In this paper we show that the recent model by Duranton (AER, 2007) performs remarkably well in replicating the city size distribution of West Germany, much better than the simple rank-size rule known as Zipf’s law. The main mechanism of this theoretical framework is the "churning" of...

In this paper we show that the double Pareto lognormal (DPLN) parameterization provides an excellent fit to the overall US city size distribution, regardless of whether cities are administratively defined Census places or economically defined area clusters. We then consider an economic model...

A recent literature has used a historical perspective to better understand fundamental questions of urban economics. However, a wide range of historical documents of exceptional quality remain underutilised: their use has been hampered by their original format or by the massive amount of...

This paper investigates the regional differences in the spread of COVID-19 infections in Germany. A machine learning selection procedure is used to reduce variables from a pool of potential influencing variables. The empirical analysis shows that both regional structural variables and regionally...

In this paper, we investigate the use of interactive effect or linear factor models in regional policy evaluation. We contrast treatment effect estimates obtained by Bai (2009)'s least squares method with the popular difference in difference estimates as well as with estimates obtained using...

In this paper, we investigate the use of interactive effect or linear factor models in regional policy evaluation. We contrast treatment effect estimates obtained by Bai (2009)'s least squares method with the popular difference in difference estimates as well as with estimates obtained using...

Spatial unit roots can lead to spurious regression results. We present a brief overview of the methods developed in Müller and Watson (2024) to test for and correct for spatial unit roots. We also introduce a suite of Stata commands (-spur-) implementing these techniques. Our commands exactly...

In this paper we show that the recent model by Duranton (AER, 2007) performs remarkablywell in replicating the city size distribution of West Germany, much better than the simplerank-size rule known as Zipf´s law. The main mechanism of this theoretical framework is thechurning of industries...

Empirical studies of the economic effects of climate change (CC) largely rely on climate anomalies for causal identification purposes. Slow and permanent changes in climate-driven geographical conditions, i.e. CC as defined by the IPCC (2013), have been studied relatively less, especially in...

We examine the residential segregation of workers and the unemployed in the 80 largest cities in Germany. Drawing on a large set of geo-referenced data for the period from 2000 until 2015, we are able to study the within-city distribution of unemployment in unprecedented detail. We document a...