This essay reviews the relationship between natural-resource abundance and economic growth around the world, and presents some new results. The principal reasons why resource-based production can inhibit economic growth over long periods are traced to the Dutch disease, neglect of education,...

Our paper explores, on a theoretical level, the reason for frequent failures of rural development policies and identifies some potential improvements in rural policy making in Europe. Our approach to des/integration concerns actors, resources, institutions, knowledge, the fundamental logic of...

This paper examines the welfare implications of rising temperatures. Using a standard VAR, we empirically show that a temperature shock has a sizable, negative and statistically significant impact on TFP, output, and labor productivity. We rationalize these findings within a production economy...

Geographical economics analyzes the endogenous determination of the location of economic activity in a general equilibrium framework. We investigate the impact of pollution by focusing on the interaction between location advantages and negative pollution externalities associated with local...

This paper examines the welfare implications of rising temperatures. Using a standard VAR, we empirically show that a temperature shock has a sizable, negative and statistically significant impact on TFP, output, and labor productivity. We rationalize these findings within a production economy...

Developing countries employ a very large share of their workforce in agriculture, a sector in which their labor productivity is particularly low. We take a macroeconomic approach to analyze the role of agriculture in development. We construct a new database with systematic measures of inputs and...

The literature on real options shows irreversibilities, uncertainties about future benefits and costs, and the flexibility in decision making generate benefits and costs of delaying immediate action. When applied to government policy making, real options models can lead to efficient policies...

This paper reports on a contingent valuation study eliciting willingness to pay for a public program for the preservation of lagoon, beach and infrastructure in the island of S. Erasmo in the Lagoon of Venice. A referendum dichotomous choice approach with a follow-up question is used to obtain...

Geographical economics analyzes the endogenous determination of the location of economic activity in a general equilibrium framework. We investigate the impact of pollution by focusing on the interaction between location advantages and negative pollution externalities associated with local...

We design an experiment to test whether the rationality induced by market discipline spills over to nonmarket settings - a rationality spillover. Our results confirm this new phenomenon. The rationality induced by market discipline extends to the nonmarket setting, and these spillover effects...