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作者：Benmelech, E; Garmaise, MJ; Moskowitz, TJ
作者单位：Harvard University; University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：We examine the impact of asset liquidation value on debt contracting using a unique set of commercial property loan contracts. We employ commercial zoning regulation to capture the flexibility of a property's permitted uses as a measure of an asset's redeployability or value in its next best use. Within a census tract, more redeployable assets receive larger loans with longer maturities and durations, lower interest rates, and fewer creditors, controlling for the property's type, sale price, a...
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作者：Currie, J; Neidell, M
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; National Bureau of Economic Research; Columbia University
摘要：We examine the impact of air pollution on infant death in California over the 1990s. Our work offers several innovations: first, most previous studies examine populations subject to far greater levels of pollution. Second, many studies examine a single pollutant in isolation. We examine three criteria pollutants in a common framework. Third, we use rich individual-level data and pollution measured at the weekly level. Our most novel finding is a significant effect of CO on infant mortality: we...
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作者：Ghironi, F; Melitz, MJ
作者单位：Boston College; Harvard University; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：We develop a stochastic, general equilibrium, two-country model of trade and macroeconomic dynamics. Productivity differs across individual, monopolistically competitive firms in each country. