This paper analyzes job referral effects that are based on residential location. We use geo-referenced record data for the entire working population and the corresponding establishments in the German Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan area. We estimate the propensity of two persons to work at the same...

Neighborhood disadvantage has consistently been linked to increased rates of morbidity and mortality, but the mechanisms through which neighborhood environments may get “under the skin” remain largely unknown. Differential exposure to chronic environmental stressors has been identified as a...

Despite widespread recognition that housing renovation is influenced by “neighborhood effects”, virtually all empirical studies have failed to identify a positive feedback effect between renovation activity and neighborhood quality. By explicitly modeling the spatial interdependence of...

Extant observational studies generally support the existence of a link between neighborhood context and health. However, estimating the causal impact of neighborhood effects from observational data has proven to be a challenge. Omission of relevant factors may lead to overestimating the effects...

Workers can have good or bad work habits. These traits are transmitted from one generation to the next through a learning and imitation process, which depends on parents’ investment in the trait and the social environment where children live. If a sufficiently high proportion of employers have...

We examine spatial spillovers in institutional development. Dependent variables are institutional measures reflecting politics, law, and governmental administration. The explanatory variable of interest is the level of institutions in bordering countries—a spatial lag of the dependent...

The Gautreaux data for this paper were created with the assistance of the Leadership Council for Metropolitan Open Communities under special agreement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the National Center for Health Statistics. Generous support for data construction...