We introduce systematic tests exploiting robust statistical and behavioral patterns in trading to detect fake transactions on 29 cryptocurrency exchanges. Regulated exchanges feature patterns consistently observed in financial markets and nature; abnormal first-significant-digit distributions,...

We provide new evidence on the causal effects of housing wealth on consumer behavior. To overcome the empirical challenge of non-random housing wealth changes, we exploit the unexpected announcement of China's newest national-level new area--Xiong'an New Area--on April 1, 2017 as an exogenous...

Does international trade affect the growth of cities, and vice versa? Assembling disaggregate data for four countries, we document a novel stylized fact: Export activity is disproportionately concentrated in larger cities - even more so than overall economic activity. We rationalize this fact by...

If experimental subjects arbitrage against market interest rates when making intertemporal allocations of cash, the data will reveal nothing about subjects' discount rates, only uncovering subjects' market interest rates. If they frame choices narrowly, market rates will not be salient and the...

The entry of High-Speed Railways (HSR) represents a disruptive competition to airlines, particularly for short- to medium-distance journeys. Utilizing a unique dataset that contains the details of all flights departing from Beijing to 113 domestic destinations in China since January 2009, we...

We quantify the causal impact of human mobility restrictions, particularly the lockdown of the city of Wuhan on January 23, 2020, on the containment and delay of the spread of the Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV). We employ a set of difference-in-differences (DID) estimations to disentangle the...

We document a novel stylized fact: Using data for several countries, we show that export activity is disproportionately concentrated in larger cities - even more so than overall economic activity. We account for this fact by marrying elements of international trade and economic geography. We...