Productivity, Place, and Plants
Benjamin Schoefer, Oren Ziv
Review of Economics and Statistics,
forthcoming
Abstract
Why do cities differ so much in productivity? A long literature has sought out systematic sources, such as inherent productivity advantages, market access, agglomeration forces, or sorting. We document that up to three quarters of the measured regional productivity dispersion is spurious, reflecting the “luck of the draw” of finite counts of idiosyncratically heterogeneous plants that happen to operate in a given location. The patterns are even more pronounced for new plants, hold for alternative productivity measures, and broadly extend to European countries. This large role for individual plants suggests a smaller role for places in driving regional differences.
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Trade Shocks, Labour Markets and Migration in the First Globalisation
Richard Bräuer, Felix Kersting
Economic Journal,
No. 657,
2024
Abstract
This paper studies the economic and political effects of a large trade shock in agriculture—the grain invasion from the Americas—in Prussia during the first globalisation (1870–913). We show that this shock led to a decline in the employment rate and overall income. However, we do not observe declining per capita income and political polarisation, which we explain by a strong migration response. Our results suggest that the negative and persistent effects of trade shocks we see today are not a universal feature of globalisation, but depend on labour mobility. For our analysis, we digitise data from Prussian industrial and agricultural censuses on the county level and combine them with national trade data at the product level. We exploit the cross-regional variation in cultivated crops within Prussia and instrument with Italian and United States trade data to isolate exogenous variation.
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28.09.2023 • 25/2023
The downturn in 2023 is milder in East Germany than in Germany as a whole – Implications of the Joint Economic Forecast Autumn 2023 and of Länder data from recent publications of the Statistical Offices
The German economy has been in a downturn for more than a year. In East Germany, however, the economy has been somewhat stronger in the past four quarters: According to the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH), East German gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to increase by 0.5% in 2023, while production in Germany as a whole will fall by 0.6%. Next year, expansion rates of 1.3% are forecast in both the east and the west. For 2025, East German gross domestic product is expected to grow by 1.2%, which is slightly slower than in Germany as a whole (1.5%).
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Media Response
Media Response July 2024 Oliver Holtemöller: “Profit und Spiele” in: Süddeutsche Zeitung, 24.07.2024 IWH: “Die Luft für Start-ups wird dünner” in: Springer Professional,…
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IWH Summer Forecast: German economy still on the defensive – but first signs of an end to the downturn In the first half of 2024, signs of an economic recovery are increasing.…
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MICROPROD
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Alumni
IWH Alumni The IWH maintains contact with its former employees worldwide. We involve our alumni in our work and keep them informed, for example, with a newsletter. We also plan…
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Department Profiles
Research Profiles of the IWH Departments All doctoral students are allocated to one of the four research departments (Financial Markets – Laws, Regulations and Factor Markets –…
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