This paper analyses regional growth in Eastern Europe in the second half of the 1990s, when regional disparities sharply increased. We aim to identify the factors behind growth and investigate in particular the role of (foreign) investment, education and innovation as well as geographical...

Empirical studies of the impact of geography and institutions on growth and development at the international level have become common place, but the high degree of abstraction at that level has led to calls for subnational studies. This paper examines these issues for a region of the United...

This paper revisits the relationship between fiscal decentralization and economic growth by addressing the endogeneity issue stemming from reverse causality and unobserved factors that has plagued previous extensive literature on this subject. In our approach, we use the Geographic Fragmentation...

While the direct impact of geographic endowments on prosperity is present in all countries, in former colonies, geography has also affected colonization policies and, therefore, institutional outcomes. Using non-colonized countries as a control group, I develop an empirical strategy that...

While the direct impact of geographic endowments on prosperity is present in all countries, in former colonies, geography has also affected colonization policies and, therefore, institutional outcomes. Using non-colonized countries as a control group, I develop an empirical strategy that...

I study fundamental determinants of economic development in a new dataset covering 1,867 subnational regions from 101 countries, focusing on within-country effects of geography and institutions. I find that several geographic factors have significant explanatory power for within-country...

While the direct impact of geographic endowments on prosperity is present in all countries, in former colonies, geography has also affected colonization policies and institutional outcomes. Thus, one can disentangle the partial effects of endowments and institutions on income by utilizing the...

While the direct impact of geographic endowments on prosperity is present in all countries, in former colonies, geography has also affected colonization policies and institutional outcomes. Thus, one can disentangle the partial effects of endowments and institutions on income by utilizing the...

This paper quantifies the economic impact of geographical features using Colombian data at the municipal level. We use the proportion of slave population in 1835 as an instrument of current institutions. We find that, controlling for institutional quality, geographical characteristics, such as...