Title / Abstract: | Author |
11.2024 Dreiecksungleichheiten im internationalen Handel: Die vernachlässigte DimensionDie Schätzung der Handelskosten ist der Schlüssel zum Verständnis der Wohlfahrtseffekte von Handelsliberalisierungen. Kostenminimierung impliziert, dass die Dreiecksungleichung (TI) der internationalen Handelskosten für drei beliebige Länder gelten muss, um grenzüberschreitende Arbitrage zu vermeiden. Wir zeigen, dass sich Re-Routing-Möglichkeiten ergeben können, wenn sich die Handelskosten ändern, weil eine Sendung über einen Vermittler billiger wird. Die TI erfasst solche Umleitungsmöglichkeiten. Standardansätze zur Berechnung der Gewinne aus Handelsliberalisierungen ignorieren jedoch diese Nicht-Arbitrage-Bedingung. Wir skizzieren eine Schätzroutine, die modellkonsistent ist und die TI respektiert. Kontrafaktische Untersuchungen deuten darauf hin, dass die Wohlfahrtsgewinne durch Umlenkungen nach Handelsliberalisierungen erheblich sein können. | Reto Föllmi
|
27.11.2024 Ethnoföderalismus: Subnationale Grenzen und die Bedeutung von Ethnizität in der PolitikWir untersuchen, wie die Gestaltung subnationaler politischer Grenzen die Bedeutung von Ethnizität in der Politik beeinflusst. Wir stellen einen Rahmen vor, mit dem gemessen werden kann, wie politische Grenzen mit der ethnischen Geografie eines Landes auf der Mikroebene übereinstimmen. Anschließend nutzen wir quasi-experimentelle Variationen in der Ausrichtung, die durch die kenianische Verfassungsreform von 2010 eingeführt wurde, die die acht Provinzen des Landes in 47 Bezirke unterteilte. Unsere Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass ethnoföderale Reformen, d.h. Reformen, die die Übereinstimmung zwischen politischen Grenzen und ethnischer Geographie erhöhen, die ethnische Stimmabgabe bei nationalen Wahlen verringern würden. Schließlich evaluieren wir alternative Grenzdesigns und leiten das Design ab, das ethnische Wahlen minimieren würde. | Roland Hodler Paul Schaudt Richard Blum |
07.2024 Schlüsselakteure der wirtschaftlichen EntwicklungDieser Beitrag analysiert die Rolle von Netzwerken bei der räumlichen Diffusion lokaler wirtschaftlicher Schocks in Afrika. Wir zeigen, dass die geografische Konnektivität zusammen mit der Straßen- und ethnischen Konnektivität wichtig ist, um wirtschaftliche Spillover-Effekte über größere Entfernungen zu verteilen. Anschließend ermitteln wir die wichtigsten Akteure, d.h. welche Distrikte für die Ausbreitung lokaler wirtschaftlicher Schocks in ganz Afrika entscheidend sind. Anhand dieser Ergebnisse führen wir kontrafaktische Politikübungen durch, um die potenziellen Vorteile von Maßnahmen zu bewerten, die die wirtschaftliche Aktivität in bestimmten Distrikten steigern oder die Straßenanbindung zwischen den Distrikten verbessern. | Roland Hodler Ashani Amarasinghe Paul Raschky Yves Zenou |
05.2024 Partisan Effects of Information Campaigns in Competitive Authoritarian Elections: Evidence from BangladeshUm die Auswirkungen von überparteilichen Informations- und Wahlkampagnen auf die parteiliche Zusammensetzung der Wählerschaft in autoritären Wahlen zu untersuchen, haben wir vor den Parlamentswahlen 2018 in Bangladesch ein groß angelegtes Feldexperiment durchgeführt. Unsere beiden Untersuchungen zeigen, dass eine hohe Wahlbeteiligung die Legitimität der siegreichen Partei erhöht und dass Wahlergebnisse für die politischen Ergebnisse von Bedeutung sind. Beide Behandlungen erhöhen die Wahlbeteiligung (gemessen an Tintenflecken) in Regierungshochburgen, verringern jedoch die Wahlbeteiligung in Hochburgen der Opposition. Wir erklären den Rückzug behandelter Oppositionsanhänger und kommen zu dem Schluss, dass unparteiische Informations- und Wahlkampagnen die ungleichen Wettbewerbsbedingungen in autoritären Wahlen weiter verschieben können. | Roland Hodler Firoz Ahmed Asad Islam |
05.2024 Religion und Terrorismus: Beweise aus dem Ramadan-FastenVerstärken oder verringern intensive religiöse Erfahrungen den Terrorismus? Wir argumentieren, dass das Fasten während des Monats Ramadan einen idealen Rahmen bietet, um diese Frage empirisch zu untersuchen. Dafür gibt es zwei Gründe: Erstens gilt das tägliche Fasten von Sonnenaufgang bis Sonnenuntergang während des Ramadan für die meisten Muslime als Pflicht. Zweitens ist der islamische Hijri-Kalender nicht mit dem Sonnenzyklus synchronisiert. Daher ist die tägliche Fastendauer während des Ramadan exogen, sobald wir den Breitengrad und die Saisonalität des Ramadan kontrollieren, was wir mit Hilfe von Distrikt- und Länderjahres-Fixeffekten tun können. Mit Blick auf überwiegend muslimische Länder dokumentieren wir drei Hauptergebnisse: