We estimate the effect of public transport supply on travel times of motor-vehicle and bus users in Rome, Italy. We apply a quasi-experimental methodology exploiting hourly information on public transport service reductions during strikes. We find that a 10 percent reduction in public transit...

We estimate the marginal external congestion cost of motor-vehicle travel for Rome, Italy, using a methodology that accounts for hypercongestion (a situation where congestion decreases a road’s throughput). We show that the external cost – even when roads are not hypercongested...

Electricity transmission redistributes environmental impacts across space. We exploit episodes of high electricity transmission system congestion to explore changes in ambient concentrations of air pollutants in the eastern United States. Reducing electricity system congestion decreases ozone...

This paper develops and applies a test of the property rights theory of the firm in the context of global input sourcing. We use the model by Pol Antràs and Elhanan Helpman, “Global Sourcing,” Journal of Political Economy, 112:3 (2004), 552-80, to derive a new prediction regarding how the...

This paper examines the value that can potentially be created by a vertically integrating energy system. Integration entails operational gains that must be traded off against the requisite cost of capacity investments. In the context of our model, the operational gains are subject to inherent...

This paper analyses the role played by vertical linkages on the effects of trade liberalization on technology adoption and their consequences on average productivity and welfare in a trade model with heterogeneous firms. We find that the strength of vertical linkages shapes the effects that...

Production processes are increasingly organized in international value-chain networks. The involved firms can be operating at arm’s length or be vertically integrated. Both the incidence and the direction of integration (backward or forward in the value chain) depend on specific...

Asymmetric information in procurement entails double marginalization. The phenomenon is most severe when the buyer has all the bargaining power at the production stage, while it vanishes when the buyer and suppliers’ weights are balanced. Vertical integration eliminates double marginalization...

In this paper, we construct an elaborate general equilibrium model with a continuum of production fragments for an intermediate good, then embed it in a growth model to address the effects of global production fragmentation, vertical specialization and trade on growth and inequality for a small...