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作者:Feenstra, Robert C.; Mandel, Benjamin R.; Reinsdorf, Marshall B.; Slaughter, Matthew J.
作者单位:University of California System; University of California Davis; National Bureau of Economic Research; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - New York; Dartmouth College; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要:The acceleration in US productivity growth since 1995 is often attributed to declining prices for information technology (IT) goods, and therefore enhanced productivity growth in that sector. We investigate an alternative explanation for these IT price movements: gains in the US terms of trade and tariff reductions, especially for IT products, which led to greater gains than shown by official indexes. We do not, however, investigate the indexes used to deflate the domestic absorption component...
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作者:Niehaus, Paul; Atanassova, Antonia; Bertrand, Marianne; Mullainathan, Sendhil
作者单位:University of California System; University of California San Diego; Nielsen Holdings Inc.; University of Chicago; Harvard University
摘要:Targeting assistance to the poor is a central problem in development. We study the problem of designing a proxy means test when the implementing agent is corruptible. Conditioning on more poverty indicators may worsen targeting in this environment because of a novel tradeoff between statistical accuracy and enforceability. We then test necessary conditions for this tradeoff using data on Below Poverty Line card allocation in India. Less eligible households pay larger bribes and are less likely...
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作者:Ashenfelter, Orley C.; Hosken, Daniel S.; Weinberg, Matthew C.
作者单位:Princeton University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Drexel University
摘要:Many experts speculate that US antitrust policy towards horizontal mergers has been too lenient. We estimate the price effects of Whirlpool's acquisition of Maytag to provide new evidence on this debate. We compare price changes in appliance markets most affected by the merger to markets where concentration changed much less or not at all. We estimate price increases for dishwashers and relatively large price increases for clothes dryers, but no price effects for refrigerators or clothes washe...
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作者:Moita, Rodrigo M. S.; Paiva, Claudio
作者单位:Insper; California State University System; California State University Channel Islands
摘要:The early work of Stigler (1971) treats the regulatory process as the arbitration of conflicting economic and political interests rather than a pure welfare-maximizing effort. This paper builds on these ideas and models the regulatory process as a game where the industry-lobby, consumers-voters, and a regulator-politician interact to define the regulated price, in alternating electoral and non-electoral periods. The equilibrium that emerges consists of a fully rational political price cycle in...
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作者:Felbermayr, Gabriel J.; Larch, Mario; Lechthaler, Wolfgang
作者单位:Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; University of Munich; University of Nottingham; University of Bayreuth; University of Munich; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; Leibniz Association; Institut fur Weltwirtschaft an der Universitat Kiel (IFW)
摘要:How do changes in labor market institutions, like more generous unemployment benefits in one country, affect labor market outcomes in other countries? We set up a two-country Armingtonian trade model with frictions on the goods and labor markets. Contrary to the literature, higher labor market frictions increase unemployment at home and abroad. The strength of the spillover depends on the relative size of countries and on trade costs. It is exacerbated when real wages are rigid. Using panel da...
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作者:Grinstein-Weiss, Michal; Sherraden, Michael; Gale, William G.; Rohe, William M.; Schreiner, Mark; Key, Clinton
作者单位:Washington University (WUSTL); Brookings Institution; University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
摘要:We examine the long-term effects of a 1998-2003 randomized experiment in Tulsa, Oklahoma with Individual Development Accounts that offered low-income households 2:1 matching funds for housing down payments. Prior work shows that, among households who rented in 1998, homeownership rates increased more through 2003 in the treatment group than for controls. We show that control group renters caught up rapidly with the treatment group after the experiment ended. As of 2009, the program had an econ...