To internalize pollution externalities into household waste generation, Unit Pricing Systems (UPS) have been adopted worldwide. This paper evaluates the causal effects of a UPS on the disposal of municipal solid waste in Trento, Italy. To account for policy endogeneity due to unobservables, we...

We extend the benchmark model of Aghion and Blanchard (1994), assuming two segments of the emerging private sector that differ in workers' productivity. We look at the paths of employment, wages, taxes, labor costs and profits during and after the transition, up until the shock is fully...

The Great Recession brought large increases in unemployment and college enrollment; we explore how changing labor market conditions affected the decision to enroll, focusing on the role of state-specific dimensions of Unemployment Insurance (UI) policy. We measure the enrollment response to...

We test a New Economic Geography (NEG) model for U.S. counties, employing a new strategy that allows us to bring the full NEG model to the data, and to assess selected elements of this model separately. We find no empirical support for the full NEG model. Regional wages in the U.S. do not...

This paper empirically examines the impact of entry by Wal-Mart on competition in the supermarket industry. Using a detailed panel dataset spanning 1994 to 2006, we estimate the impact of Wal-Mart on firm outcomes and market structure, controlling for persistent local trends and systematic...

This paper offers a new theory of the corruption-shadow economy relationship: one that defines it as either collusive – i.e., crony – or non-collusive. Using new estimates of state-level shadow economy size, and data on corruption convictions of U.S. public officials for the 48 contiguous...

This article examines multiple dimensions of regional per capita income disparities in the USA between 1955 and 2003 with a particular focus on scalar effects. It combines various exploratory analytical tools of spatial disparities, including inequality indices, mobility indices, kernel density...

Imagine a region suffering from a widening income gap that becomes eligible for a generous transfer programme (the treatment). Imagine difference-in-differences analysis (DD) — a before-and-after comparison of the income-level difference — shows that the handicap has risen. Most observers...

This paper introduces a model which identifies the economic activity of each local economy (location) and observes the time distance between each pair of locations as well as the average time distance between sub locations in each local economy. The study focuses on five categories of firms:...