Self‐dealing is potentially important but difficult to measure. In this paper, I study special servicers in commercial mortgage‐backed securities (CMBS), which sell distressed assets on behalf of bondholders. Around 2010, ownership changes of four major servicers raised concerns that they may direct benefits to new owners' affiliates (buyers and service providers). Loans liquidated after ownership changes have greater loss rates than before (8 percentage points (p.p.), $2.3 billion in losses), relative to other (placebo) servicers. Together with a case study that tracks self‐dealing purchases, the findings point to potential steering conflicts that could incentivize tunneling through fees to service providers.

Developing countries face massive urbanization and slum upgrading is a popular policy to improve shelter for many. Yet, preserving slums at the expense of formal developments can raise concerns of misallocation of land. We estimate causal, long-term impacts of the 1969–84 KIP programme, which provided basic upgrades to 5 million residents covering 25% of land in Jakarta, Indonesia. We assemble high-resolution data on programme boundaries and 2015 outcomes and address programme selection bias through localized comparisons. On average, KIP areas today have lower land values, shorter buildings, and are more informal, per a photographs-based slum index. The negative effects are concentrated within 5 km of the CBD. We develop a spatial equilibrium model to characterize the welfare implications of KIP. Counterfactuals suggest that 79% of the welfare effects stem from removing KIP in the centre and highlight how to mitigate losses to displaced residents.

We use a natural experiment in Indonesia to provide causal evidence on the role of location-specific human capital and skill transferability in shaping the spatial distribution of productivity. From 1979–1988, the Transmigration Program relocated two million migrants from rural Java and Bali to new rural settlements in the Outer Islands. Villages assigned migrants from regions with more similar agroclimatic endowments exhibit higher rice productivity and nighttime light intensity one to two decades later. We find some evidence of migrants' adaptation to agroclimatic change. Overall, our results suggest that regional productivity differences may overstate the potential gains from migration.