Abstract: The host country effect — where nations typically perform better when hosting the Olympic Games — is a well-documented phenomenon. However, its magnitude may be shaped by institutional and societal factors. This paper investigates how corruption and gender inequality moderate the host country advantage using a panel dataset covering all Summer and Winter Olympic Games from 2000 to 2022. We analyze their effects on athlete participation, medal counts, and the conversion rate of athletes to medals, with a particular focus on gender disparities. Our findings show that higher levels of corruption and gender inequality are associated with weaker Olympic performance, especially for female athletes and in the Summer Games, as shown by smaller benefits of hosting. These results highlight the critical role of transparent governance and gender equity in maximizing the returns of hosting international sporting events.

Abstract: The 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA) paved the road to Black empowerment. How did southern whites respond? Leveraging newly digitized data on county-level voter registration rates by race between 1956 and 1980, and exploiting pre-determined variation in exposure to the federal intervention, we document that the VRA increases both Black and white political participation. Consistent with the VRA triggering counter-mobilization, the surge in white registrations is concentrated where Black political empowerment is more tangible and salient due to the election of African Americans in county commissions. Additional analysis suggests that the VRA has long-lasting negative effects on whites' racial attitudes.

Abstract: This paper examines the long-term impact of West German television exposure on smoking behavior in East Germany, with a focus on gender-specific responses. Using data from 1989 and 2002 and leveraging quasi-random variation in West German TV signal availability across East German regions, we find that TV exposure led to a substantial increase in smoking among women — by 9.5 percentage points in smoking probability and 68% in cigarette consumption — while having no measurable effect on men. This asymmetric effect reflects divergent pre-reunification norms: under socialism, female smoking was heavily stigmatized, and exposure to Western media relaxed these social constraints. The behavioral shift persisted over time, with exposed women reporting worse physical and mental health and higher healthcare utilization in 2002. Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest a sizable increase in smoking-related mortality and healthcare costs. Our findings highlight how cultural integration through media can alter health behaviors and generate significant public health externalities in transitional societies.

Abstract: Income inequality remains an important issue in Mexico, despite a slight decrease in its measure in recent decades. This paper examines whether changes in trade patterns following the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) have affected income inequality in Mexico over the past 20 years. Through a decomposition into within- and between-sector inequality, this paper finds that the contribution of the latter has increased in an environment characterized by decreasing total income inequality. Trade explains around 14.5% of the total change in between-sector income inequality and forms the largest contribution of any of the factors identified in this paper.

Abstract: We review the literature on the effects of the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA), which removed formal restrictions to Black political participation. After a brief description of racial discrimination suffered by Black Americans since Reconstruction, we introduce the goals that the VRA was meant to achieve. Next, we discuss the local-level impact of the law on political participation and representation, on public goods provision and policing practices, and on labor market outcomes. We then turn to whites' reactions, from political realignment to electoral counter-mobilization to changes in voting rules and arrest patterns. We conclude by discussing how the evidence reviewed in this article can inform policy-making and the design of legislation aimed at reducing racial discrimination and inequality.

Abstract: Conclusive evidence on the relationship between corruption and migration has remained scant in the literature to date. Using 2008-2018 data on bilateral migration flows across EU28 and EFTA countries and four measures of corruption (three subjective and one objective), we show that corruption acts both as a push factor and as a pull factor for migration patterns. Based on a gravity model, a 1-unit increase in the corruption level in the origin country is associated with an 11% increase in out-migration. The same 1-unit increase in the destination country is associated with a 10% decline in in-migration.

Abstract: The 2009 and 2012 earthquakes in Italy occurred in a close-knit region and time horizon but differed substantially on both the initial shock to the stock and the subsequent flow of resources. This paper considers the short-run impact on the dynamic response of labor market outcomes. Both natural disasters lowered employment and labor force participation by more than 0.5%. With its negative effect on the resources available, the 2009 shock led to a drop in real wages of 1.3% and a sharp – but short-lived – widening of the wage gap generated by the skill premium. The 2012 hazard, which led firms to upgrade their technology, increased wages by 2.2% and led to a more balanced - but persistent - widening of the wage gap. The predictions of a model developed in this paper are consistent with these results.

Abstract: The Voting Rights Act of 1965 redefined race relations in the United States. Yet evidence on its effect on Black office holding remains scant. Using novel data on Black elected officials between 1962 and 1980, we assess the impact of the Voting Rights Act on the racial makeup of local governments in the Deep South. Exploiting predetermined differential exposure of Southern counties to the mandated federal intervention, we show that the latter fostered local Black office holding, particularly in the powerful county commissions, controlling local public finances. In the presence of election by district, covered counties experienced Black representation gains and faster capital spending growth.

Abstract: Although the 1960s race riots have gone down in history as America's most violent and destructive ethnic civil disturbances, a consensus on the factors able to explain their insurgence is yet to be found. Using a novel data set on the universe of radio stations airing Black-appeal programming, the effect of the media on riots is found to be sizable and statistically significant. A marginal (1%) increase in signal reception from these stations is estimated to lead to a 2.4% and 4.1% rise in the mean levels of the frequency and intensity of riots, respectively. Several mechanisms behind this result are considered, with the quantity, quality, and length of exposure to radio programming all being decisive factors.

Abstract: Gender inequality in professional sports reflects deeper structural and systemic disparities in society, many of which stem from governance failures and institutionalized biases that can be understood as forms of corruption. This paper explores the relationship between gender-specific measures of systemic exclusion and disparities in professional cycling. Using data from 2000 to 2023, this paper finds that a 1% increase in the Gender Inequality Index is associated with a 5.8% decrease in the number of professional female cyclists. The analysis further reveals that greater gender inequality not only reduces female participation but also distorts competitive balance, resulting in fewer wins and podium finishes for female cyclists. These findings indicate that gender disparities in professional sports, such as cycling, stem from deeper institutional weaknesses, including governance failures and corruption, which undermine fair competition and equitable opportunities.

Abstract: The election of law enforcement and judicial officials is a distinctive feature of American democracy. Yet, the democratic promise of elected justice sits uneasily alongside enduring racial disparities in the justice system. By compiling the most comprehensive dataset to date, covering all counties in the eleven former Confederate states from 1964 to 2024, we explore to what extent Blacks have closed their historical representation gap in the justice system. Using variation in federal oversight of local voting laws, we provide evidence on the effect of constraints on descriptive representation, emphasizing voter preferences, candidate supply, and mobilization. Early gains were limited by weak professional pipelines restricting candidate supply. Over time, as constraints eased and civil rights organizations intensified mobilization, Black representation increased substantially, particularly following the Black Lives Matter movement. Our findings highlight how political institutions, structural constraints, and organized mobilization jointly shape trajectories of Black representation in the justice system.

Abstract: Despite decades of donor promotion, household biogas has achieved minimal adoption across Sub-Saharan Africa. We document two structural limits explaining this low uptake. First, a census of 199 Cameroonian villages (23,403 households screened) shows only 17% satisfy technical prerequisites, bounded primarily by livestock thresholds. Second, high capital costs (1.6 times median annual income) generate negative private financial returns for most eligible households. To test whether price subsidies can unlock adoption by relaxing financial constraints among eligible households, we conduct a cluster-randomized trial evaluating 40%, 26%, and 5% discounts. A 40% subsidy increases completed construction by only 4.3 percentage points over a 6.1% control baseline, leaving nearly nine in ten offerees to decline. Because adoption concentrates among asset-rich, water-proximate households—regardless of baseline energy outlays—uptake reflects operational capacity to finance a financially unviable asset rather than market frictions suppressing a profitable investment.

Abstract: The 1994–1995 O.J. Simpson trial revealed deeply divergent racial understandings of the American criminal justice system. Using nine surveys (1994–1996) pooling nearly 11,000 observations, we analyze the racial divide in attitudes toward Simpson’s guilt, trial fairness, and systemic bias. We find Black Americans were 33.0 percentage points more likely to believe Simpson was not guilty and 38.8 points more likely to perceive the justice system as biased. Crucially, the racial gap in guilt beliefs was not static: it widened over the course of the trial, did not move when the verdict was announced, and remained wide a full year later. The racial gap in perceptions of trial fairness also widened during the trial but narrowed sharply once the acquittal was announced, a pattern we document within the same respondents using a two-wave panel fielded in the days around the verdict. Our findings indicate that race captures a distinct experiential lens through which citizens process identical legal facts.

Abstract: We study how immigrant legalization affects political representation, focusing on the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which granted legal status to three million undocumented immigrants. Exploiting cross-county variation in IRCA exposure, we combine difference-in-differences and instrumental-variable strategies with newly digitized data on Hispanic elected officials. Legalization increases Hispanic representation on school and city boards and facilitates upward political mobility. These effects operate through Hispanic community empowerment: IRCA stimulates increases in human capital, teacher employment, and political engagement — without triggering counter-mobilization. These shifts translate into policy: high-exposure school districts increase capital spending and shift toward bond-based financing.

Abstract: Does the return to schooling under autocracy reflect skill or political loyalty? We separate the two in East Germany, where credentials granted access to state-rationed jobs. Exploiting terrain-driven variation in West German television exposure, we show that exposure eroded regime trust and reduced schooling by 0.5 years with no detectable effect on cognitive ability. Exposed cohorts faced employment penalties under state allocation before reunification, but converged once markets priced skills. They were also less overeducated. The forgone schooling paid mainly for political loyalty.

Abstract: We examine how armed conflict and participation restrictions are associated with Olympic performance. Using Summer Games data from 2000–2021, we estimate a Tobit model of medal shares and construct counterfactual predictions for Paris 2024 based on pre-war dynamics. Countries directly affected by the Russia–Ukraine war underperformed relative to predicted outcomes, with an especially large deviation for Russia. At the sport level, former Soviet republics exceeded predictions in medal-intensive disciplines, consistent with competitive reallocation. The findings suggest that geopolitical shocks can shift not only participation but also the cross-country distribution of Olympic success.

Abstract: Does greater bargaining power for wives translate into higher investments in children? Using a lab-in-the-field experiment with 1,002 rural households in Cameroon, we construct a behavior-based measure of wives’ bargaining power from individual and joint lottery choices. Despite substantial heterogeneity in intra-household influence, wives’ bargaining power has no effect on education expenditures, child illness, or healthcare utilization. Survey evidence reveals why: both spouses view child-related decisions as the husband’s responsibility, regardless of wives’ bargaining power. Policies targeting women’s empowerment may therefore need to directly challenge gender norms to improve children’s human capital.

Abstract: Can foreign media sustain religious identity under state atheism? We exploit terrain-driven West German television reception in East Germany. Pooled across cohorts, exposure leaves 1990 religious affiliation—measured as the regime fell—unchanged. However, among cohorts confirmed before the late-1950s replacement of confirmation with a career-penalizing secular ceremony, TV exposure raises affiliation by 31 percentage points, more than doubling it from an 18 percent baseline. Among those raised under the secular rite it moves nothing. Private broadcast worship substituted for penalized practice, preserving identity while observable attendance stayed suppressed, and without shifting expectations or attitudes. Foreign media maintained faith where formed; it did not create it.

Abstract: Experiences such as living under communism shape financial behavior for decades. We ask whether information about markets, acquired before households could use it, has equally lasting effects. Among East Germans, who shared four decades of socialist institutions, terrain determined who received West German television, including its personal-finance programming. On 1 July 1990, the currency union opened West Germany’s financial system to all of them on identical terms. Following households from June 1990 through 2000, we find that securities ownership was balanced across the signal boundary before the union. One year later, exposed households were 4.6 percentage points more likely to hold securities, two-thirds of the mean, whereas the savings accounts and life insurance they already knew showed no significant gap. The gap was no longer detectable after three years, and risk tolerance and patience did not differ significantly. Unlike experience, information shaped when households entered the market, but not detectably whether they participated in the long run.

Abstract: How does immigrant legalization reshape the labor market? Combining administrative records on all applicants to the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) with county-level occupational data, we show that IRCA reduced Hispanic farm employment in more exposed counties. On the worker side, the decline fell on farm laborers, while craft and managerial jobs gained employment share. On the farm side, high-exposure counties employed fewer hired workers at higher labor expenses per worker, without a decline in farm sales. The results suggest that the concentration of Hispanic workers in agriculture partly reflected legal barriers to employment in other sectors.