This paper argues that redrawing subnational political boundaries can transform ethnic divisions. We use a natural policy experiment in Indonesia to show how the effects of ethnic diversity on conflict depend on the political units within which groups are organized. Redistricting along group...

What are the economic impacts of a border wall between the United States and Mexico? We use detailed data on bilateral ows of primarily unauthorized Mexican workers to the United States to estimate how a substantial expansion of the border wall between the United States and Mexico from 2007 to...

We investigate the role of national institutions on subnational African development in a novel framework that accounts both for local geography and cultural-genetic traits. We exploit the fact that the political boundaries in the eve of African independence partitioned more than two hundred...

This paper investigates competition between jurisdictions in the context of cross-border shopping for state lottery tickets. We first develop a simple theoretical model in which consumers choose between state lotteries and face a trade-off between travel costs and the price of a fair gamble,...

International economic integration yields large potential welfare effects, even in a static constant returns competitive world economy. Our method is novel. The effect of border barriers on trade flows is often inferred from gravity models. But their rather atheoretic structure precludes welfare...

Extending McCallum's (1995) result, based on a gravity model of 1988 trade flows, that a typical Canadian province trades 22 times more with other provinces than with U.S. states of similar size and distance, this paper asks how Quebec trade patterns compare with those of other provinces. The...

This paper presents a framework to understand and measure the effects of political borders on economic growth and per capita income levels. We present a model providing a theoretical foundation to estimate empirically the effects of political borders on growth. In our model, political...

The fact that large manufacturing plants export relatively more than small plants has been at the foundation of much work in the international trade literature. We examine this fact using Census micro data on plant shipments from the Commodity Flow Survey. We show the fact is not entirely an...

Do national borders and ethnicity contribute to market segmentation between and within countries? This paper uses unique and high-frequency data on narrowly-defined goods to gauge the extent to which a national border impedes trade between developing countries (Niger and Nigeria). Using a...

Many American communities seek to attract or retain businesses with tax abatements, tax credits, or tax increment financing of infrastructure projects (TIFs). The evidence for 1999 indicates that communities are most likely to offer one or more of these business development incentives if their...