Major nuclear accidents as recently in Fukushima set nuclear power plant security at the top of the public agenda. Using data of the German Socio-Economic Panel we analyze the effects of the Fukushima accident and a subsequent government decision on nuclear power phase-out on several measures of...

Urban revitalization programs are widespread used but empirically understudied place-based policy instruments which attract increasing attention in recent years. This study adds to the existing literature by evaluating the selection process which led to the designation of a set of five urban...

Rose & Spiegel (2011) find that Olympic Games host countries experience significant positive and lasting effects on exports. They interpret their results as an indication that countries use the hosting of such an event as a signal of their (new) openness and competitiveness. We challenge these...

Recent analyses relate increases in the growth rate of countries to anticipation effects caused by bidding for the Olympic Games, so called news shocks. We argue that these findings should be interpreted cautiously. First, these analyses may suffer from an omitted variable bias because they...

Rose & Spiegel (2011) find that Olympic Games host countries experience significant positive, lasting effects on exports. They interpret their results as an indication that countries use the hosting of such events to signal openness and competitiveness. We challenge these empirical findings on...

We use a quasi-experimental research design to study the effects of 22 renewal areas implemented in Berlin, Germany, to increase housing and living quality in the aftermath of the city s division during the Cold War period. Our results suggest within the targeted areas that the policy has helped...

While urban renewal programs have become widely used policy measures to target urban development less is known about the reasons why certain areas are more responsive to policy inter-ventions than others. With this study we address some of these issues by analyzing an urban re-newal program in...