Many development programs are based on short-term interventions, either because of external funding constraints or because it is assumed that impacts persist post program termination ("sustainability"). Using a novel randomized phase-out research method, we provide experimental tests of the...

A society that believes wealth to be determined by random "luck", rather than by merit, demands more redistribution. We present evidence of this behavior by exploiting a natural experiment provided by the L'Aquila earthquake in 2009, which hit a large area of Central Italy through a series of...

We use unique plant-level data to study the link between the local availability of services and the decision of manufacturing firms to source materials from abroad. To guide our empirical analysis we develop a monopolistic-competition model of the materials sourcing decisions of heterogeneous...

We propose the so-called domestic "embodied unit labor costs" (EULC) at the country-sector level as a new cost-related basis for measures of international competitiveness. EULC take into account that a sector's labor costs constitute only a small share of its total cost which to a large extent...

We investigate whether network closure in the supply chain can explain the heterogeneity observed in import premia. Using unique panel data on trade flows among beef farms in the Italian region of Piedmont, we analyze a purely sequential supply chain characterized by the co-existence of two...

Previous experiments observe a chain of unkindness: unkindly treated people treat an innocent third party unkindly. As a remedy, it has been proposed that the unkindly treated person engages in emotional regulation by writing a letter to the unkind person. Indeed, subjects who received little...

This paper explores how value-chain governance affects the innovation performance of suppliers of intermediate products. We take advantage of a unique dataset of Italian firms to identify governance regimes along suppliers’ technological capabilities and the level of explicit coordination in...

Psychologists claim that being treated kindly puts individuals in a positive emotional state: they then treat an unrelated third party more kindly. Numerous experiments document that subjects indeed 'pay forward' specific behavior. For example, they are less generous after having experienced...

We provide quantitative evidence on the relationship between military spending and innovation in the 19th century. Combining innovation data from world fairs and historical military data across Europe, we show that national military spending is associated with national innovation towards war...

This paper examines the overall impact of exports while accounting for supply chain linkages on local labor market outcomes in Egypt between 2007 and 2018. We assess the effects not only on directly exporting industries but also on industries indirectly affected by rising export demand....