“Missionaries and the Birth of International Development” Draft
The United States is the world’s leading provider of foreign aid. Is this driven by humanitarian motives or strategic interests? I examine how Protestant missionaries helped shape American support for international development. Using the travel routes of Student Volunteer Movement recruiters as an instrument, I find that greater exposure to missionaries increased congressional support for key foreign aid bills. Missionary influence led church denominations to advocate for aid in congressional testimony and encouraged policymakers to frame it in terms of human dignity rather than strategic concerns. Beyond advocacy in Congress, missionaries became key experts, producing social science research on non-European societies and advising the U.S. government during early development initiatives. In the long run, missionary influence contributed to a sustained commitment to global development, reflected in increased Peace Corps participation.
“Path Dependence through Agglomeration Spillovers: Evidence from the Beet Sugar Industry” (Submitted)
December 2024 | Draft | SSRN
This paper investigates the agglomeration spillovers from the beet sugar industry, which was supported by U.S. government as an industrial policy to encourage rural development during the early twentieth century. To estimate the effects of plant openings, I identify runner-up locations for beet sugar plants from a historical trade journal and find that these plant openings had large and long-lasting effects on population and manufacturing activities over one hundred years. The local jobs multiplier was significantly larger in less populated areas, suggesting that low congestion in sparsely settled regions enabled a sizeable impact. The agglomeration spillovers benefited industries not only directly linked through input-output linkages but also extended to broader, less related industries outside the production chain of agricultural processing.
“Place-based Costs and Productivity in R&D” (with Sathya Ramesh)
This paper estimates the elasticities of productivity and costs of R&D with respect to urban concentration using data on 0.3 million scientists across American cities. We introduce a novel shift-share instrumental variable based on university-origin and destination-city pairs. Our findings show that the agglomeration elasticity of patents is generally higher than that of wages. However, while place-based costs remain constant across cities of varying sizes, the agglomeration elasticity of patents declines significantly in cities above the median size. These results suggest that place-based policies aimed at fostering economic activity in non-superstar cities could enhance the aggregate productivity of R&D.
“Engineering Human Capital: Long-Run Effects of Wartime Technical Training” (with Mina Kim) Draft
This paper examines the enduring impact of the Engineering, Science, and Management War Training (ESMWT) program (1940-45) on the growth of engineers and scientists. To identify the effect of this training, the analysis leverages residual variation in ESMWT intensity across commuting zones, which stems from prediction errors made by local areas regarding imminent labor shortages during WWII, conditional on other WWII-related factors. The results indicate that this training led to a lasting increase in the number of engineers and STEM workers. Further analyses suggest that it also boosted interest in STEM education and led to increased post-graduate training after WWII. Localized spillovers in defense-related industries, driven by a temporary wartime demand shock, appear to have played a limited role in these changes in the occupational structure.