Empirical Economics

Rangel-Gonzalez, Erick; Llamosas-Rosas, Irving; Esteban-Aguirre, Marco

doi: 10.1007/s00181-026-02922-5pmid: N/A

We apply the synthetic control method to analyze the initial effects of nearshoring on labor outcomes in Mexico’s manufacturing sector. Our methodology compares jobs, earnings, and productivity between industry groups more likely to benefit from nearshoring, as identified through a novel propensity index, and a counterfactual constructed from potentially less affected sectors. Our results indicate that nearshoring is generating early gains in manufacturing jobs but has not yet led to improvements in wages. Furthermore, we did not observe a consistent impact on productivity, although some specifications suggest a modest positive effect in industries with a higher nearshoring propensity. While nearshoring remains in its nascent stages and its full effects may take time to materialize, our findings highlight its initial implications for the Mexican manufacturing sector. We emphasize the importance of closely monitoring this process to avoid replicating the maquiladora model challenges, which created jobs but yielded limited improvements in productivity and wages.

López-Laborda, Julio; Vallés-Giménez, Jaime; Zárate-Marco, Anabel

doi: 10.1007/s00181-026-02932-3pmid: N/A

The paper analyses how winning money from gambling and lotteries in Spain has affected the behaviour of the winners and their partners in a wide range of financial and personal decisions. This is the first study in the literature to apply the differences-in-differences estimator of de Chaisemartin and d’Haultfoeuille (De Chaisemartin, C. and X. D’Haultfoeuille (2024): “Differences-in-differences estimators of intertemporal treatment effects”, The Review of Economic and Statistics, accepted: 1–45.) to this topic. The analysis utilises microdata from the Household Panel published by Spain’s Finance Ministry for 2016–2021. The findings reveal a significant response in the labour supply in the intensive and extensive margin. The prizewinners’ response significantly depends on such factors as the amount of the prize, the prizewinner’s income, and their personal and family circumstances. The prize money is used to invest in property and financial assets (especially the usual dwelling and in investment funds), and in some cases, to pay off debts. Finally, winnings seem to encourage people to get married (and, to a lesser extent, to end their marriage), but not to have children, or change the town they live in.

Harrison, Andre; Viele, Jeremy

doi: 10.1007/s00181-026-02934-1pmid: N/A

We use a structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) model to study the effects of oil market shocks on US labor productivity and employment hours, where identification occurs through a combination of short- and long-run exclusion restrictions. The results show that labor productivity is responsive to all sides of the oil market, with employment hours responding only to demand-side forces. Further, oil market shocks explain roughly 25% of the long-run variation in both variables. Among oil market shocks, oil-specific demand shocks contribute to most of the historical fluctuations in labor productivity, while aggregate demand shocks matter most for fluctuations in employment hours.

Agovino, Massimiliano; Marchesano, Katia; Musella, Gaetano

doi: 10.1007/s00181-026-02939-wpmid: N/A

This paper investigates whether the spatial interaction patterns observed among Italian provinces in separate waste collection (SWC) over the period 2008–2020 are consistent with horizontal yardstick competition (HYC). Using a two-regime spatial Durbin model—where regimes are defined according to productivity dynamics derived from the components of the Malmquist index—we assess whether provinces tend to imitate better-performing peers and whether such behaviour may depend on the type of neighbour and benchmark considered. The results suggest that patterns consistent with HYC emerge primarily among non-geographical neighbours, indicating that imitation may be driven by information embedded in relative benchmark performance rather than by spatial proximity or target-based regulatory frameworks. Benchmark characteristics appear to play an important role: higher levels of managerial and scale efficiency in benchmark units are associated with stronger imitative behaviour. Additional analyses provide further support for the robustness of these findings. Overall, the study provides new insights into the mechanisms underlying spatial dependence in public service provision and highlights the potential importance of performance transparency in shaping circular economy outcomes within the waste management sector.

Pohlmeier, Winfried; Shkoza, Livia; Uysal, Derya

doi: 10.1007/s00181-026-02924-3pmid: N/A

This study examines how heterogeneity in classroom characteristics affects the influence of peer interactions on educational outcomes. Using unique friendship network data from German upper secondary schools, we investigate the roles of class size and gender composition in shaping academic achievement. To capture these dynamics, we propose a multivariate instrumental variable (MVIV) approach that extends conventional homogeneous peer effects models and accounts for error heterogeneity across networks. Our findings demonstrate that neglecting classroom-specific heterogeneity leads to biased conclusions. By integrating these variations, we uncover new structural insights into how classroom composition influences peer effects and, in turn, student performance.

Ščasný, Milan; Opatrný, Matěj

doi: 10.1007/s00181-026-02936-zpmid: N/A

We estimate the elasticity of marginal utility of consumption (μ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\mu $$\end{document}) for Europe and 32 individual European countries using household-level income tax data. Specifically, we rely on the absolute equal-sacrifice approach to elicit the revealed preferences of income taxpayers on their political preference for income redistribution. Our central estimate of μ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\mu $$\end{document} equals 1.43. With few exceptions, μ\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}\usepackage{amsmath}\usepackage{wasysym}\usepackage{amsfonts}\usepackage{amssymb}\usepackage{amsbsy}\usepackage{mathrsfs}\usepackage{upgreek}\setlength{\oddsidemargin}{-69pt}\begin{document}$$\mu $$\end{document}’s for European countries exceed unity, ranging between 1.2 and 1.94. We discuss the implications of our estimates for inequality measurement, benefit transfer, and the social discount rate.

Dery, Cosmas; Azad, Nahiyan Faisal

doi: 10.1007/s00181-026-02926-1pmid: N/A

Economic agents’ sentiments about the future significantly influence economic activity and are widely used as indicators, yet the factors driving these sentiments are understudied, particularly in developing countries. This study examines how oil market changes and uncertainties impact economic sentiment in major emerging economies. Using monthly data and forecasting regressions, we link consumer and business confidence to oil market developments. In a Bayesian SVAR model, we identify five oil-related shocks and analyze their effects on sentiment indicators. The results show that oil price uncertainty and supply shocks negatively affect confidence, while demand-related shocks have a positive impact. Consumer confidence in Russia reacts more intensely and persistently to oil shocks, while business confidence in Turkey shows stronger overall responses. These findings underscore the importance of oil market dynamics in shaping economic sentiment in emerging markets.

Vallarino, Diego

doi: 10.1007/s00181-026-02935-0pmid: N/A

This paper studies how structural spillovers shape export diversification by modeling international trade as a network of interdependent productive capabilities. Using data for 132 countries over 2015–2022, we estimate the probability that a country enters new export products conditional on its existing export structure, observable country-level characteristics, and position within the trade-relatedness network. The GNN framework is benchmarked against conventional econometric approaches, including logistic regressions and fixed-effects panel models. The results show that graph-based estimates recover elasticity magnitudes comparable to standard estimators, while capturing nonlinear and heterogeneous spillover effects that operate through network connectivity. The association between country-level covariates and diversification depends strongly on a country’s structural position within the trade network. An application to Uruguay shows how positive local effects from R&D and other covariates can generate limited aggregate diversification when spillover channels are weak. The analysis contrasts this case with a high-centrality benchmark, where similar covariate changes may be amplified by denser networks of related products. Overall, the results suggest that graph-based models can complement established empirical methods by providing a structurally informed representation of interdependencies, with implications for policy evaluation, counterfactual analysis, and forecasting in international trade and development economics.