-
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...
-
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...
-
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...
-
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...
-
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...
-
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 ...
-
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...
-
作者：Marx, Benjamin; Stoker, Thomas M.; Suri, Tavneet
作者单位：Institut d'Etudes Politiques Paris (Sciences Po); Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
摘要：Using unique data from one of Africa's largest informal settlements, the Kibera slum in Nairobi, we provide evidence of ethnic patronage in the determination of rental prices and investments. Slum residents pay higher rents and live in lower quality housing (measured via satellite pictures) when the landlord and the locality chief belong to the same ethnicity. Conversely, rental prices are lower, and investments higher when residents and chiefs are co-ethnics. Our identification relies on the ...
-
作者：Pless, Jacquelyn; van Benthem, Arthur A.
作者单位：Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); University of Pennsylvania; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：We formalize pass-through over-shifting as a simple yet underutilized test for market power. We apply this test in the market for solar energy. Specifically, we estimate the pass-through of solar subsidies to solar system prices using rich micro-level transaction and subsidy data from California. Buyers of solar systems capture nearly the full subsidy, while there is more-than-complete pass-through to lessees. We conclude that solar markets are imperfectly competitive by ruling out alternative...
-
作者：Deserranno, Erika; Stryjan, Miri; Sulaiman, Munshi
作者单位：Northwestern University; Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
摘要：In developing countries, NGOs and governments often rely on local groups for the delivery of financial and public services. This paper studies how the design of rules used for group leader selection affects leader identity and shapes service delivery. To do so, we randomly assign newly formed savings and loan groups to select their leaders using either a public discussion procedure or a private vote procedure. Leaders selected with a private vote are found to be less positively selected on soc...
