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作者：Kearney, Melissa S.; Levine, Phillip B.
作者单位：University System of Maryland; University of Maryland College Park; National Bureau of Economic Research; Wellesley College
摘要：We investigate whether preschool-age children exposed to Sesame Street when it aired in 1969 experienced improved educational and labor market outcomes. We exploit geographic variation in broadcast reception derived from technological factors, namely UHF versus VHF transmission. This variation is then related to census data on grade-for-age status, educational attainment, and labor market outcomes. The results indicate that Sesame Street improved school performance, particularly for boys. The ...
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作者：Porteous, Obie
作者单位：Middlebury College
摘要：Using a new intranational dataset of monthly grain prices and production and a new approach to identify cost parameters, I estimate and solve a dynamic model of agricultural storage and trade covering all 42 countries of continental sub-Saharan Africa. I find median trade costs over five times higher than elsewhere in the world. The potential welfare gains from reducing these costs are substantial, are driven by lower food prices, and can be achieved efficiently by investing in well-targeted t...
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作者：Bhalotra, Sonia; Chakravarty, Abhishek; Mookherjee, Dilip; Pino, Francisco J.
作者单位：University of Essex; University of Manchester; Boston University; Universidad de Chile
摘要：We examine intra-household gender-differentiated effects of property rights securitisation following West Bengal's tenancy registration program, using two independently gathered datasets. In both samples, higher program implementation increased male child survival rates in families without a firstborn son, but not in those that already have a firstborn male child. We argue this reflects intensified son preference as land rights improve, ostensibly to ensure a male heir to inherit land. Consist...
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作者：Nguyen, Hoai-Luu Q.
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley
摘要：This paper studies whether distance shapes credit allocation by estimating the impact of bank branch closings during the 2000s on local access to credit. To generate plausibly exogenous variation in the incidence of closings, I use an instrument based on within-county, tract-level variation in exposure to post-merger branch consolidation. Closings lead to a persistent decline in local small business lending. Annual originations fall by $453,000 after a closing, off a baseline of $4.7 million, ...
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作者：Heyes, Anthony; Saberian, Soodeh
作者单位：University of Ottawa
摘要：We analyze the impact of outdoor temperature on high-stakes decisions (immigration adjudications) made by professional decision-makers (US immigration judges). In our preferred specification, which includes spatial, temporal, and judge fixed effects, and controls for various potential confounders, a 10 degrees F degree increase in case-day temperature reduces decisions favorable to the applicant by 6.55 percent. This is despite judgements being made indoors, protected by climate control. Resul...
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作者：Dube, Arindrajit
作者单位：University of Massachusetts System; University of Massachusetts Amherst; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：There is robust evidence that higher minimum wages increase family incomes at the bottom of the distribution. The long-run (3 or more years) minimum wage elasticity of the non-elderly poverty rate with respect to the minimum wage ranges between -0.220 and -0.459 across alternative specifications. The long-run minimum wage elasticities for the tenth and fifteenth unconditional quantiles of family income range between 0.152 and 0.430 depending on specification. A reduction in public assistance p...
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作者：Dickert-Conlin, Stacy; Elder, Todd; Teltser, Keith
作者单位：Michigan State University; University System of Georgia; Georgia State University
摘要：Vast organ shortages motivated recent efforts to increase the supply of transplantable organs, but we know little about the demand side of the market. We test the implications of a model of organ demand using the universe of US transplant data from 1987 to 2013. Exploiting variation in supply induced by state-level motorcycle helmet laws, we demonstrate that each organ that becomes available from a deceased donor in a particular region induces five transplant candidates to join that region's t...
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作者：Autor, David; Figlio, David; Karbownik, Krzysztof; Roth, Jeffrey; Wasserman, Melanie
作者单位：Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); National Bureau of Economic Research; Northwestern University; Emory University; State University System of Florida; University of Florida; University of California System; University of California Los Angeles
摘要：Boys born to disadvantaged families have higher rates of disciplinary problems, lower achievement scores, and fewer high school completions than girls from comparable backgrounds. Using birth certificates matched to schooling records for Florida children born 1992-2002, we find that family disadvantage disproportionately impedes the pre-market development of boys. The differential effect of family disadvantage on boys is robust to specifications within schools and neighborhoods as well as acro...
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作者：Cicala, Steve; Lieber, Ethan M. J.; Marone, Victoria
作者单位：University of Chicago; University of Notre Dame; Northwestern University
摘要：A health insurer's Medical Loss Ratio (MLR) is the share of premiums spent on medical claims, or the inverse markup over average claims cost. The Affordable Care Act introduced minimum MLR provisions for all health insurance sold in fully insured commercial markets, thereby capping insurer profit margins, but not levels. While intended to reduce premiums, we show this rule creates incentives to increase costs. Using variation created by the rule's introduction as a natural experiment, we find ...
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作者：Feyrer, James
作者单位：Dartmouth College
摘要：Establishing a robust causal relationship between trade and income has been difficult. Frankel and Romer (1999) uses a geographic instrument to identify a positive effect of trade on income. Rodriguez and Rodrik (2001) shows that these results are not robust to controlling for omitted variables such as distance to the equator or institutions. This paper solves the omitted variable problem by generating a time-varying geographic instrument. Improvements in aircraft technology have caused the qu...
