The US has been a global leader in regulating local air pollution and a global laggard in regulating greenhouse gases (GHGs). For decades, critics of US policy have expressed fears that stringent US regulations on local air pollution would lead to pollution havens overseas. Prior research,...

This paper analyzes a detailed plan to set quantitative national limits on emissions of greenhouse gases, following along the lines of the Kyoto Protocol. It is designed to fill in the most serious gaps: the absence of targets extending as far as 2100, the absence of participation by the United...

In the absence of first-best climate policy, we demonstrate that existing government institutions and policy established for reasons unrelated to climate change may induce climate adaptation. We examine the impact of temperature on ambient ozone concentration in the United States from 1980-2013,...

Panel data econometric methods are used to investigate how the risk of death from acute myocardial infarction (AMI) varies with macroeconomic conditions after controlling for demographic factors, fixed state characteristics, general time effects and state-specific time trends. The sample...

Over the past decade, concern over potential global warming has focused attention on the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and there is an active debate concerning the desirability of reducing emissions. At the heart of this debate is the future path of both greenhouse gas...

Does a permanent rise in temperature decrease the level or growth rate of GDP in affected countries? Differing answers to this question lead prominent estimates of climate damages to diverge by an order of magnitude. This paper combines indirect evidence on economic growth with new empirical...

In China, local governments have actively contributed to the growth of new firms. In Russia, local governments have typically stood in the way, be it through taxation, regulation, or corruption. There appears to be two main reasons behind the behavior of local governments in Russia. First,...

We document a statistical association between the severity of the persecution and mass murder of Jews (the Holocaust) by the Nazis during World War II and long-run economic and political outcomes within Russia. Cities that experienced the Holocaust most intensely have grown less, and cities as...

This paper studies structural transformation of Soviet Russia in 1928-1940 from an agrarian to an industrial economy through the lens of a two-sector neoclassical growth model. We construct a large dataset that covers Soviet Russia during 1928-1940 and Tsarist Russia during 1885-1913. We use a...

This paper examines the effect of banking on economic growth in modern Russia. To overcome simultaneity and selection, we exploit regional banking variation induced by the creation of "specialized banks" (spetsbanks) in the last years of the Soviet Union (1988-1991). Consistent with the...