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作者：Chan, David C.; Dickstein, Michael J.
作者单位：Stanford University; National Bureau of Economic Research; New York University
摘要：In setting prices for physician services, Medicare solicits input from a committee that evaluates proposals from industry. The committee itself comprises members from industry; we investigate whether this arrangement leads to regulatory capture with prices biased toward industry interests. We find that increasing a measure of affiliation between the committee and proposers by one standard deviation increases prices by 10%. We then evaluate whether employing a biased committee as an intermediar...
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作者：Jorda, Oscar; Knoll, Katharina; Kuvshinov, Dmitry; Schularick, Moritz; Taylor, Alan M.
作者单位：Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - San Francisco; University of California System; University of California Davis; Deutsche Bundesbank; University of Bonn; University of California System; University of California Davis; National Bureau of Economic Research; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
摘要：What is the aggregate real rate of return in the economy? Is it higher than the growth rate of the economy and, if so, by how much? Is there a tendency for returns to fall in the long run? Which particular assets have the highest long-run returns? We answer these questions on the basis of a new and comprehensive data set for all major asset classes, including housing. The annual data on total returns for equity, housing, bonds, and bills cover 16 advanced economies from 1870 to 2015, and our n...
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作者：Allcott, Hunt; Lockwood, Benjamin B.; Taubinsky, Dmitry
作者单位：New York University; Microsoft; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Pennsylvania; University of Pennsylvania; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
摘要：A common objection to sin taxes-corrective taxes on goods that are thought to be overconsumed, such as cigarettes, alcohol, and sugary drinks-is that they often fall disproportionately on low-income consumers. This paper studies the interaction between corrective and redistributive motives in a general optimal taxation framework and delivers empirically implementable formulas for sufficient statistics for the optimal commodity tax. The optimal sin tax is increasing in the price elasticity of d...
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作者：Barjamovic, Gojko; Chaney, Thomas; Cosar, Kerem; Hortacsu, Ali
作者单位：Harvard University; Institut d'Etudes Politiques Paris (Sciences Po); University of Virginia; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：We analyze a large data set of commercial records produced by Assyrian merchants in the nineteenth century BCE. Using the information from these records, we estimate a structural gravity model of long-distance trade in the Bronze Age. We use our structural gravity model to locate lost ancient cities. In many cases, our estimates confirm the conjectures of historians who follow different methodologies. In some instances, our estimates confirm one conjecture against others. We also structurally ...
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作者：Kline, Patrick; Petkova, Neviana; Williams, Heidi; Zidar, Owen
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley; United States Department of the Treasury; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Princeton University
摘要：This article analyzes how patent-induced shocks to labor productivity propagate into worker compensation using a new linkage of U.S. patent applications to U.S. business and worker tax records. We infer the causal effects of patent allowances by comparing firms whose patent applications were initially allowed to those whose patent applications were initially rejected. To identify patents that are ex ante valuable, we extrapolate the excess stock return estimates of Kogan et al. (2017) to the f...
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作者：Carlana, Michela
作者单位：Harvard University
摘要：I study whether exposure to teacher stereotypes, as measured by the Gender-Science Implicit Association Test, affects student achievement. I provide evidence that the gender gap in math performance, defined as the score of boys minus the score of girls in standardized tests, substantially increases when students are assigned to math teachers with stronger gender stereotypes. Teacher stereotypes induce girls to underperform in math and self-select into less demanding high schools, following the...
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作者：Cengiz, Doruk; Dube, Arindrajit; Lindner, Attila; Zipperer, Ben
作者单位：University of Massachusetts System; University of Massachusetts Amherst; National Bureau of Economic Research; IZA Institute Labor Economics; University of London; University College London; HUN-REN; HUN-REN Centre for Economic & Regional Studies; Hungarian Academy of Sciences
摘要：We estimate the effect of minimum wages on low-wage jobs using 138 prominent state-level minimum wage changes between 1979 and 2016 in the United States using a difference-in-differences approach. We first estimate the effect of the minimum wage increase on employment changes by wage bins throughout the hourly wage distribution. We then focus on the bottom part of the wage distribution and compare the number of excess jobs paying at or slightly above the new minimum wage to the missing jobs pa...
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作者：Mbiti, Isaac; Muralidharan, Karthik; Romero, Mauricio; Schipper, Youdi; Manda, Constantine; Rajani, Rakesh
作者单位：University of Virginia; University of California System; University of California San Diego; National Bureau of Economic Research; Yale University
摘要：We present results from a large-scale randomized experiment across 350 schools in Tanzania that studied the impact of providing schools with (i) unconditional grants, (ii) teacher incentives based on student performance, and (iii) both of the above. After two years, we find (i) no impact on student test scores from providing school grants, (ii) some evidence of positive effects from teacher incentives, and (iii) significant positive effects from providing both programs. Most important, we find...
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作者：Finkelstein, Amy; Notowidigdo, Matthew J.
作者单位：Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：We develop a framework for welfare analysis of interventions designed to increase take-up of social safety net programs in the presence of potential behavioral biases. We calibrate the key parameters using a randomized field experiment in which 30,000 elderly individuals not enrolled in-but likely eligible for-the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) are either provided with information that they are likely eligible, provided with this information and offered assistance in applying...
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作者：Alan, Sule; Boneva, Teodora; Ertac, Seda
作者单位：University of Essex; Ihsan Dogramaci Bilkent University; University of Oxford; Koc University
摘要：We show that grit, a skill that has been shown to be highly predictive of achievement, is malleable in childhood and can be fostered in the classroom environment. We evaluate a randomized educational intervention implemented in two independent elementary school samples. Outcomes are measured via a novel incentivized real-effort task and performance in standardized tests. We find that treated students are more likely to exert effort to accumulate task-specific ability and hence more likely to s...
