We study how funding agencies should set budget caps for competitive grants. We show that budget caps influence the researchers' submission strategy and, in particular, whether they steer their project choice towards the agencies' favorite projects, and the level of funds they request. The...

This paper provides empirical evidence on the impact of a prominent placebased policy - Special Economic Zones (SEZs) - on the economic well-being of African households. We compile a novel dataset on repeated cross-sections of households living in various distance bands around SEZs in 10 African...

Do Special Economic Zones (SEZs) increase local economic activities in developing countries? This paper explores this question by examining the aggregate district economic effects of SEZs, a place-based development policy in Ethiopia. The study relies on time and district variation in the...

In this paper, we examine the similarities and the differences between two global problems, the Coronavirus pandemic and climate change, and the extent to which the experience with the Covid19 pandemic can be of use for tackling climate change. We show that both problems share the same...

To rationalize a substantial income share of labor despite progressive task automation over the centuries, we present a simple model in which demand moves along a vertically differentiated production structure toward goods of increasing sophistication. Automation of more sophisticated goods...

The theoretical analysis of structural changes in the context of economic growth has a long tradition. However, studies which analyze the empirical relationship between these two economic categories are still very rare. In the literature, whether growth causes structural changes or the other way...