We use census panel data on Ethiopian manufacturing firms to analyze the connections between enterprise agglomeration, firm-level output prices and physical productivity. We find a negative and statistically significant relationship between the agglomeration of firms that produce a given product...

In this study, we investigate the relationship between exporting and firm performance using a longer panel dataset of Ethiopian manufacturing firms for the period 1996 - 2009. We test two hypotheses regarding exporting: selection into exporting versus learning by exporting. According to the...

A recurring argument in the global debate is that climate deterioration is likely to make social conflicts over diminishing natural resources more common in the future. The exact mechanism behind such a development has so far not been successfully characterized in the literature. In this paper,...

The EU's Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) has had limited success in mitigating agriculture's environmental degradation. In this paper we simulate the impacts of the 2013 “greening” reform on biodiversity and ecosystem services in environmentally contrasting landscapes. We do this by...

All since the rise of the first civilizations, economic development has been closely intertwined with the evolution of states. In this paper, we contribute to the literature on state history and long-run economic development in four ways. First, we extend and complete the state history index...

Since its first appearance in the late 1800s, the origins of the Sicilian mafia have remained a largely unresolved mystery. Both institutional and historical explanations have been proposed in the literature through the years. In this paper, we develop an argument for a market...

In early states, government elites provided both productivity-enhancing infrastructure, such as irrigation systems, as well as seemingly non-productive monumental architecture like temples and pyramids. The nature of this "bread-and-circuses"-tradeoff is not well understood. In this paper, we...

In early states, government elites provided both productivity-enhancing infrastructure, such as irrigation systems, as well as seemingly non-productive monumental architecture like temples and pyramids. The nature of this "bread-and-circuses"-tradeoff is not well understood. In this paper, we...