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作者：Busso, Matias; Galiani, Sebastian
作者单位：Inter-American Development Bank; University System of Maryland; University of Maryland College Park
摘要：This paper provides experimental evidence on the effect of increased competition on prices and quality in the retail sector. We randomized the entry of 61 firms into 72 markets serving the beneficiaries of a conditional cash transfer program in the Dominican Republic. Six months after the intervention, entry into the market led to reductions in prices ranging from 2 to 6 percent and to a statistically significant improvement in self-reported service quality. Prices dropped more in areas where ...
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作者：Loyalka, Prashant; Popova, Anna; Li, Guirong; Shi, Zhaolei
作者单位：Stanford University; Stanford University; Henan University; Stanford University
摘要：Despite massive investments in teacher professional development (PD) programs in developing countries, there is little evidence on their effectiveness. We present results of a large-scale, randomized evaluation of a national PD program in China in which teachers were randomized to receive PD; PD plus follow-up; PD plus evaluation of the command of PD content; or no PD. Precise estimates indicate PD and associated interventions failed to improve teacher and student outcomes after one year. A de...
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作者：Bartik, Alexander W.; Currie, Janet; Greenstone, Michael; Knittel, Christopher R.
作者单位：University of Illinois System; University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; Princeton University; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Chicago; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
摘要：Exploiting geological variation and timing in the initiation of hydraulic fracturing, we find that fracking leads to sharp increases in oil and gas recovery and improvements in a wide set of economic indicators. There is also evidence of deterioration in local amenities, which may include increases in crime, noise, and traffic and declines in health. Using a Rosen-Roback-style spatial equilibrium model to infer the net welfare impacts, we estimate that willingness-to-pay (WTP) for allowing fra...
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作者：Panhans, Matthew
摘要：This study tests for adverse selection in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) health insurance exchanges established in 2014, and quantifies the welfare consequences. Using a new statewide dataset of medical claims from Colorado, I use plausibly exogenous premium variation generated by geographic discontinuities to test for selection. Specifically, each $1 increase in monthly premiums causes a $0.85-0.95 increase in annual medical expenditures of the insured population in 2014, with attenuated effec...
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作者：Elfenbein, Daniel W.; Fisman, Raymond; McManus, Brian
作者单位：Washington University (WUSTL); University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
摘要：We study cheap talk by firms and responses by their consumers, focusing on unverifiable promises of charitable donations on eBay during 2005-2006. Cheap talk listings have lower sales probabilities but sell at higher prices when successful. The negative relationship between cheap talk and sales is concentrated in the months following Hurricane Katrina, a time when verifiable and unverifiable charity listings increased dramatically. Finally, we show that cheap talk sellers have lower quality ra...
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作者：Curto, Vilsa; Einav, Liran; Finkelstein, Amy; Levin, Jonathan; Bhattacharya, Jay
作者单位：Harvard University; Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; Stanford University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Stanford University; Stanford University
摘要：We compare health care spending in public and private Medicare using newly available claims data from Medicare Advantage (MA) insurers. MA insurer revenues are 30 percent higher than their health care spending. Adjusting for enrollee mix, health care spending per enrollee in MA is 9 to 30 percent lower than in Traditional Medicare (TM), depending on the way we define comparable enrollees. Spending differences primarily reflect differences in health care utilization, with similar reductions for...
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作者：Bruns, Benjamin
作者单位：Humboldt University of Berlin
摘要：Using linked employer-employee data for West Germany, I investigate the role of growing wage differentials between firms in the slowdown of gender wage convergence since the 1990s. The results show that two factors are at play: first, high-wage firms experience higher wage growth and employ disproportionately more men, and second, male firm premiums grow faster than female premiums in the same firms. These developments were catalyzed by a decline of union coverage, coupled with more firm-speci...
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作者：He, Jiaxiu; Liu, Haoming; Salvo, Alberto
作者单位：National University of Singapore; Western University (University of Western Ontario)
摘要：We examine day-to-day fluctuations in worker-level output at two manufacturing sites in China. Ambient fine-particle (PM2.5) pollution is severe but significantly variable, largely due to exogenous atmospheric ventilation. We obtain an insignificant immediate output response from concurrent (same-shift) variation in particle pollution. We then allow worker outcomes to respond to day-to-day variation in pollution with up to 30 days of delay. We uncover statistically significant adverse output e...
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作者：Buser, Thomas; Yuan, Huaiping
作者单位：University of Amsterdam; Tinbergen Institute
摘要：We use lab experiments and field data from the Dutch Math Olympiad to show that women are more likely than men to stop competing if they lose. In a math competition in the lab, women are much less likely than men to choose competition again after losing in the first round. In the Math Olympiad, girls, but not boys, who fail to make the second round are less likely to compete again one year later. This gender difference in the reaction to competition outcomes may help to explain why fewer women...
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作者：Deserranno, Erika
作者单位：Northwestern University
摘要：I study the role of financial incentives as signals of job characteristics when these are unknown to potential applicants. To this end, I create experimental variation in expected earnings and use that to estimate the effect of financial incentives on candidates' perception of a brand-new health-promoter position in Uganda and on the resulting size and composition of the applicant pool. I find that more lucrative positions are perceived as entailing a lower positive externality for the communi...
