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作者：Kelly, Morgan; Grada, Cormac O.
作者单位：University College Dublin
摘要：Although largely absent from modern accounts of the Industrial Revolution, watches were the first mass-produced consumer durable and were Adam Smith's preeminent example of technological progress. In fact, Smith makes the notable claim that watch prices may have fallen by up to 95% over the preceding century, a claim that this article attempts to evaluate. We look at changes in the reported value of over 3,200 stolen watches from criminal trials in the Old Bailey in London from 1685 to 1810. B...
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作者：Nagel, Stefan
作者单位：National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Michigan System; University of Michigan; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR)
摘要：This article examines the link between the opportunity cost of money and time-varying liquidity premia of near-money assets. Higher interest rates imply higher opportunity costs of holding money and hence a higher premium for the liquidity service benefits of assets that are close substitutes for money. Consistent with this theory, short-term interest rates in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada have a strong positive relationship with the liquidity premium of Treasury bills and othe...
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作者：Belloc, Marianna; Drago, Francesco; Galbiati, Roberto
作者单位：Sapienza University Rome; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut; University of Messina; Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS); Institut d'Etudes Politiques Paris (Sciences Po)
摘要：This article presents a unique historical experiment to explore the dynamics of institutional change in the Middle Ages. We have assembled a novel data set, where information on political institutions for northern central Italian cities between 1000 and 1300 is matched with detailed information on the earthquakes that occurred in the area and period of interest. Exploiting the panel structure of the data, we document that the occurrence of an earthquake retarded institutional transition from a...
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作者：Kline, Patrick; Walters, Christopher R.
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：We use data from the Head Start Impact Study (HSIS) to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of Head Start, the largest early childhood education program in the United States. Head Start draws roughly a third of its participants from competing preschool programs, many of which receive public funds. We show that accounting for the fiscal impacts of such program substitution pushes estimates of Head Start's benefit-cost ratio well above one under a wide range of assumptions on the structure of the mar...
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作者：Baker, Scott R.; Bloom, Nicholas; Davis, Steven J.
作者单位：Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); Northwestern University; Stanford University; National Bureau of Economic Research; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：We develop a new index of economic policy uncertainty (EPU) based on newspaper coverage frequency. Several types of evidence-including human readings of 12,000 newspaper articles-indicate that our index proxies for movements in policy-related economic uncertainty. Our U.S. index spikes near tight presidential elections, Gulf Wars I and II, the 9/11 attacks, the failure of Lehman Brothers, the 2011 debt ceiling dispute, and other major battles over fiscal policy. Using firm-level data, we find ...
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作者：Finkelstein, Amy; Gentzkow, Matthew; Williams, Heidi
作者单位：Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); National Bureau of Economic Research; Stanford University
摘要：We study the drivers of geographic variation in U.S. health care utilization, using an empirical strategy that exploits migration of Medicare patients to separate the role of demand and supply factors. Our approach allows us to account for demand differences driven by both observable and unobservable patient characteristics. Within our sample of over-65 Medicare beneficiaries, we find that 40-50% of geographic variation in utilization is attributable to demand-side factors, including health an...
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作者：Baird, Sarah; Hicks, Joan Hamory; Kremer, Michael; Miguel, Edward
作者单位：George Washington University; University of California System; University of California Berkeley; Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：This study estimates long-run impacts of a child health investment, exploiting community-wide experimental variation in school-based deworming. The program increased labor supply among men and education among women, with accompanying shifts in labor market specialization. Ten years after deworming treatment, men who were eligible as boys stay enrolled for more years of primary school, work 17% more hours each week, spend more time in nonagricultural self-employment, are more likely to hold man...
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作者：Bordalo, Pedro; Coffman, Katherine; Gennaioli, Nicola; Shleifer, Andrei
作者单位：University of Oxford; University System of Ohio; Ohio State University; Harvard University; Bocconi University; Harvard University
摘要：We present a model of stereotypes based on Kahneman and Tversky's representativeness heuristic. A decision maker assesses a target group by overweighting its representative types, defined as the types that occur more frequently in that group than in a baseline reference group. Stereotypes formed this way contain a kernel of truth: they are rooted in true differences between groups. Because stereotypes focus on differences, they cause belief distortions, particularly when groups are similar. St...
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作者：Haushofer, Johannes; Shapiro, Jeremy
作者单位：Princeton University
摘要：We use a randomized controlled trial to study the response of poor households in rural Kenya to unconditional cash transfers from the NGO GiveDirectly. The transfers differ from other programs in that they are explicitly unconditional, large, and concentrated in time. We randomized at both the village and household levels; furthermore, within the treatment group, we randomized recipient gender (wife versus husband), transfer timing (lump-sum transfer versus monthly installments), and transfer ...
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作者：Akerlof, Robert; Holden, Richard
作者单位：University of Warwick; University of New South Wales Sydney
摘要：Most projects, in most walks of life, require the participation of multiple parties. While it is difficult to unite individuals in a common endeavor, some people, who we call movers and shakers, seem able to do it. The article specifically examines moving and shaking of an investment project, whose return depends on its quality and the total capital invested in it. We analyze a model with two types of agents: managers and investors. Managers and investors initially form social connections. Man...