Erstens hat das längere und intensivere Fasten im Ramadan einen robusten negativen Effekt auf die Wahrscheinlichkeit lokaler Terroranschläge und Terrortodesfälle im nächsten Jahr. Zweitens ist dieser negative Effekt besonders ausgeprägt bei operativ schwierigeren Anschlagsarten, die stärker auf die öffentliche Unterstützung des Terrorismus angewiesen sind. Drittens zeigen wir anhand von Umfragedaten, dass ein längeres und intensiveres Fasten im Ramadan den Anteil der Befragten senkt, die religiös motivierte Gewalt für gerechtfertigt halten. Diese Ergebnisse deuten darauf hin, dass intensive religiöse Erfahrungen kein Nährboden für Terrorismus sein müssen. Ganz im Gegenteil, sie können die öffentliche Unterstützung für den Terrorismus und damit für Terroranschläge verringern. | Roland Hodler Paul Raschky Anthony Strittmatter |
19.03.2024 Kampf für Wachstum: Arbeitskräftemangel und technologischer Fortschritt während der britischen industriellen RevolutionNeue Daten und Beweise zeigen einen Zusammenhang zwischen Arbeitskräftemangel und der Einführung arbeitssparender Technologien in der Industrialisierung Englands. Während der Napoleonischen Kriege dienten bis zu 10-14% der männlichen Bevölkerung in den Streitkräften. Wo die Rekrutierung groß war, wurden mehr Maschinen eingesetzt, die Arbeit einsparten. Die Rekrutierung durch die Marine, die durch den Zugang der Kriegsschiffe zur Küste instrumentiert wird, sorgt für exogene Schocks für den Arbeitskräftemangel. Diese Schocks führten zur Einführung von arbeitssparenden Maschinen, aber nicht von nicht arbeitssparenden Technologien. Wichtig ist, dass es eine Synergie zwischen dem Überfluss an Fachkräften und dem Arbeitskräftemangel gibt – wo der Arbeitskräftemangel die Akzeptanz von Maschinen förderte, verbesserte sich die Technologie danach schneller. | Bruno Caprettini Hans-Joachim Voth Alex Trew |
14.02.2023 New patriots: How Roosevelt’s New Deal made America great againAbstract Power, in the immortal words of Mao Tsetung, comes out of the barrel of a gun. This is one view of what state capacity means – the ability to coerce, if need be through the threat or actual use of violence. A long tradition in political thought going back to Thomas Hobbes sees naked power – guns, armed men and money – as the cornerstones of a capable state. An alternative view emphasises consensus and voluntary collaboration, as well as patriotic sentiment – the sense of belonging to a larger community. In Rousseau’s view, governments get to exercise power because citizens delegate it to them; in exchange for ceding power, rulers owe protection and support to their subjects. Voluntary, costly participation as part of a large group became more common after the rise of nation-states in the 19th century. Shared myths, the emphasis of a common history, the enforcement of linguistic uniformity in school and collective remembrance can all enhance a sense of shared identity (Nora 1989, Anderson 2006, Colley 2009). | Bruno Caprettini Hans-Joachim Voth |
20.01.2023 Mining for peaceAbstract The energy transition increases the demand for minerals from ethnically diverse, conflict-prone developing countries. We study whether and where mining is possible in such countries without raising the risk of civil conflict. We proceed in three steps: First, we propose a theoretical model to predict the occurrence and location of conflict events on the territory of a country based on the spatial distribution of ethnic groups and resource rents. Second, we verify the predictive power of this model using granular spatial data from Sierra Leone and confirm its broader applicability using less granular data from a sample of eight West African countries. Third, we employ our framework to simulate the potential impact of new (planned and unplanned) mining projects in Sierra Leone. A crucial insight is that new mining projects do not necessarily translate into more conflict but may pacify the country under the right conditions and the right policies. | Roland Hodler Paul Schaudt Alberto Vesperoni |
19.01.2023 Going Viral: Protests and Polarization in 1932 HamburgAbstract Political polarization is a growing concern in many countries. Are mass protests merely a sign of increasing cleavages, or do they polarize societies? In this paper, we estimate the impact of Nazi marches in 1932 Hamburg, using granular data from 622 voting precincts during 6 elections. We show propaganda can convince – but it does so the most in areas with high initial support. Importantly, marches can also backfire, repelling voters. Thus political campaigning leads to polarization. These effects diffused through social networks, measured as contagion patterns across neighborhoods from the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak. The electoral effects of social spillovers are of similar importance as direct exposure, and grow over time. | Bruno Caprettini Marcel Caesmann Hans-Joachim Voth David Yanagizawa- Drott |
