In doing so we systematically document for the first time the extent to which Africa was politically decentralized, calculating that in 1880 there were probably 45,000 independent polities which were ...

We evaluate the effect of California's 11 percent excise tax on firearms, introduced in July 2024, on retail prices. Using price quotes for 48 popular firearms from over 2,200 licensed dealers, we ...

How does a task-level minimum pay requirement for gig workers affect their earnings and employment? We study this question in the context of a January 2024 law in Seattle that establishes a per-task ...

Using transaction-level data on US congressional stock trades, we find that lawmakers who later ascend to leadership positions perform similarly to matched peers beforehand but outperform them by 47 ...

Despite the scarcity of infrastructure in emerging-market and developing economies (EMDEs), in the absence of readily accessible data on the historical performance of EMDE infrastructure as an asset ...

These models can capture many complexities, but these complexities can make results difficult to interpret. Analytical general equilibrium (AGE) models provide better intuition and interpretation but ...

We examine how differences in financial reporting practices shape firm productivity. Leveraging new audit questions in the U.S. Census Bureau's 2021 Management and Organizational Practices Survey ...

How has aggregate income and welfare in the United States been affected by globalization and rapid productivity growth in emerging economies? We use the class of constant elasticity trade models to ...

Moral regulation is widespread across societies, yet its consequences have seldom been examined empirically. We study the Hays Code (July 1934–1960s), which imposed systematic moral guidelines on ...

Have recent tariffs resulted in increased costs for the US healthcare system? We examine US trade data and compile a database of statutory tariff changes. Tariffs on medical goods narrowly defined ...

We conduct a series of laboratory experiments that implement the Daley and Green (2020) model to examine whether the gradual, exogenous revelation of sellers’ private information influences the ...

Climate change is already increasing temperatures and raising the frequency of natural disasters in the United States. In this paper, we examine several major vectors through which climate change ...