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作者：Hall, Jonathan D.
作者单位：University of Toronto
摘要：Though economists have long advocated road pricing as an efficiency-enhancing solution to traffic congestion, it has rarely been implemented, primarily because it is thought to create losers as well as winners. This paper shows that a judiciously designed toll applied to a portion of the lanes of a highway can generate a Pareto improvement before using the revenue, a sufficient condition being that drivers with a high value of time travel at the peak of rush hour. I obtain these new theoretica...
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作者：Serrato, Juan Carlos Suarez; Zidar, Owen
作者单位：Duke University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Princeton University
摘要：This paper documents facts about the state corporate tax structure - tax rates, base rules, and credits - and investigates its consequences for state tax revenue and economic activity. We present three main findings. First, tax base rules and credits explain more of the variation in state corporate tax revenues than tax rates do. Second, although states typically do not offset tax rate changes with base and credit changes, the effects of tax rate changes on tax revenue and economic activity de...
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作者：Cooper, Zack; Gibbons, Stephen; Skellern, Matthew
作者单位：Yale University; Yale University; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
摘要：This paper examines the impact of a government programme which facilitated the entry of for-profit surgical centres to compete against incumbent National Health Service hospitals in England. We examine the impact of competition from these surgical centres on the efficiency - measured by pre-surgery length of stay for hip and knee replacement patients - and case mix of incumbent public hospitals. We exploit the fact that the government chose the broad locations where these surgical centres (Ind...
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作者：Elinder, Mikael; Erixson, Oscar; Waldenstrom, Daniel
作者单位：Uppsala University; Research Institute of Industrial Economics (IFN); Paris School of Economics
摘要：This paper uses population register data on inheritances and wealth in Sweden to estimate the causal impact of inheritances on wealth inequality. We find that inheritances reduce wealth inequality, as measured by the Gini coefficient or top wealth shares, but that they increase absolute dispersion. This duality in effects stems from the fact that even though richer heirs inherit larger amounts, the relative importance of the inheritance is larger for less wealthy heirs, who inherit more relati...
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作者：Curto-Grau, Marta; Zudenkova, Galina
作者单位：University of Barcelona; University of Mannheim
摘要：This paper studies the relationship between party discipline and discretionary spending with theory and data. We propose a theoretical model in which a politician faces a conflict between her constituents' interests and the party line. Party loyalty is electorally costly for the politician and is therefore rewarded by the party leader with greater amounts of discretionary spending allocated to the politician's constituency. This effect is greater the more intense the conflict between the voter...
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作者：Hahn, Youjin; Wang, Liang Choon; Yang, Hee-Seung
作者单位：Yonsei University; Monash University; KDI School of Public Policy & Management
摘要：We exploit the unique features of high schools in Seoul to study the effects of school autonomy on student outcomes. Under South Korea's equalization policy, both private and public schools in Seoul admit students that are assigned randomly to them, receive equal government funding, charge identical fees, and use similar curricula. However, private schools have greater flexibility in personnel decisions, and their principals and teachers face stronger incentives to perform. We find that privat...
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作者：Carta, Francesca; Rizzica, Lucia
作者单位：European Central Bank; Bank of Italy; Bocconi University
摘要：We analyze a reform that introduced early access to subsidized childcare for 2-year-old children in Italy, exploring the effects on several measures of maternal labor supply and on children's cognitive outcomes. Our identification strategy exploits discontinuities in the eligibility rules and the staggered implementation of the reform. We find that the policy increased mothers' participation in the labor market and lowered the reservation wage of the unemployed, thus increasing their likelihoo...
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作者：Fitzpatrick, Maria D.; Moore, Timothy J.
作者单位：Cornell University; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Melbourne
摘要：Social Security eligibility begins at age 62, and approximately one third of Americans immediately claim at that age. We examine whether age 62 is associated with a discontinuous change in aggregate mortality, a key measure of population health. Using mortality data that covers the entire U.S. population and includes exact dates of birth and death, we document a robust two percent increase in male mortality immediately after age 62. The change in female mortality is smaller and imprecisely est...
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作者：Murooka, Takeshi; Schwarz, Marco A.
作者单位：University of Osaka; University of Innsbruck
摘要：Recent studies investigate policies motivating consumers to make an active choice as a way to protect unsophisticated consumers. We analyze the optimal timing of such choice-enhancing policies when a firm can strategically react to them. In the model, a firm provides a contract with automatic renewal. We show that a policy intending to enhance consumers' choices when they choose a contract can be detrimental to welfare. By contrast, a choice-enhancing policy at the time of contract renewal inc...
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作者：Asatryan, Zareh; Castellon, Cesar; Stratmann, Thomas
作者单位：Leibniz Association; Zentrum fur Europaische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW); Clemson University; George Mason University
摘要：This paper studies the reduced-form effects of constitutional-level balanced budget rules (BBRs) on fiscal outcomes. Using historical data for a large set of countries dating back to the nineteenth century and applying a difference-in-difference design we find that the introduction of a constitutional BBR leads to a reduced probability of experiencing a sovereign debt crisis. We estimate that debt-to-GDP ratio decreases by around eleven percentage points on average, most of these consolidation...
