“When a Town Wins the Lottery: Evidence from Spain”, 2022-11-15 (; backlinks):
For over a century, Spain has conducted a national lottery which often results in the random allocation of large cash windfalls to one town.
Leveraging data on lottery ticket expenditures, we match winning towns to non-winning towns with equal winning probability.
For towns that won in recent decades, consumption of durables increases while employment, businesses, and migration to the town decrease. An analysis of a century of winners reveals a stark and persistent population increase for towns that won after the Civil War.
Our results suggest a limited role for wealth shocks in spurring economic growth outside of large recessions.
[Keywords: wealth shocks, economic recession, randomized natural experiment]
See Also:
Shocking Behavior: Random Wealth in Antebellum Georgia and Human Capital Across Generations
The Intergenerational Effects of a Large Wealth Shock: White Southerners after the Civil War
The Gift of Moving: Intergenerational Consequences of a Mobility Shock
Neighborhoods and Academic Achievement: Results from the Moving to Opportunity Experiment
Do Labor Market Policies have Displacement Effects? Evidence from a Clustered Randomized Experiment
Long-Run Effects of Lottery Wealth on Psychological Well-Being
Lottery winners and accident victims: Is happiness relative?
Association Between Lottery Prize Size and Self-reported Health Habits in Swedish Lottery Players