In doing so we systematically document for the first time the extent to which Africa was politically decentralized, calculating that in 1880 there were probably 45,000 independent polities which were ...

We evaluate the effect of California's 11 percent excise tax on firearms, introduced in July 2024, on retail prices. Using price quotes for 48 popular firearms from over 2,200 licensed dealers, we ...

How does a task-level minimum pay requirement for gig workers affect their earnings and employment? We study this question in the context of a January 2024 law in Seattle that establishes a per-task ...

We document that the recent decline in aggregate volatility has been accompanied by a large increase in firm level risk. The negative relationship between firm and aggregate risk seems to be present ...

M-Pesa is a mobile phone based money transfer system in Kenya which grew at a blistering pace following its inception in 2007. We examine how M-Pesa is used as well as its economic impacts. Analyzing ...

This paper estimates the long-term effects of the global recession of 2008-2009 on output in 23 countries. I measure these effects by comparing current estimates of potential output from the OECD and ...

We exploit plausibly exogenous, localized increases in anti-Arab and anti-Muslim sentiment generated by combat fatalities of U.S. service members from a given state during the wars in Iraq and ...