Real estate—housing in particular—is a less profitable investment in the long run than previously thought. We hand-collect property-level financial data for the institutional real estate portfolios of four large Oxbridge colleges over the period 1901–1983. Gross income yields initially...

This paper identifies which investments in school facilities help students and are valued by homeowners. Using novel data on school district bonds, test scores, and house prices for 29 U.S. states and a research design that exploits close elections with staggered timing, we show that increased...

This paper identifies which investments in school facilities help students and are valued by homeowners. Using novel data on school district bonds, test scores, and house prices for 29 U.S. states and a research design that exploits close elections with staggered timing, we show that increased...

We investigate economic and institutional determinants of ICT infrastructure for a broad cross section ofmore than 100 countries. The ICT variable is constructed from a principal components analysis. The explanatory variables are selected by variants of the Lasso estimator from the machine...

Using machine learning methods in a quasi-experimental setting, I study the heterogeneous effects of introducing waste prices - unit prices on household unsorted waste disposal - on waste demands and social welfare. First, using a unique panel of Italian municipalities with large variation in...

This paper applies machine learning algorithms to the modeling of realized betas for the purposes of forecasting stock systematic risk. Forecast horizons range from 1 week up to 1 month. The machine learning algorithms employed are ridge regression, decision tree learning, adaptive boosting,...

The question of what really drives economic growth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has been debated for many decades now. However, there is still a lack of clarity on variables crucial for driving growth as prior contributions have been executed at the backdrop of preferential selection of...

The vast majority of regions in West Germany, and the EU, have become more similar in terms of per-capita income and productivity between 1980 and 2000. But a number of rich areas - generally large agglomerations - have succeeded in departing from this trend of convergence. They are continuing...

This paper empirically investigates the antecedents of internationalization of SMEs, focusing on differences between the manufacturing and service sectors. Specifically, employing a bivariate probit model based on survey data of approximately 3,900 East German firms, I analyze which firm-related...

This paper analyzes the effects of local externalities on the probability of starting a new economic activity. We use firm-level data and geographic information on French zip-codes for 1993-2002. Poisson and Negative Binomial panel data models are estimated as they naturally allow for large sets...