19.01.2023 Fighting for Growth: Labor Scarcity and Technological Progress During the British Industrial RevolutionAbstract We collect new data and present new evidence on the effects of labor scarcity on the adoption of labor-saving technology in industrializing England. Where the British armed forces recruited heavily, more machines that economized on labor were adopted. For purposes of identification, we focus on naval recruitment. Using warships’ ease of access to coastal locations as an instrument, we show that exogenous shocks to labor scarcity led to technology adoption. The same shocks are only weakly associated with the adoption of non-labor saving technologies. Importantly, there is also a synergy between skill abundance and labor scarcity boosting technology adoption. Where labor shortages led to the adoption of labor-saving machines, technology afterwards improved more rapidly. | Bruno Caprettini Joachim Voth Alex Trew |
14.11.2022 Ethnic Clustering in Schools and Early Career OutcomesAbstract We study how ethnic clustering during compulsory schooling affects postcompulsory educational outcomes among ethnic minority students. We evaluate the impacts of students’ exposure to foreign language speakers and speakers of their own foreign language on their educational tracks, difficulty of vocational education, and projected labour market outcomes. We find that a higher share of foreign language speakers in the cohort increases a student’s probability of entering the vocational (vs. academic) track; this effect is amplified by an increasing share of peers speaking the student’s own foreign language. Furthermore, it leads to less difficult vocational education and lower predicted earnings. The drivers of these peer effects are shown to be related to language acquisition, ambition, and networks. | Caroline Chuard Annatina Aerne Simone Balestra Beatrix Eugster Roland Hodler |
14.11.2022 A Theory of Falling Growth and Rising RentAbstract Growth has fallen in the U.S. amid a rise in firm concentration. Market share has shifted to low labor share firms, while within-firm labor shares have actually risen. We propose a theory linking these trends in which the driving force is falling overhead costs of spanning multiple products or a rising efficiency advantage of large firms. In response, the most efficient firms (with higher markups) spread into new product lines, thereby increasing concentration and generating a temporary burst of growth. Eventually, due to greater competition from efficient firms, within-firm markups and incentives to innovate fall. Thus our simple model can generate qualitative patterns in line with the observed trends. | Philippe Aghion Antonin Bergeaud Timo Boppart Peter Klenow Huiyu Li |
14.11.2022 New Deal, New Patriots: How 1930s Government Spending Boosted Patriotism during WW IIAbstract We demonstrate an important complementarity between patriotism and public-good provision. After 1933, the New Deal led to an unprecedented ex- pansion of the U.S. federal government’s role. Those who benefited from social spending were markedly more patriotic during World War II: they bought more war bonds, volunteered more, and, as soldiers, won more medals. This pattern was new—World War I volunteering did not show the same geography of patriotism. We match military service records with the 1940 census to show that this pattern holds at the individual level. Using geographical variation, we exploit two instru- ments to suggest that the effect is causal: droughts and congressional committee representation predict more New Deal agricultural support, as well as bond buy- ing, volunteering, and medals. | Bruno Caprettini Joachim Voth |
14.11.2022 Redistribution, Voting and Clientelism: Evidence from the Italian Land ReformAbstract Many democracies around the world feature pervasive clientelist practices. How these systems emerge and persist is a central question in political economy. Redistribution policies can reduce poverty and inequality, thus undermining important determinants of clientelism. However, by inducing voter reciprocity, they can also initiate the political exchange typical of clientelist systems. Therefore, the relation between redistribution and clientelism is a priori ambiguous. We study how voting and clientelism respond to a major redistribution policy, the 1950 Italian land reform. Using a panel spatial regression discontinuity and data for half a century, we show that the large-scale redistribution led to the emergence of a long-lasting clientelist system characterized by political brokers, patronage and targeted benefits. Within this system, the Christian Democratic party, which promoted the reform, experienced persistent electoral gains. | Bruno Caprettini Lorenzo Casaburi Miriam Venturini |
