http://www.VoxEU.org Recent Ferdinand Rauch articles on VoxEU.org en http://www.VoxEU.org/index.php?q=node/8718 Ferdinand Rauch, 13 November 2012

Advertising is expensive and thus raises the cost of goods, but it may encourage competition that keeps prices down. This column addresses the old question with data from a natural experiment brought about by tax harmonisation in Austria. It argues that on average advertising decreases consumer prices and estimates that if the 5% tax were abolished, consumer prices would decrease by about 0.25 percentage points.

Full Article: Advertising and consumer prices]]> Tue, 13 Nov 2012 00:00:00 GMT http://www.VoxEU.org/index.php?q=node/8718 http://www.VoxEU.org/index.php?q=node/2745 Guy Michaels, Ferdinand Rauch, Stephen Redding, 3 January 2009

This column says that the two central stylised facts of population growth – Gibrat's Law and Zipf’s Law – do not hold in a wider sample of rural and urban areas. Analysis using new data that describe population patterns in both urban and rural areas suggests that populations experience a divide, as the dense grow and the sparse depopulate.

Full Article: Rethinking urbanisation]]> Sat, 03 Jan 2009 00:00:00 GMT http://www.VoxEU.org/index.php?q=node/2745