In this paper we use novel historical data on economics and social rights from the constitutions of 201 countries and an instrument variable strategy to answer two important questions. First, do economic and social rights provisions in constitutions reduce poverty? Second, does the strength of...

We study the effect of spatial inequality on economic activity. Given that the relationship is highly simultaneous in nature, we use exogenous variation in geographic features to construct an instrument for spatial inequality, which is independent from any man-made factors. Inequality measures...

This paper is about the impact on (low-skilled) labour. We build a new economic geography model in which two types of labour (low and high-skilled) are distinguished and in which, due to wage rigidies, unemployment may arise. We also introduce two types of transportation costs (for goods and...