01.10.2021 On the measurement of the elasticity of labourAbstract We use a simple theoretical framework, a building block of many macroeconomic models, to study the prominently debated relationship between the model parametrisation of the Frisch elasticity and the reduced-form evidence on the elasticity of labour. Focusing on tax holidays, we show that the elasticity measured with a reduced-form approach is only equal to the Frisch-elasticity parameter if there are no income or general equilibrium effects. Furthermore, for a wide range of standard values of the Frisch-elasticity parameter, the response of labour generated by a tax holiday in the model is aligned with the reduced-form evidence. | Charles Gottlieb Joern Onken Arnau Valladares-Esteban |
01.10.2021 Local majorities: How administrative divisions shape comparative developmentAbstract We study the role of subnational borders and the importance of local majorities for local economic development. We exploit that France imposed a particular administrative structure on its Sub-Saharan African possessions in the early 20th century. The French government had little interest in pre-colonial political units. As a result, their colonial districts cut across ethnic homelands in a way that led to plausibly exogenous variation in an ethnic group's population share across colonial districts. We find that ethnic groups who were a local majority in most colonial districts, in which they were present, are more economically developed today. Furthermore, we show that the parts of ethnic homelands with a higher district-level population share are more economically developed today than other parts of the same homeland. We also provide evidence that the effects are persistent for various reasons, including the stickiness of subnational borders and higher infrastructure investments during colonial times. | Roland Hodler Richard Bluhm Paul Schaudt |
01.09.2021 Ethnofederalism and ethnic votingAbstract We investigate how changes in the administrative-territorial structure affect ethnic voting. We present an event study design that exploits the 2010 constitutional reform in Kenya, which substantially increased the number of primary administrative regions. We find (i) strong evidence for a reduction in ethnic voting when administrative regions become less ethnically diverse and (ii) weak evidence for such a reduction when ethnic groups become less fragmented across regions. These results suggest that ‘ethnofederal’ reforms (leading to administrative borders that more closely follow ethnic boundaries) can mitigate ethnic politics in diverse countries. | Roland Hodler Richard Bluhm Paul Schaudt |
01.08.2021 Ethnic geography: Measurement and evidenceAbstract We know little about how ethnic geography, i.e., the distribution of ethnic groups across space, shapes comparative economic, political and social development. To make progress and to harness the growing availability of spatially explicit data, we need indices summarizing key aspects of ethnic geography. We develop and axiomatize a novel index of ethnic segregation that takes both ethnic and spatial distances between individuals into account. We can decompose this index into indices of generalized ethnic fractionalization, spatial dispersion, and the alignment of spatial and ethnic distances. For our application, we compute different country-level versions of the segregation index and its components based on either ethnographic maps or geo-referenced survey data. Reassuringly, the different versions of the segregation index are highly correlated. We explore the relation of our indices to (i) existing measures of ethnic segregation and diversity; (ii) climatic and geographical factors; and (iii) the quality of government, economic development, and trust. | Roland Hodler Michele Valsecchi Alberto Vesperoni |
