The Intergenerational Transmission of Human Capital: Evidence from the Golden...
We use 1940 Census data to study the intergenerational transmission of human capital for children born in the 1920s and educated during an era of expanding but unequally distributed public school...
View ArticleFor Richer, for Poorer: Bankers' Liability and Risk-taking in New England,...
We study whether banks are riskier if managers have less liability. We focus on New England between 1867 and 1880 and consider the introduction of marital property laws that limited liability for newly...
View ArticleI Don't Know -- by Matthew Backus, Andrew Little
Experts with reputational concerns, even good ones, are averse to admitting what they don't know. This diminishes our trust in experts and, in turn, the role of science in society. We model the...
View ArticleThe Long Term Impacts of Grants on Poverty: 9-year Evidence From Uganda's...
In 2008, Uganda granted hundreds of small groups $400/person to help members start individual skilled trades. Four years on, an experimental evaluation found grants raised earnings by 38% (Blattman,...
View ArticleLiquidity Constraints and the Value of Insurance -- by Keith Marzilli...
Insurance affects the variability of consumption over time, which is not captured in standard expected utility of wealth models. We develop a consumption-utility model that shows how liquidity...
View ArticleImproving Non-Academic Student Outcomes Using Online and Text-Message...
We design and experimentally evaluate two low-cost, scalable interventions - an online preparatory module and a text-message coaching program - in a sample of over 3,000 undergraduate students at a...
View ArticleSubways and Urban Growth: Evidence from Earth -- by Marco Gonzalez-Navarro,...
We investigate the relationship between the extent of a city's subway network, its population and its spatial configuration. For the 632 largest cities in the world we construct panel data describing...
View ArticleLong-term Changes in Married Couples' Labor Supply and Taxes: Evidence from...
We document the time-series of employment rates and hours worked per employed by married couples in the US and seven European countries (Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, and...
View ArticleQuasi-Experimental Shift-Share Research Designs -- by Kirill Borusyak, Peter...
Many empirical studies leverage shift-share (or "Bartik") instruments that combine a set of aggregate shocks with measures of shock exposure. We derive a necessary and sufficient shock-level...
View ArticleDo You Know That I Know That You Know...? Higher-Order Beliefs in Survey Data...
We implement a new survey of firms, focusing on their higher-order macroeconomic expectations. The survey provides a novel set of stylized facts regarding the relationship between first-order and...
View ArticleMonopsony and Employer Mis-optimization Explain Why Wages Bunch at Round...
We show that wages in administrative data and in online markets exhibit considerable bunching at round numbers that cannot all be explained by rounding of responses in survey data. We consider two...
View ArticleFinancial Markets, the Real Economy, and Self-fulfilling Uncertainties -- by...
Uncertainty in both financial markets and the real economy rises sharply during recessions. We develop a model of informational interdependence between financial markets and the real economy, linking...
View ArticleSchool Nutrition and Student Discipline: Effects of Schoolwide Free Meals --...
Under the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), schools serving sufficiently high-poverty populations may enroll their entire student bodies in free lunch and breakfast programs, extending free meals...
View ArticleThe Impact of the Philadelphia Beverage Tax on Prices and Product...
In recent years, numerous cities in the U.S. have enacted taxes on beverages to promote health and raise revenue. This paper examines the impact of Philadelphia's beverage tax, enacted in 2017, on the...
View ArticleLabor Market Search With Imperfect Information and Learning -- by John J....
We investigate the role of information frictions in the US labor market using a new nationally representative panel dataset on individuals' labor market expectations and realizations. We find that...
View ArticleThe Costs of Macroprudential Policy -- by Bjoern Richter, Moritz Schularick,...
Central banks increasingly rely on macroprudential measures to manage the financial cycle. However, the effects of such policies on the core objectives of monetary policy to stabilise output and...
View ArticleIndividual and Aggregate Labor Supply in Heterogeneous Agent Economies with...
We study business cycle fluctuations in heterogeneous-agent general equilibrium models that feature both intensive and extensive margins of labor supply. A nonconvexity in the mapping between time...
View ArticleThe Exorbitant Tax Privilege -- by Thomas Wright, Gabriel Zucman
We estimate and attempt to explain the evolution of the taxes paid by U.S. multinationals on their foreign profits since 1966. In the oil sector, taxes paid to oil-producing States have been contained,...
View ArticleTaxation and Innovation in the 20th Century -- by Ufuk Akcigit, John Grigsby,...
This paper studies the effect of corporate and personal taxes on innovation in the United States over the twentieth century. We use three new datasets: a panel of the universe of inventors who patent...
View ArticleThe Long-Term Consequences of Having Fewer Children in Old Age: Evidence from...
Family planning plays a central role in contemporary population policies. However, little is known about its long-term consequences in old age because of the identification challenge. In this study, we...
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