This paper examines spatial effects in house price dynamics. Using panel data from 363 US Metropolitan Statistical Areas for 1996 to 2013, we find that there are spatial diffusion patterns in the growth rates of urban house prices. Lagged price changes of neighboring areas show greater effects...

Recent innovations in digital learning and web-based technologies have enabled scalability in educational services that has previously not been feasible presenting a potential disruption in traditional higher education markets. This paper explores the impact of these innovations in a vertically...

What obstacles prevent the most productive technologies from spreading to less developed economies from the world's technological frontier? In this paper, we seek to shed light on this question by quantifying the geographic and human barriers to the transmission of technologies. We argue that...

We develop a model of innovation in which entrepreneurs develop a new (differentiated) product market that is subsequently exploited by a well-established firm that "stretches" its brand to enter a new market as "fast second". In this setting, there is a positive externality to the pioneering...

This chapter presents a number of approaches that economists have used in studying neighborhood effects in housing markets. It emphasizes how individuals in effect choose neighborhood effects, or more generally social interactions, via their location decisions. The chapter looks constructively...

This research examines the economic origins of Islam and uncovers two empirical regularities. First, Muslim countries, virtual countries and ethnic groups, exhibit highly unequal regional agricultural endowments. Second, Muslim adherence is systematically larger along the pre-Islamic trade...

This chapter discusses the process of European institutional integration from a political-economy perspective, linking the long-standing political debate on the nature of the European project to the recent economic literature on political integration and disintegration. First, we introduce the...

We investigate the historical dynamics of the decline in fertility in Europe and its relation to measures of cultural and ancestral distance. We test the hypothesis that the decline of fertility was associated with the diffusion of social and behavioral changes from France, in contrast with the...