“Homeowners’ Risk Premia: Evidence from Zip Code Housing Returns”, joint work with Erasmo Giambona, Ricardo Lopez Aliouchkin and Patrick Tuijp. While homeownership provides consumption benefits, housing is risky. Using zip code housing returns, we document that homeowners are compensated for bearing housing risk. Our sample covers more than 9,000 zip...

The Refugee’s Dilemma: Evidence from Jewish Migration out of Nazi Germany In this paper we estimate the push and pull factors involved in the outmigration of Jews facing persecution in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1941 when migration was banned. Our empirical investigation makes use of a unique individual-level dataset...

Creative Destruction in the European State System: 1000-1850 (with Eric Weese) Using newly available data on the universe of boundary changes for all European states over 1000-1850, we argue that competition between states leads to short-term losses and long-term gains in economic growth. In event studies, cities switching be- tween...

Government Purchases and Plant-Level Productivity: Evidence from World War II How do firms respond to  public purchases in a capacity-constrained economy? I investigate this question using extensive production-line level data from Second World War US aircraft production. It has long been posited that wartime demand boosted productivity via a learning...

The Price-Rent Ratio During the Boom and Bust: Measurement and Implications We use micro-level data to study the joint evolution of prices and rents on residential property. We first decompose the change in the price of occupant-owned property into three components: (1) changes in rent; (2) changes in the relative...

Folklore (with Stelios Michalopoulos). Folklore is the collection of a community’s traditional beliefs, customs, and stories, passed down through word of mouth. In this study, we introduce to economics a unique catalogue of oral traditions across approximately 1,000 preindustrial societies. We validate the catalogue’s content and show that folklore reflects...

Country of Women? Repercussions of the Triple Alliance War in Paraguay Skewed sex ratios often result from conflict, disease, and migration, yet their long term impact remains less understood. The War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870) in South America killed up to 70% of the Paraguayan male population. According to...