State-owned enterprises (SOEs) provide opportunities for a more flexible and market-based provision of public services. At the same time, they may impair fiscal transparency and offer politicians discretion in…
We examine how the adverse impacts of weather shocks are distributed through the trade network. Exploiting a rich, theoretically derived, fixed effects structure, we find significant negative short-run effects…
Independent and high-quality evaluations of government policies are an important input for designing evidence-based policy. Institutional frictions and lack of incentives to write such evaluations, on the other…
Departing from communism, East Germany witnessed history’s most extensive privatization program. While the program sparked global interest as a blueprint for economic transformation, its effectiveness remains…
Productivity growth in the advanced economies has been slowing down for some time. This is surprising insofar as large-scale technological impulses are expected as a result of the digital revolution. An analysis…
Smoking bans have been widely implemented, despite mixed evidence on their effectiveness in reducing smoking prevalence. This paper provides novel insights into the dynamic impacts of smoking bans in the context…
Clustered bids and a missing mass of nearly tied bids have both been proposed as markers of collusion. We present causal empirical evidence from an actual pro- curement cartel that bidding involves both…
