What if a colony is neither extractive nor settler material? European powers colonized some areas for military reasons: to keep those areas out of rivals' hands or to have geographically strategic outposts. In these cases, European settlement was low and there was nothing to extract. This...

A large literature has documented a significant increase in the return to college over the past 30 years. This increase is typically measured using nominal wages. I show that from 1980 to 2000, college graduates have increasingly concentrated in metropolitan areas that are characterized by a...