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作者：Besley, Timothy; Malcomson, James M.
作者单位：University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR); University of Oxford
摘要：With public services such as health and education, it is not straightforward for consumers to assess the quality of provision. Many such services are provided by monopoly not-for-profit providers and there is concern that for-profit providers may increase profit at the expense of quality. This paper explores the implications of entry by for-profit providers when there is unobserved quality. The model generates three key policy relevant insights. First, by developing a novel approach to competi...
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作者：Anderson, Michael L.; Gallagher, Justin; Ritchie, Elizabeth Ramirez
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley
摘要：Improving the nutritional content of public school meals is a topic of intense policy interest. A main motivation is the health of school children, and, in particular, the rising childhood obesity rate. Medical and nutrition literature has long argued that a healthy diet can have a second important impact: improved cognitive function. In this paper, we test whether offering healthier meals affects student achievement as measured by test scores. Our sample includes all California (CA) public sc...
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作者：Lindo, Jason M.; Schaller, Jessamyn; Hansen, Benjamin
作者单位：Texas A&M University System; Texas A&M University College Station; National Bureau of Economic Research; IZA Institute Labor Economics; University of Arizona; University of Oregon
摘要：This paper examines the effect of labor market conditions measured through unemployment, mass layoffs and predicted employment on child maltreatment using county-level data from California. Using these indicators, we separately estimate the effects of overall and gender-specific economic shocks. We find only modest evidence of a link between overall economic conditions and child maltreatment. However, analysis by gender reveals robust evidence that maltreatment decreases with indicators for ma...
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作者：Kartal, Melis; Tremewan, James
作者单位：Vienna University of Economics & Business
摘要：We study the effects of transparency on information transmission and decision making theoretically and experimentally. We develop a model in which a decision maker seeks advice from a better-informed adviser whose advice might be swayed by financial incentives. Transparency enables the decision maker to learn whether or not the adviser accepted such an incentive, for example from an interested third party. Prior theoretical and experimental research mostly found that transparency is ineffectiv...
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作者：Haan, Peter; Simmler, Martin
作者单位：Leibniz Association; DIW Berlin - Deutsches Institut fur Wirtschaftsforschung; Free University of Berlin; University of Oxford
摘要：Subsidies for renewable energy sources are increasing around the globe and amounted to more than 100 billion euro in 2013. This study aims to answer whether the subsidies only ensure that green electricity plants are profitable or whether other market participant as, for example, landowners benefit from the subsidy in the form of windfall gains as well. To identify the causal effect of the subsidies, we investigate the impact of the introduction of a price guarantee in the form of a feed-in ta...
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作者：Bleemer, Zachary; Zafar, Basit
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley; Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe
摘要：We conduct an information experiment about college returns and costs embedded within a representative survey of US household heads. Baseline perceptions of college costs and benefits are substantially biased, with larger biases among lower-income and non-college households. Respondents are randomly exposed to objective information about average college returns or costs. We find a significant impact of the returns experiment, persisting in a follow-up survey two months later: intended college a...
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作者：Waseem, Mazhar
作者单位：University of Manchester
摘要：This paper examines firm behavior to taxation in a low enforcement and large informality setting. Using quasi experimental variation created by a tax reform, which increased taxation of partnerships substantially relative to firms of other legal form, and the population of income tax returns filed in Pakistan in 2006-11, I document that treated firms report significantly lower earnings, migrate into informality, and switch business form in response to the increase in tax rate. The revenue loss...
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作者：Bold, Tessa; Kimenyi, Mwangi; Mwabu, Germano; Ng'ang'a, Alice; Sandefur, Justin
作者单位：Stockholm University; University of Nairobi; Strathmore University
摘要：What constraints arise when translating successful NGO programs to improve public services in developing countries into government policy? We report on a randomized trial embedded within a nationwide reform of teacher hiring in Kenyan government primary schools. New teachers offered a fixed-term contract by an international NGO significantly raised student test scores, while teachers offered identical contracts by the Kenyan government produced zero impact. Observable differences in teacher ch...
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作者：Sacks, Daniel W.
作者单位：Indiana University System; Indiana University Bloomington; IU Kelley School of Business
摘要：Cost-control incentives have become an important part of the health insurance landscape in the United States. These incentives are the strongest in capitated managed care organizations, especially HMOs, because such organizations are paid a fixed amount regardless of the spending they generate. Using a sample of insurance claims from about 500 plans, I find that in HMOs, spending on anti-cholesterol drugs is 19% lower than in other insurance plans. This spending difference could reflect the st...
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作者：Millner, Antony; Heal, Geoffrey
作者单位：University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Columbia University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：We study a dynamic social choice problem in which a sequence of committees must decide how to consume a public asset. A committee convened at time t decides on consumption at t, accounting for the behaviour of future committees. Committee members disagree about the appropriate value of the pure rate of time preference, but must nevertheless reach a decision. If each committee aggregates its members' preferences in a utilitarian manner, the collective preferences of successive committees will b...
