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作者：Rendahl, Pontus
作者单位：University of Cambridge; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
摘要：Solving dynamic models with inequality constraints poses a challenging problem for two major reasons: dynamic programming techniques are reliable but often slow, whereas Euler equation-based methods are faster but have problematic or unknown convergence properties. This study attempts to bridge this gap. I show that a common iterative procedure on the first-order conditions - usually referred to as time iteration - delivers a sequence of approximate policy functions that converges to the true ...
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作者：Wang, Tianxi
作者单位：University of Essex
摘要：This study examines the causal effects of bank size on banks' survival, asset quality and leverage. Two forces drive these effects: increasing returns to scale derived from banks' expertise and competition. The first enables bigger banks to survive competition better, have higher asset quality and be more leveraged. It drives banks into a race for expansion. This race toughens competition between banks, which edges out small banks and may worsen all banks' asset quality. Consequently, the bank...
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作者：Barro, Robert J.
作者单位：Harvard University
摘要：In a country panel since 1960, the estimated annual convergence rate for GDP is 1.7%, conditional on time-varying explanatory variables. With country fixed effects, the estimated convergence rate is misleadingly high. With data starting in 1870, country fixed effects are reasonable and the estimated convergence rate is 2.6%. Combining the two estimates suggests conditional convergence close to the iron-law' rate of 2%. With post-1960 data, estimation without country fixed effects reveals posit...
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作者：Freeman, Mark C.; Groom, Ben
作者单位：Loughborough University; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
摘要：The aggregated term structure of social discount rates that results from Weitzman's (2001) survey of expert opinion is shown to be highly sensitive to the nature of the responses. If variation reflects irreducible differences in ethical judgments, the term structure can decline rapidly. If variation occurred because respondents were forecasting future rates under uncertainty, the term structure is much flatter because additional experts provide new information. The former approach triples the ...
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作者：Spenkuch, Joerg L.
作者单位：Northwestern University
摘要：Whether individuals vote strategically is one of the most important questions at the intersection of economics and political science. Exploiting a flaw in the German electoral system by which a party may gain seats by receiving fewer votes, this article documents patterns of preference misrepresentation in a large, real-world election. During the 2005 elections to the Bundestag, the sudden death of a right-wing candidate necessitated a by-election in one electoral district. Knowing the results...
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作者：Yu, Miaojie
作者单位：Peking University
摘要：This article explores how reductions in tariffs on imported inputs and final goods affect the productivity of large Chinese trading firms, with the special tariff treatment that processing firms receive on imported inputs. Firm-level input and output tariffs are constructed. Both types of tariff reductions have positive impacts on productivity that are weaker as firms' share of processing imports grows. The impact of input tariff reductions on productivity improvement, overall, is weaker than ...
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作者：Ambrus, Attila; Rozen, Kareen
作者单位：Duke University; Yale University
摘要：This article shows that when multiple selves' preferences are aggregated into a decision, even if the researcher has a fully specified theory of how preferences get aggregated, there are typically no testable implications without restricting the number of selves. This points to the importance of collecting reliable information on the number of selves in interpersonal and intrapersonal decision-making contexts. We establish the result through a linear relationship between the number of selves a...
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作者：Aikman, David; Haldane, Andrew G.; Nelson, Benjamin D.
作者单位：Bank of England
摘要：Credit cycles have been a characteristic of advanced economies for over 100years. On average, a sustained pick-up in the ratio of credit to GDP has been highly correlated with banking crises. The boom phases of the cycle are characterised by large deviations in credit from trend. A range of mechanisms can generate these effects, each of which has strategic complementarity between banks at its core. Macro-prudential policy could curb these credit cycles, both through raising the cost of maintai...
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作者：Burke, Marshall; Gong, Erick; Jones, Kelly
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley; Middlebury College; CGIAR; International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)
摘要：We examine how variation in local economic conditions has shaped the AIDS epidemic in Africa. Using data from over 200,000 individuals across 19 countries, we match biomarker data on individuals' serostatus to information on local rainfall shocks, a large source of income variation for rural households. We estimate infection rates in HIV-endemic rural areas increase by 11% for every recent drought, an effect that is statistically and economically significant. Income shocks explain up to 20% of...
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作者：Smith, Sarah; Windmeijer, Frank; Wright, Edmund
作者单位：University of Bristol; University of London; University College London
摘要：There is a widespread belief that peer effects are important in charitable giving but little evidence on how donors respond to their peers. Analysing a unique data set of donations to online fund-raising pages, we find positive and sizeable peer effects: a 10 pound increase in the mean of past donations increases giving by 2.50 pound, on average. Donations respond to both very large and very small amounts and to changes in the mode. We find little evidence that donations signal charity quality...
