Understanding Cultural Persistence and Change -- by Paola Giuliano, Nathan Nunn
When does culture persist and when does it change? We examine a determinant that has been put forth in the anthropology literature: the variability of the environment from one generation to the next. A...
View ArticleThe Geography of Consumption -- by Sumit Agarwal, J. Bradford Jensen,...
We use detailed information from U.S. consumers' credit card purchases to provide the first large-scale description of the geography of consumption. We find that consumers' mobility is quite limited...
View ArticleChoosing Your Pond: Revealed-Preference Estimates of Relative Income Concerns...
We provide a unique revealed-preference test of the hypothesis that, in addition to their absolute level of consumption, individuals care about their relative consumption. We study the decisions of...
View ArticleA Risk-centric Model of Demand Recessions and Macroprudential Policy -- by...
A productive capacity generates output and risks, both of which need to be absorbed by economic agents. If they are unable to do so, output and risk gaps emerge. Risk gaps close quickly: A decline in...
View ArticleDoes It Matter How and How Much Politicians are Paid? -- by Duha T. Altindag,...
An important question in representative democracies is how to ensure that politicians behave in the best interest of citizens rather than their own private interests. Aside from elections, one of the...
View ArticleThe Capital Structure of Nations -- by Patrick Bolton, Haizhou Huang
When a nation can finance its investments via foreign-currency denominated debt or domestic-currency claims, what is the optimal capital structure of the nation? Building on the functions of fiat money...
View ArticleThe Effects of Provider Choice Policies on Workers' Compensation Costs -- by...
We examine the effects of provider choice policies on workers' compensation medical and indemnity costs. We find no difference in average medical costs between states where policies give employers...
View ArticleAn Analysis of the Memphis Nurse-Family Partnership Program -- by James J....
This paper evaluates a randomized controlled trial of the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP) program conducted in Memphis, TN in 1990. NFP offers home visits conducted by nurses for disadvantaged...
View ArticleWhy Has Regional Income Convergence in the U.S. Declined? -- by Peter Ganong,...
The past thirty years have seen a dramatic decline in the rate of income convergence across states and in population flows to high-income places. These changes coincide with a disproportionate increase...
View ArticleMeasuring Social Connectedness -- by Michael Bailey, Ruiqing (Rachel) Cao,...
We introduce a new measure of social connectedness between U.S. county-pairs, as well as between U.S. counties and foreign countries. Our measure, which we call the "Social Connectedness Index" (SCI),...
View ArticleThe Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Health Insurance Coverage and Labor...
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) includes several provisions designed to expand insurance coverage that also alter the tie between employment and health insurance. In this paper, we exploit variation...
View ArticleThe Medieval Roots of Inclusive Institutions: From the Norman Conquest of...
The representation of merchant interests in parliaments played a crucial role in constraining monarchs' power and expanding the protection of property rights. We study the process that led to the...
View ArticleThe Dire Effects of the Lack of Monetary and Fiscal Coordination -- by...
What happens if the government's willingness to stabilize a large stock of debt is waning, while the central bank is adamant about preventing a rise in inflation? The large fiscal imbalance brings...
View ArticleAge of Marriage, Weather Shocks, and the Direction of Marriage Payments -- by...
This paper studies how aggregate economic conditions affect marriage markets in developing countries where marriage is regulated by traditional customary norms. We examine how local economic shocks...
View ArticleIndividual Results May Vary: Elementary Analytics of Inequality-Probability...
While many results from the treatment-effect and related literatures are familiar and have been applied productively in health economics evaluations, other potentially useful results from those...
View ArticleRegression Discontinuity in Time: Considerations for Empirical Applications...
Recent empirical work in several economic fields, particularly environmental and energy economics, has adapted the regression discontinuity framework to applications where time is the running variable...
View ArticleThe Economic Burden of Chronic Diseases: Estimates and Projections for China,...
We propose a novel framework to analyse the macroeconomic impact of noncommunicable diseases. We incorporate measures of disease prevalence into a human capital augmented production function, which...
View ArticleDo People Respond to the Mortage Interest Deduction? Quasi-Experimental...
Using linked housing and tax records from Denmark combined with a major reform of the mortgage interest deduction in the late 1980s, we carry out the first comprehensive long-term study of how tax...
View ArticleInstitutions and Political Party Systems: The Euro Case -- by Jesus...
This paper argues that institutions and political party systems are simultaneously determined. A large change to the institutional framework, such as the creation of the euro by a group of European...
View ArticleThe Financing of Local Government in China: Stimulus Loan Wanes and Shadow...
China's four-trillion-yuan stimulus package fueled by bank loans in 2009 has led to the rapid growth of shadow banking activities in China after 2012. The local governments in China financed the...
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