Virtually all theories of economic growth predict a positive relationship between population size and productivity. In this paper I study a particular historical episode to provide direct evidence for the empirical relevance of such scale effects. In the aftermath of the Second World War about...

Between 1880 and 1920, the US agricultural employment share fell from 50% to 25%. However, despite aggregate demand shifting away from their sector of specialization, rural labor markets saw faster wage growth and industrialization than non-agricultural parts of the US. We propose a spatial...

We study the joint process of urbanization and industrialization in the US economy between 1880 and 1940. We show that only a small share of aggregate industrialization is accounted for by the relocation of workers from remote rural areas to industrial hubs like Chicago or New York City....

We consider a New Keynesian model with downward nominal wage rigidity (DNWR) and show that government spending is much more effective in stimulating output in a low-inflation recession relative to a high-inflation recession. The government spending multiplier is large when DNWR binds, but the...

An impulse response is the dynamic average effect of an intervention across horizons. We use the well-known Kitagawa-Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition to explore a response's heterogeneity over time and over states of the economy. This can be implemented with a simple extension to the usual local...

We analyze whether government spending multipliers differ by the sign of the shock. Using aggregate historical U.S. data, we apply Ben Zeev's (2020) nonlinear diagnostic tests and find evidence of nonlinearities in the impulse response functions of both government spending and GDP. We then...

We construct a database of public pension policy changes with motivation and implementation information for ten OECD countries. Structural pension reforms, motivated by long-run sustainability concerns, often come with prolonged phase-in periods. In response to pension retrenchments implemented...

We study the persistent effects of temporary changes in U.S. federal corporate and personal income tax rates using a narrative identification approach. A corporate income tax cut leads to a sustained increase in GDP and productivity, with peak effects between five and eight years. R&D spending...

Emerging countries exhibit volatile fiscal policies and frequent sovereign debt crises, that significantly diminish the well-being of their citizens. International advisors typically suggest developed-world solutions as a remedy. We argue that the root of the problem lies in the institutional...

Goods producers increase their capital expenditure and employment in response to a cut in marginal corporate income tax rates or an increase in investment tax credits. In contrast, companies in the service sector mostly use any tax windfall to increase dividend payouts. We base our conclusions...