The distribution of transport infrastructure across space is the outcome of deliberate government planning that reflects a desire to unlock the welfare gains from regional economic integration. Yet, despite being one of the oldest government activities, the economic forces shaping the endogenous...

This paper studies the effect of forced labor relocation in GULAG, and the losses during the WWII on the long-term dynamics of city growth in the USSR. The main goal is to test whether the impact of Stalinist policies and the WWII on economic geography of the USSR persists in long run, and...

Italy has been characterized, throughout its history as a unified country, by large regional differentials in the levels of income, industrialization and socio-economic development. This paper aims at testing the New Economic Geography hypothesis on the role of market access in explaining these...

This paper proposes a simple method measuring spatial robustness of estimated coefficients and considers the role of administrative districts and regions' size. The procedure, dubbed "Grid and Shake", offers a solution for a practical empirical issue, when one compares a variables of interest...