UC Berkeley

This dissertation contains three chapters. The first studies police killings in USA and its determinants. Among other things, it finds that federal data collected on police killings undercount the number of kills by at least two-thirds. Additionally, we find evidence that some policy relevant levers such as the racial diversity of the force affect the number of police killings in an area.

Chapters two and three both relate to the importance of new firms to a local labour market. Studying the region of Veneto, Italy, I find that new firms benefit the local regions they set up in through the creation of new jobs, many of which go to local inhabitants including those not previously employed. I find evidence that a large new firm opening can affect the hazard rate of reentry into the labour force by 1\%. However, I find limited evidence of spillovers in wages. New firms mechanically raise the wages of their workers but do not affect the overall region's wages. However, they enable the flow information that allows those workers not initially hired by new firms to find better paying jobs, demonstrating the importance of social networks in wage growth and job creation.