We quantify agglomeration spillovers by estimating the impact of the opening of a large new manufacturing plant on the total factor productivity (TFP) of incumbent plants in the same county. Articles in the corporate real estate journal Site Selection reveal the county where the quot;Million...

After the new plant opening, incumbent plants in winning counties experience a sharp relative increase in TFP. Five years after the opening, TFP of incumbent plants in winning counties is 12% higher than TFP of incumbent plants in losing counties. Consistent with some theories of agglomeration,...

In the US and many other OECD countries, expenditures for defense-related R&D represents a key policy channel through which governments shape innovation, and dwarf all other public subsidies for innovation. We examine the impact of government funding for R&D - and defense-related R&D in...

I assess the magnitude of human capital spillovers in US cities by estimating plant-level production functions. I use a unique firm worker matched dataset, obtained by combining the Census of Manufacturers with the Census of Population. After controlling for a plant's own human capital, plant...

In the US and many other OECD countries, expenditures for defense-related R&D represent a key policy channel through which governments shape innovation, and dwarf all other public subsidies for innovation. We examine the impact of government funding for R&D - and defense-related R&D in...

I assess the magnitude of human capital spillovers in US cities by estimating plant-level production functions. I use a unique firm worker matched dataset, obtained by combining the Census of Manufacturers with the Census of Population. After controlling for a plant's own human capital, plant...

We quantify the amount of spatial misallocation of labor across US cities and its aggregate costs. Misallocation arises because high productivity cities like New York and the San Francisco Bay Area have adopted stringent restrictions to new housing supply, effectively limiting the number of...

We estimate direct and indirect effects of total factor productivity growth in manufacturing on US workers' earnings, housing costs, and purchasing power. Drawing on four alternative instrumental variables, we consistently find that when a city experiences productivity gains in manufacturing,...

We estimate the effect of high school graduation on participation in criminal activity accounting for endogeneity of schooling. We begin by analyzing the effect of high school graduation on incarceration using Census data. Instrumental variable estimates using changes in state compulsory...

Supporters of touch-screen voting claim it is a highly reliable voting technology, while a growing number of critics argue that paperless electronic voting systems are vulnerable to fraud. In this paper we use county-level data on voting technologies in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections...