By raising commuting costs, an increase in gasoline prices should reduce the demand for housing in areas far from employment centers relative to locations closer to jobs. Using annual panel data on a large number of ZIP codes and municipalities from 1981 to 2008, we find that a 10 percent...

In 2000, wages of full time full year workers were more than 30 percent higher in metropolitan areas of over 1.5 million people than rural areas. The monotonic relationship between wages and city size is robust to controls for age, schooling and labor market experience. In this paper, we decompose...

It has long been argued that economic phenomena are affected by culture. However, the causal effect of cultural ties on economic exchange is difficult to identify, chiefly because cultural ties are endogenous to the current level of economic exchange, and because it is hard to separate culture from other influences....

Small parties play an important role in proportional election systems. For example, the emergence and electoral success of environmental and anti-immigration parties have constituted one of the central changes in the political landscape in Europe over the last three decades. But we do not know if this has actually had...

This study examines wage inequality in the Spanish labour market from a regional perspective, drawing on stochastic dominance techniques. The main findings are, firstly, that wage inequality exhibits a significant regional heterogeneity and, secondly, that the reduction of wage inequality in the Spanish labour market in recent years is a...

It is generally accepted that fiscal decentralization increases citizens’ control over politicians, fostering accountability and increasing efficiency. This article identifies the socioeconomic characteristics of citizens (potential voters) that increase their control over local policy-makers and thus generate greater efficiency in a decentralized context. We also highlight the fiscal characteristics of...