The World Rust Belts: The Heterogeneous Effects of Deindustrialization on 1993 Cities in Six Industrialized Countries (with E. Moretti and M. Serafinelli).
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Media Coverage: NBER Digest, Forbes, VoxEU, Macro Roundup, Les Echos, IZA World of Labor, FAZ, Eco
Abstract: We use a newly-assembled dataset to investigate the employment consequences of deindustrialization for 1,993 cities in in France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan and the United States. Unsurprisingly, in all six countries we find a strong negative relationship between a city's share of manufacturing employment in the year of its country’s manufacturing peak and the subsequent change in the city's total employment, reflecting the fact that cities where manufacturing was initially more important experienced a larger negative labor demand shock. But this average effect masks a vast heterogeneity across cities. In a significant number of former manufacturing hubs, total employment fully recovered or even exceeded the initial level, despite the loss of manufacturing jobs. Overall, 34% of former manufacturing hubs in our sample experienced employment growth faster than their country's mean, suggesting that a surprisingly large fraction of cities was able to adapt to the negative employment shock caused by deindustrialization. We then seek to understand the causes of such differences in labor market performance across cities. We find that deindustrialization had profoundly different effects on local employment depending on the initial level of schooling of the local labor force. In particular, using an instrumental variable based on the driving distance to {\it historical} colleges and universities, we find that cities that had a high share of college graduates in the labor force in the year of their country's manufacturing peak experienced faster subsequent total employment growth than cities with a low share of college graduates in the labor force. Our estimates imply that employment in a city at the 75th percentile of its country’s college share distribution grew 7 percentage points faster per decade than a city at the 25th percentile with the same initial share of manufacturing employment. Most of this difference is due to faster employment growth in human capital-intensive services, which more than offset the loss of manufacturing jobs.
Investing Amidst Inequality: Social Unrest and Funding Decisions within Cities (with M.D. Amore)
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Abstract: Several cities worldwide are experiencing increasing spatial inequality leading to local social tensions. In this exploratory study, we analyze how within-city variations in social unrest influence investors’ funding decisions. Using Pitchbook data paired with granular information on crime records in the city of London, we document a strong negative relationship between neighborhoods’ social unrest and investment in new ventures. To parse the causal direction of this finding, we use multiple empirical strategies that leverage exogenous local variations in social unrest. We then show that investors eschew social unrest by reallocating funds to more stable neighborhoods and stage their investments over time. By highlighting the importance of the social dimension in the micro-geography of entrepreneurial activities, our findings have key implications for the sustainability of urban entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Newborn Gender and Technology Adoption among Rural Entrepreneurs in Ethiopian Family Firms (with S. Di Falco and V. Pelucco)
This paper investigates how the gender composition of potential heirs shapes technology-adoption decisions in family-owned agricultural microenterprises. Drawing on primary field data from three waves of panel surveys of 728 rural households in Ethiopia (2013–2019), we exploit the exogenous “micro-shock” of a child’s birth to isolate the impact of newborn gender on farmers’ uptake of productivity-enhancing innovations. We find that the arrival of a son—rather than a daughter—significantly increases the likelihood of adopting new agricultural technologies in subsequent seasons. Additional analyses suggest this effect is driven primarily by behavioral biases rooted in gendered social and succession norms that prioritize men over women in agricultural leadership. Our findings contribute to entrepreneurship research in developing contexts by identifying family structure—specifically heir gender—as a novel determinant of technology adoption. Moreover, by situating the investigation within the broader family-firm paradigm, we argue that these dynamics extend beyond low-income settings: in many developed and emerging economies, primogeniture and gender biases in succession norms may systematically shape strategic investment choices and long-term business sustainability.
Integration of ethnic inventors and innovation performance (with S.Breschi and H. Yoon)
As organizations have become increasingly ethnically diverse—and as ethnic backgrounds often correspond to distinct technological competencies—understanding how firms can leverage this diversity to produce valuable innovations remains key. This study investigates how ethnic integration within inventor collaboration networks, and its interaction with ethnic diversity, influence the economic value of innovation. Using patent and co-inventor data from 890 publicly traded U.S. firms (1990–2015), we construct a network-based index of ethnic integration, defined as the ratio of cross-ethnic to within-ethnic co-invention ties, and link it to stock market reactions surrounding patent grants. We find that ethnic integration significantly enhances patent value, particularly in firms that are both ethnically diverse and engaged in technologically complex innovation. These findings are robust to an instrumental-variables strategy addressing potential endogeneity concerns. By distinguishing between workforce composition and collaborative structure, our study advances the literature on diversity and innovation and underscores the critical role of integration mechanisms in unlocking the full potential of diverse organizations.
The changing organization of work after disruptive events: Evidence from men and women commuting and remote work after Covid-19 (with V. D'Angelo and M. Mariani)
This study explores gender differences in commuting behavior before, during, and after the Covid 19 pandemic, in a unique context in which sudden, widespread and mandated remote work was legally enforced. Using high resolution data from work related trips tracked through cellular phones between 2020 and 2024, we examine how women and men responded to enforced changes in the organization of work and how new patterns evolved over time. We find that women reduced their commuting more sharply than men during the pandemic. Although the gender gap narrowed after the lockdown, it persisted in the long run among people aged 25–44, who are more likely to have caregiving responsibilities. Notably, this gap varied with the seasonality of school openings and trip distances, suggesting that gender differences arise primarily from women’s higher constraints in managing paid and unpaid work. The results reveal a ratchet effect, wherein temporary changes reshaped long term commuting behavior for women with higher opportunity costs. In a context where remote and flexible work can benefit work–life balance but may come at the expense of career advancement and earnings, these findings highlight an important trade off with implications for gender equity. They call for organizational practices and policies that allow women to balance professional aspirations and personal life under a new organization of work.
Managing with autonomy: How to develop intangible assets in business groups (with N.Dutt and G. Spanos)
Entrepreneurial domains, theories and new ideas: Evidence from a field experiment (with G. Chondrakis, C. Frosi, M. Mariani)
Consumption habits in segregated urban environments (with P. Choudhury and H. Yoo)
Parks and Innovation (with M. Roche)