic following the fall of the Iron Curtain and the autocratic communist regime in 1989. By exploiting the variation in regional development arising from the economic transition process, we identify...

This paper tests for discriminatory treatment of the Roma minority by public officials in the Czech Republic. Our focus is on public servants at local job centers whose job is to advise unemployed individuals and process applications for unemployment benefit. Our experimental design facilitates...