We use establishment-level data from the US Census Bureau's Annual Survey of Manufactures to study the characteristics and geographic locations of investments in robots. We find that the distribution of robots is highly skewed across locations. Some locations, which we call Robot Hubs, have far more robots than one would expect even after accounting for industry and manufacturing employment. We characterize these Robot Hubs along several industry, demographic, and institutional dimensions. The presences of robot integrators, which specialize in helping manufacturers install robots, and of higher levels of union membership are positively correlated with being a Robot Hub.

We use data from the Annual Survey of Manufactures to study the characteristics and geography of investments in robots across U.S. manufacturing establishments. We find that robotics adoption and robot intensity (the number of robots per employee) is much more strongly related to establishment size than age. We find that establishments that report having robotics have higher capital expenditures, including higher information technology (IT) capital expenditures. Also, establishments are more likely to have robotics if other establishments in the same Core-Based Statistical Area (CBSA) and industry also report having robotics. The distribution of robots is highly skewed across establishments’ locations. Some locations, which we call Robot Hubs, have far more robots than one would expect even after accounting for industry and manufacturing employment. We characterize these Robot Hubs along several industry, demographic, and institutional dimensions. The presence of robot integrators and higher levels of union membership are positively correlated with being a Robot Hub.

Banks play a special role in the financial system. According to classical banking theory, they help reduce informational asymmetries and serve as liquidity providers. Banks can, at least partially, lower transaction costs that result from information frictions between investors and firms and thereby alleviate firms’ funding constraints (Diamond, 1984). Moreover, banks create liquidity on their balance sheets by financing comparably illiquid assets with relatively liquid liabilities (Diamond and Dybvig, 1983). Integrating credit and liquidity provision functions, banks have been the object of numerous studies on financial intermediation. A particular focus in recent years has been on banks’ behavior as well as on the con- sequences of their actions for the real economy when hit by adverse shocks. Following the global financial crisis, financial shocks that originate from within the financial sec- tor have received wide attention (Cingano et al., 2016; Chodorow-Reich, 2014; Khwaja and Mian, 2008; Paravisini, 2008; Paravisini et al., 2015; Schnabl, 2012). However, banks are also subject to numerous non-financial shocks, which are the focus of this thesis.

We analyze whether financial integration leads to converging or diverging business cycles using a dynamic spatial model. Our model allows for contemporaneous spillovers of shocks to GDP growth between countries that are financially integrated and delivers a scalar measure of the spillover intensity at each point in time. For a financial network of ten European countries from 1996 to 2017, we find that the spillover effects are positive on average and much larger during periods of financial stress, pointing towards stronger business cycle synchronization. Dismantling GDP growth into value added growth of ten major industries, we observe that spillover intensities vary significantly. The findings are robust to a variety of alternative model specifications.