Roman Roads to Prosperity? The Long-Run Impact of Infrastructure on Economic Activity This study documents that local areas which received Roman road investments as an exogenous intervention during antiquity, systematically have outgrown areas that did not during the past two millennia. In particular, we find evidence of divergence in terms...

The Bounty of the Sea and Long-Run Development We document that a high level of natural productivity of the ocean – a rich bounty of the sea – has had a persistently positive impact on economic development: societies inhabited by people who descend from regions with eco-climatic conditions supporting a...

Devotion and Development: Religiosity, Education, and Economic Progress in 19th Century France When and how does traditional culture hamper diffusion of knowledge and economic development? In this article, I use Catholicism in 19th-century France as an example of traditional culture, and focus on a crucial phase of modern economic growth,...

The Making of Hawks and Doves: Inflation Experiences and Voting on the FOMC with Stefan Nagel (University of Michigan) and Zhen Han (University of Michigan) Abstract Macroeconomic models of monetary policy assume that policy makers form rational beliefs based on all available data. We show that personal lifetime experiences significantly...

Personal Website

Top Incomes in Germany, 1871-2011 Abstract This study provides first evidence on the long-run development of income concentration in a continental European country from the early phase of industrialization until present. Income concentration is measured by the income share accruing to the top of the income distribution such as the...

The Long-Term Costs of Government Surveillance: Insights from Stasi Spying in East Germany with Andreas Lichter and Max Löffler Abstract Based on official records from the former East German Ministry for State Security, we quantify the long-term costs of state surveillance on trust, social ties and economic performance. Using county-level...