WORKING PAPER
We measure the causal effects of long-term exposure to air pollution on individuals’ health and labor market outcomes using a unique natural experiment. In 1982, an unexpected and permanent reduction in oil imports from the Soviet Union forced Socialist East Germany to switch to highly polluting lignite coal. Difference-in-differences regressions show that counties close to lignite mines experienced significantly higher air pollution and infant mortality after 1982. Authoritarian restrictions on freedom of movement and the East German command economy’s non-competitive housing and labor markets prevented individuals from endogenously adjusting to this shock. To estimate the causal effects of long-term exposure to pollution, we leverage these restrictions and their sudden end after German reunification in a movers design. We find that pollution negatively affects labour market outcomes over four decades. Individuals from exposed counties earned significantly lower wages, spent less time in employment, and retired earlier. We find large negative effects for those exposed as children under the age of 12 and adults as young as 27. Using survey data, we identify health as a mechanism behind these effects.
joint with Moritz Lubczyk
PUBLICATIONS
Journal of Development Economics 127, 355-378
This paper examines the long-run effects of different Catholic missionary orders in colonial Mexico on educational outcomes and Catholicism. The main missionary orders in colonial Mexico were all Catholic, but they belonged to different monastic traditions and adhered to different values. Mendicant orders were committed to poverty and sought to reduce social inequality in colonial Mexico by educating the native population. The Jesuit order, by contrast, focused educational efforts on the colony's elite in the city centers, rather than on the native population in rural mission areas. Using a newly constructed data set of the locations of 1,145 missions in colonial Mexico, I test whether long-run development outcomes differ among areas that had Mendicant missions, Jesuit missions, or no missions. Results indicate that areas with historical Mendicant missions have higher present-day literacy rates, and higher rates of educational attainment at primary, secondary and post-secondary levels than regions without a mission. Results show that the share of Catholics is higher in regions where Catholic missions of any kind were a historical present. Additional results suggest that missionaries may have affected long-term development by impacting people's access to and valuation of education.
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Please get in touch if you are interested in the data I collected or the methods I am using.
Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, 2016
MIGRATION AND CLIMATE-RESILIENT DEVELOPMENT
Some climate change is now inevitable and strategies to adapt to these changes are quickly developing. The question is particularly paramount for low-income countries, which are likely to be most affected.
Journal of Political Economy 130(9), 2275-2314
THE ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF LONG-TERM CLIMATE CHANGE:
EVIDENCE FROM THE LITTLE ICE AGE
Recent studies have consistently found important economic effects of year-to-year weather fluctuations. I study the economic effects of long-term and gradual climate change over a 250-year period in the Little Ice Age (1600-1850), during which people and economies had time to adapt. Results show significant negative economic effects of long-term climate change. In further results, I examine mechanisms through which climate affected the economy. Results show that temperature impacted the economy through its effect on agricultural productivity, mortality, and migration. I also explore adaptation to climate change and find that economies increased trade and changed land use in response to the Little Ice Age. Cities with good access to trade were significantly less affected. I discuss the relevance of these results for understanding the impact of today's climate change, especially in developing countries.
The paper studies whether a drought in 1788 impacted political outcomes during the French Revolution. I construct a community-level data set with information on local drought severity and local political outcomes in 1789. Results indicate that the drought had political impacts: 1) Those more affected by the drought more often participated in peasant revolts against the feudal system; and 2) they had higher demand for institutional change as expressed in the 'lists of grievances'. The results provide evidence on specific ways in which the drought impacted the French Revolution, a milestone in the democratization of Western Europe. They also contribute to our understanding of the political impacts of weather shocks, one of the defining features of climate change.
Journal of Economic Growth, July 2023; CESifo Working Paper 2023, No. 10303
Nature Human Behaviour 9, 481–495 (2025)
joint with Marc Fabel, Matthias, Flückiger, Markus Ludwig, Helmut Rainer and Sebastian Wichert
We study the relationship between the Fridays for Future climate protest movement in Germany and citizen political behaviour. In 2019, crowds of young protesters, mostly under voting age, demanded immediate climate action. Exploiting cell-phone-based mobility data and hand-collected information on nearly 4,000 climate protests, we created a highly disaggregated measure of protest participation. Using this measure, we show that Green Party vote shares increased more in counties with higher protest participation (n = 960). To address the possibility of non-random protest participation, we used various empirical strategies. When we examined mechanisms, we found evidence for three relevant factors: reverse intergenerational transmission of pro-environmental attitudes from children to parents (n = 76,563), stronger climate-related social media presence by Green Party politicians (n = 197,830) and increased local media coverage of environmental issues (n = 47,060). Our findings suggest that youth protests may initiate the societal change needed to overcome the climate crisis.