20.07.2021 Voting or abstaining in “managed” elections? A field experiment in BangladeshAbstract Many governments in weak democracies countries "manage" the electoral process to make their defeat very unlikely. We aim to understand why citizens decide to vote or abstain in managed elections. We focus on the 2018 general election in Bangladesh and randomize the salience of the citizens' views (i) that election outcomes matter for policy outcomes and (ii) that high voting participation increases the winning party's legitimacy. These treatments increase voting participation in government strongholds and decrease participation in opposition strongholds. The legitimacy treatment has stronger effects. These results have important implications for get-out-the-vote and information campaigns in weak democracies. | Roland Hodler Firoz Ahmed Asad Islam |
20.07.2021 Reassessing the resource curse using causal machine learningAbstract We reassess the effects of natural resources on economic development and conflict, applying a causal forest estimator and data from 3,800 Sub-Saharan African districts. We find that, on average, mining activities and higher world market prices of locally mined minerals both increase economic development and conflict. Consistent with the previous literature, mining activities have more positive effects on economic development and weaker effects on conflict in places with low ethnic diversity and high institutional quality. In contrast, the effects of changes in mineral prices vary little in ethnic diversity and institutional quality, but are non-linear and largest at relatively high prices. | Roland Hodler Michael Lechner Paul Raschky |
01.04.2021 Working from home in developing countriesAbstract We use worker-level data on the task content of jobs to measure the ability to work-from-home (WFH) in developing countries. We show that the ability to WFH is low in developing countries and document significant heterogeneity across and within occupations, and across worker characteristics. Our measure suggests that educated workers, wage employees and women have a higher ability to WFH. Using data from Brazil, Costa Rica and Peru, we show that our measure is predictive of actual WFH both in terms of overall levels and variation with occupation and individual characteristics, as well as employment outcomes. Our measure can thus be used to predict WFH outcomes in developing countries. | Charles Gottlieb Markus Poschke Fernando Saltiel Jan Grobovsek |
01.03.2021 Is favoritism a threat to Chinese aid effectiveness? A subnational analysis of Chinese development projectsAbstract We investigate whether and to what extent Chinese development finance affects infant mortality, combining 92 demographic and health surveys (DHS) for a maximum of 53 countries and almost 55,000 sub-national locations over the 2002-2014 period. We address causality by instrumenting aid with a set of interacted variables. Variation over time results from indicators that measure the availability of funding in a given year. Cross-sectional variation results from a sub-national region’s “probability to receive aid.” Controlled for this probability in tandem with fixed effects for country-years and provinces, the interactions of these variables form powerful and excludable instruments. Our results show that Chinese aid increases infant mortality at sub-national scales, but decreases mortality at the country level. In several tests, we show that this stark contrast likely results from aid being fungible within recipient countries. | Roland Hodler Axel Dreher Paul Raschky Bradley Parks Andreas Fuchs Michael Tierney |
01.02.2021 The earned income tax credit: Targeting the poor but crowding out wealthAbstract This paper quantifies the individual, aggregate and welfare effects of the US Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). In particular, we analyze the labour supply and saving responses to changes in tax credit generosity and their implications for prices and welfare. Our results show that the EITC is a subsidy on labour income and a tax on savings. An increase in EITC generosity raises labour force participation, reduces savings for many and provides insurance to working poor households. The EITC reduces earnings inequality but increases the skill premium and wealth inequality. A 10% increase in tax credit generosity increases welfare by 0.31% and benefits the majority of the population. | Charles Gottlieb Maren Froemel |
01.02.2021 Lockdown accountingAbstract We use worker-level data on the task content of jobs to measure the ability to work-from-home (WFH) in developing countries. We show that the ability to WFH is low in developing countries and document significant heterogeneity across and within occupations, and across worker characteristics. Our measure suggests that educated workers, wage employees and women have a higher ability to WFH. Using data from Brazil, Costa Rica and Peru, we show that our measure is predictive of actual WFH both in terms of overall levels and variation with occupation and individual characteristics, as well as employment outcomes. Our measure can thus be used to predict WFH outcomes in developing countries. | Charles Gottlieb Markus Poschke Fernando Saltiel Jan Grobovsek |
