Ackerlof and Shiller (2015), and many others, argue that slot machines are manipulative and deceptive. We examine whether the removal of slots from a specific bar or restaurant impacts bankruptcy filings in the immediate vicinity. Our identification strategy compares consumers that are fractions...

Using the border effect approach, our paper examines the influence of the legal framework quality of the Central and Eastern European countries on international trade. This approach offers an evaluation of the borders' impact on trade. A market is fragmented when actual trade differs from the...

In this paper we study the issue of economic integration across borders for the case of Poland's reunification after the First World War. Using a pooled regression approach and a threshold cointegration framework we find that the Polish interwar economy can be regarded as integrated with some...

This paper explores the pre-First World War Austro-Hungarian economy as a prominent case where growing conflict between various ethnic and national groups within an empire might have contributed to the emergence of internal borders and even its eventual dissolution. To this end we adopt an...

As, in Europe, many institutional reforms have been undertaken to establish an economic union, it can be expected that the relevance of borders has decreased over time. For the EU 15, we investigate the expected integration process of the market for corporate control - an illustrative market for...

National borders are still strong barriers for mergers and acquisitions in Europe. We estimate a gravity equation model based on NUTS 2-regions and find that the restraining impact of national borders decreased by about a third between 1990 and 2007. However, there has been no significant change...

Studies of spatial policy interdependence in (local) public policies usually concentrate on the relations between jurisdictions within a single analysed region, and disregard possible extra-regional effects. This paper evaluates the validity of such restriction by studying German local...

A structural gravity model is used to estimate barriers to services trade across many sectors, countries and time. Since the disaggregated output data needed to flexibly infer border barriers are often missing for services, we derive a novel methodology for projecting output data. The empirical...

This paper identifies a “border” effect in the absence of a border. The finding that trade between East- and West-Japan is 23.1 to 51.3 percent lower than trade within both country parts, is established despite the absence of an obvious east-west division due to historical borders, cultural...

When did Germany become economically integrated? Within the framework of a gravity model, based on a new data set of about 40,000 observations on trade flows within and across the borders of Germany over the period 1885-1933, I explore the geography of trade costs across Central Europe. There...