A shock to the sector composition of the local labor market can affect long-run economic development of a location. Because structural change ultimately shifts labor from agriculture to services, an early transition to manufacturing may hamper longrun prosperity. The identification strategy...

In this paper, I study the effect of displacement (in the sense of forced migration) of parents during a violent conflict on investment in their childrens' education years later. Using the ethnic division during the Bosnian War as a natural experiment, I plausibly identify exogenously displaced...

This paper investigates the long-term consequences of violent conflict and the associatedhuman casualties on economic development. Using the World War II casualties suffered in Austrian municipalities as a natural experiment, I find a significant negative causal effect of human losses on...

The East-West gap in the German population is believed to originate from migrants escaping the socialist regime in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). We use newly collected regional data and the combination of a regression discontinuity design in space with a difference-in-differences...

The East-West gap in the German population is believed to originate from migrants escaping the socialist regime in the German Democratic Republic (GDR). We use newly collected regional data and the combination of a regression discontinuity design in space with a difference-in-differences...

This paper explores the historical origins of the cultural norm regarding illegitimacy (formerly known as bastardy). We test the hypothesis that traditional agricultural production structures influenced the historical illegitimacy ratio, and have had a lasting effect until today. Based on data...

This paper explores the historical origins of the cultural norm regarding illegitimacy (formerly known as bastardy). We test the hypothesis that traditional agricultural production structures influenced the historical illegitimacy ratio, and have had a lasting effect until today. Based on data...

We explore the origins of the cultural norm regarding illegitimacy and test the hypothesis that traditional agricultural production structures influenced the historical illegitimacy ratio, and have a lasting effect until today. Based on data dating back to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, we use...

After World War II, Austria was divided into four occupation zones for 10 years. We exploit the migration shock out of the Soviet zone to understand why economic activity is distributed unevenly in space. We show that the distorted population distribution has fully persisted until now. More...

This paper explores the historical origins of the cultural norm regarding illegitimacy (formerly known as bastardy). We test the hypothesis that traditional agricultural production structures influenced the historical illegitimacy ratio, and have had a lasting effect until today. Based on data...