We estimate a measure of segregation, experienced isolation, that captures individuals’ exposure to diverse others in the places they visit over the course of their days. Using Global Positioning System (GPS) data collected from smartphones, we measure experienced isolation by race. We find...

This paper shows that proximity to major international financial centers seems to reduce business cycle volatility. In particular, we show that countries that are further from major locations of international financial activity systematically experience more volatile growth rates in both output...

China's trade pattern is influenced not just by its overall comparative advantage in labor intensive goods but also by geography. We use two variants of the Eaton-Kortum (2002) model to study China's local comparative advantage. The theory predicts that China's share of export markets should...

Bilateral, product-level data exhibit a number of strong patterns that can be used to evaluate international trade theories, notably the spatial incidence of quot;export zerosquot; (correlated with distance and importer size), and of export unit values (positively related to distance). We show...

In his seminal publications between the 1930s and 1960s, Frederick Lane offered three hypotheses regarding the impact of the Voyages of Discovery that have guided debate ever since. First, pepper and other spice prices did not rise in European markets in the century before the 1490s, and thus...

Using data compiled from concentrated residential urban revitalization programs implemented in Richmond, VA, between 1999 and 2004, we study residential externalities. Specifically, we provide evidence that in neighborhoods targeted by the programs, sites that did not directly benefit from...

Urban proximity can reduce the costs of shipping goods and speed the flow of ideas. Improvements in communication technology might erode these advantages and allow people and firms to decentralize. However, improvements in transportation and communication technology can also increase the returns...

Using micro price data across US cities, we provide evidence that both the volatility and persistence of deviations from the law of one price (LOP) are positively correlated with the distance between cities. A standard, two-city, equilibrium model with time-varying technology under homogeneous...

We simultaneously assess the contributions to productivity of three sources of research and development spillovers: geographic, technology and product-market proximity. To do this, we construct a new measure of geographic proximity that is based on the distribution of a firm's inventor locations...

We study the role of distance and time in statistically explaining price dispersion across 32 Swedish towns for 19 commodities from 1732 to 1914. The resulting large number of relative prices (502,689) allows precise estimation of distance and time effects, and their interaction. We find an...