01.11.2020 The effects of asylum seekers on political outcomesAbstract We exploit the quasi-random allocation of asylum seekers across Swiss cantons and the high frequency of national referenda to identify the causal effect of immigration on political outcomes in receiving countries. We find that the arrival of asylum seekers causes voters to increase their support for right-wing and conservative policies. However, this effect is driven by episodes of unusually high inflows of asylum seekers. Moreover, we find that for votes on immigration and refugee policy, the arrival of more asylum seekers shifts voters towards policies endorsed by conservative and centre-right parties but not towards positions backed by the rightmost anti-immigration party. In contrast, the shift towards the rightmost stances is sizeable in votes related to the welfare state, international integration, and the rights of minorities. | Charles Gottlieb Noémie Zurlinden Arnau Valladares-Esteban |
01.04.2020 Innovation and trade in the presence of credit contraintsAbstract This paper examines how trade liberalization affects investment in R&D at the firm level. We provide a model with entrepreneurs that differ in their wealth endowments, causing them to rely on external funds to different extents. In the presence of capital market imperfections, this implies heterogeneous access to external financing such that poor entrepreneurs run smaller firms, are less likely to invest in R&D, and more likely to exit the market. Decreasing trade costs resulting from tariff reductions exacerbate these characteristics. Using firm-level panel data on seven Latin American countries for 2006 and 2010, we find support for our theoretical predictions. While prior research emphasizes a positive impact of trade liberalization on firms’ productivity-enhancing activities, we provide novel evidence showing that financial constraints can impair the effect on R&D efforts. These results suggest that imperfect capital markets can prevent welfare gains from trade liberalization to materialize. | Reto Föllmi Stefan Legge Alexa Tieman |
01.03.2020 Expropriations, property confiscations and new offshore entities: Evidence from the Panama papersAbstract Using the Panama Papers, we show that the beginning of media reporting on expropriations and property confiscations in a country increases the probability that offshore entities are incorporated by agents from the same country in the same month. This result is robust to the use of country-year fixed effects and the exclusion of tax havens. Further analysis shows that the effect is driven by countries with non-corrupt and effective governments, which supports the notion that offshore entities are incorporated when reasonably well-intended and well-functioning governments become more serious about fighting organized crime by confiscating proceeds of crime. | Roland Hodler Ralph Bayer Paul Raschky Anthony Strittmatter |
01.03.2020 Key players in economic developmentAbstract This paper analyzes the role of networks in the spatial diffusion of local economic shocks in Africa. We show that road and ethnic connectivity are particularly important factors for diffusing economic spillovers over longer distances. We then determine the key players, i.e., which districts are key in propagating local economic shocks across Africa. Using these results, we conduct counterfactual policy exercises to evaluate the potential gains from policies that increase economic activity in specific districts or improve road connectivity between districts. | Roland Hodler Ashani Amarasinghe Paul Raschky Yves Zenou |
01.03.2020 Religion and terrorism: Evidence from Ramadan fastingAbstract We study the effect of religion and intense religious experiences on terrorism by focusing on one of the five pillars of Islam: Ramadan fasting. For identification, we exploit two facts: First, daily fasting from dawn to sunset during Ramadan is considered mandatory for most Muslims. Second, the Islamic calendar is not synchronized with the solar cycle. We find a robust negative effect of more intense Ramadan fasting on terrorist events within districts and country-years in predominantly Muslim countries. This effect seems to operate partly through decreases in public support for terrorism and the operational capabilities of terrorist groups. | Roland Hodler Paul Raschky Anthony Strittmatter |