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作者：Olken, Benjamin A.; Singhal, Monica
作者单位：Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); National Bureau of Economic Research; Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：Informal payments are a frequently overlooked source of local public finance in developing countries. We use microdata from ten countries to establish stylized facts on the magnitude, form, and distributional implications of this informal taxation. Informal taxation is widespread, particularly in rural areas, with substantial in-kind labor payments. The wealthy pay more, but pay less in percentage terms, and informal taxes are more regressive than formal taxes. Failing to include informal taxa...
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作者：Almond, Douglas; Mazumder, Bhashkar
作者单位：Columbia University; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Chicago
摘要：This paper uses the Islamic holy month of Ramadan as a natural experiment in diurnal fasting and fetal health. Among births to Arab parents in Michigan, we find prenatal exposure to Ramadan results in lower birth weight. Exposure in the first month of gestation also reduces the number of male births. Turning to long-term fetal origins effects, we find Muslims in Uganda and Iraq are 20 percent more likely to be disabled as adults if early pregnancy overlapped with Ramadan. Estimated effects are...
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作者：Di Tella, Rafael; Franceschelli, Ignacio
作者单位：Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Northwestern University
摘要：We construct measures of the extent to which the four main newspapers in Argentina report government corruption on their front page during the period 1998-2007 and correlate them with government advertising. The correlation is negative. The size is considerable-a one standard deviation increase in monthly government advertising is associated with a reduction in the coverage of the government's corruption scandals of 0.23 of a front page per month, or 18 percent of a standard deviation in cover...
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作者：Bardhan, Pranab; Mookherjee, Dilip
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley; Boston University
摘要：We examine the role of delivery of subsidized seeds and fertilizers in the form of agricultural minikits by local governments in three successive farm panels in West Bengal spanning 1982-1995. These programs significantly raised farm value added per acre, accounting for almost two-thirds of the observed growth. The estimates are robust to possible endogeneity of program placement, controls for farm and year effects, other programs of agricultural development, local weather, and price shocks. T...
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作者：Miguel, Edward; Satyanath, Shanker
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research; New York University
摘要：Miguel, Satyanath, and Ernest Sergenti (2004), henceforth MSS, show that economic growth is negatively related to civil conflict in Africa, using annual rainfall variation as an IV for growth. Antonio Ciccone (2011) argues that thanks to rainfall's mean-reverting nature, rainfall levels are preferable to annual changes. We make three points. First, MSS's findings hold using rainfall levels as instruments. Second, Ciccone (2011) does not provide theoretical justification for preferring rainfall...
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作者：Deschenes, Olivier; Greenstone, Michael
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara; National Bureau of Economic Research; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Brookings Institution
摘要：Using random year-to-year variation in temperature, we document the relationship between daily temperatures and annual mortality rates and daily temperatures and annual residential energy consumption. Both relationships exhibit nonlinearities, with significant increases at the extremes of the temperature distribution. The application of these results to business as usual climate predictions indicates that by the end of the century climate change will lead to increases of 3 percent in the age-a...
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作者：Stephens, Melvin, Jr.; Unayama, Takashi
作者单位：University of Michigan System; University of Michigan; Kobe University
摘要：Japanese public pension benefits, which were distributed quarterly through February 1990, and every other month since then, induce substantial but predictable income fluctuations. The relative magnitude of the payments combined with the delay between payments yields a stronger test of the Life-Cycle/Permanent Income Hypothesis than in prior studies. Applying two identification strategies to monthly household panel data, we find that consumption significantly responds to quarterly benefit recei...
