This research examines the path-dependence relationship between political and economic integration in Western Europe under Roman rule and economic linkages between the current European regions, to investigate whether the Roman trade integration survived time and its numerous technological and political shocks. Based on gravity models that allow the role of several geographical factors to be excluded from the estimates, it provides empirical evidence that European NUTS2 regions that were highly integrated economically and politically under the Roman Empire still traded more in the early 21st century. Part of this effect is explained by the current road network that is partially following the old networks and subsequent political history, but a sizeable part is also attributable to cultural convergence.

The increasing arrival of people from different origins in high-income countries raises the issue of the coexistence and the exchange of different norms and ideas that affect productivity. This article documents the impact of immigrant birthplace diversity on workers’ wages at both metropolitan overall and sector-occupation population levels using US data between 2000 and 2019. This granular approach exploits the skill similarities and the high levels of interaction of workers from those groups to disentangle the diversity effects from general skill heterogeneity related to national specialisations. Finally, It exploits the rich compositions of the 21st century’s migration flows to take cultural and economic distances into account. The results suggest that metropolitan immigrant diversity of workers from the same sectors and occupations is positively related to their wages. It also provides evidence of a local positive effect of migrant diversity in local groups with similar experience and education that captures these complementarities. The gains are maximised when immigrant birthplace diversity in a local occupation is the result of migrations from countries close economically and culturally to the US population, and from culturally distant countries for diversity at the level of workers similar in education and experience. These results are mostly driven by workers without college education.

 This article examines how migration affects the (log of) hourly wages of native U.S. workers using IPUMS data, considering their (in)ability to change jobs, industries, or locations. By comparing results across different geographic and professional levels, it highlights how geographic and occupational mobility affects the observed effects of immigration: At very local levels (e.g. the level of an occupation in a city), more migration exposure is associated with lower wages for less mobile workers, but analyses at broader levels reveal overall positive effects once the effects on mobile workers enter the estimates. The research relies on a shift-share instrumental strategy to answer endogeneity concerns as well as controls for agglomeration economies, location, and group fixed effects. The findings reconcile conflicting results in the literature, showing that migration can benefit natives through labor market complementarities and reallocation effects.

 This research studies the influence of the Schengen area and its free mobility of people on the mobility of goods measured by trade linkages between European NUTS2 regions using quarterly freight data. Exploiting temporary border closing due to exceptional circumstances among the Schengen members and intranational pairs as untreated groups, it directly estimates the decrease in trade associated with these unexpected suspensions of the Schengen free mobility of people.