This article is articulated in two sections. In the first-one we try to explain the dynamics of military spending and others social expenditures in the period 1988-2010 for the United States. According to empirical data we support the argument that there is a remarkable trade-off in the...

We investigate the effects that regional start-up activity has on employment in new and in incumbent businesses. The analysis is performed for West German regions over the 1987-2002 period. It shows that the effects of new businesses on employment in the incumbents are significantly positive and...

Parents preferring sons tend to go on to have more children until one or more boys are born, and to concentrate investment in boys for a given sibsize. Therefore, having a brother may affect child outcomes in two ways: indirectly, by decreasing sibsize, and directly, where sibsize remains...

New firm formation is often highly prioritized by local governments, particularly for regions that are declining. Entrepreneurship can play an important role in keeping declining regions vital through job creation. Yet, the way in which new firm formation exerts its influence on employment...

Policy evaluation aims at assessing the causal effect of an intervention (for example job-seeker counseling) on a specific outcome (for example employment). Frequently, the causal channels through which an effect materializes can be important when forming policy advice. For instance, it is...

This paper focuses on the estimation and predictive performance of several estimators for the time-space dynamic panel data model with Spatial Moving Average Random Effects (SMA-RE) structure of the disturbances. A dynamic spatial Generalized Moments (GM) estimator is proposed which combines the...

Understanding the mechanisms through which treatment effects come about is crucial for designing effective interventions. The identification of such causal mechanisms is challenging and typically requires strong assumptions. This paper discusses identification and estimation of natural direct...

Understanding the mechanisms through which treatment effects come about is crucial for designing effective interventions. The identification of such causal mechanisms is challenging and typically requires strong assumptions. This paper discusses identification and estimation of natural direct...

Understanding the mechanisms through which treatment effects come about is crucial for designing effective interventions. The identification of such causal mechanisms is challenging and typically requires strong assumptions. This paper discusses identification and estimation of natural direct...

Abstract Recent advances in the causal inference literature on mediation have extended traditional approaches to direct and indirect effects to settings that allow for interactions and non-linearities. In this article, these approaches from causal inference are further extended to settings in...