The distribution of transport infrastructure across space is the outcome of deliberate government planning that reflects a desire to unlock the welfare gains from regional economic integration. Yet, despite being one of the oldest government activities, the economic forces shaping the endogenous...

This paper is concerned with cross-dependencies between endogenous market structure and tax policy. We extend the Mirrlees (1971) model of income taxation with a monopolistic competition framework with general additively separable consumer preferences. We show that price and variety distortions...

Our novel approach to modeling monopolistic competition with heterogeneous consumers involves a space of characteristics of a differentiated good (consumers' ideal points), alike Hotelling (1929). Firms have heterogeneous costs à la Melitz (2003). In addition to price setting, each firm also...

This paper studies the role played by politics in shaping the Italian railway network, and its impact on long-run growth patterns. Examining a large state-planned railway expansion that took place during the second half of the 19th century in a recently unified country, we first study how both...

In this paper, employing transaction level data for Russian imports, we explore the role of multi-product shipments in explaining shipping patterns across countries. First, we document that firms from more developed countries include on average more different products into a single shipment. We...

We develop a model of spatial competition with two heterogeneous in their market access chains, choosing between third-degree price discrimination in their local markets (flexible pricing) and a unified chain-level price (uniform pricing). The markets are interconnected with each other via...

In this paper, we explore how heterogeneous firms decide on vertical and horizontal qualities of their products. We show that if increasing the product qualities appears to be relatively costly, more productive firms choose higher vertical quality but lower horizontal quality. We also document...

Our novel approach to modeling monopolistic competition with heterogeneous firms and consumers involves spatial product differentiation. Space can be interpreted either as a geographical space or as a space of characteristics of a differentiated good. In addition to price setting, each firm also...

What do applicants care about when choosing a school in Turkey? Are their preferences vertical or horizontal? Which school attributes seem to matter? Do selective schools con-tribute to their students' ; success, or is their performance attributable to the higher ability of the students they...

We use a proprietary data set on the floor-level operations at the Bhilai Rail and Structural Mill (RSM) in India to understand how output rose sharply in response to competitive pressures. Output increases came predominantly from reductions in production delays of various kinds. We model...