Seminars & Events

APL (Ajiken Power Lunch)

Autobahns and Jobs

APL (Ajiken Power Lunch) is a lunchtime workshop open to public, including IDE staffs, visiting research fellows, IDEAS students, outside researchers and graduate students. This workshop provides a platform for presentation of any work in progress where we can discuss in either English or Japanese.

Those who would attend a seminar are asked to announce yourself to receptionists on your arrival at the IDE and to obtain APL Organizers' signature on your admission card after the seminar.

Date&time:

April 9, 2019. (Tuesday) 14:00-15:30

Venue:
Theme:

Autobahns and Jobs

Abstract
This paper analyzes the impact of investments in the German autobahn network on West German regions' labor market performance. To address problems of endogeneity and reverse causation, we use historical instrumental variables from an 1890 plan for the railroad network and a 1937 plan for the autobahn and major roads network. We find a statistically and economically significant positive causal effect of regional changes in autobahn kilometers on employment and the wage bill. According to our IV results, a one-standard-deviation increase in the growth of autobahn length between 1937 and 1994 led to employment growth of between 2.7 and 3.4 percent and to wage bill growth of between 3.0 and 3.7 percent over the period from 1994 to 2008. The results are robust to an alternative regional demarcation and identification strategy as well as to alternative estimation methods.
Speaker:

Joachim Möller ( University of Regensburg)

Chair:

Kenmei Tsubota

Languages:

English

Contact:

Institute of Developing Economies, APL Organizers
E-mail: APLE-mail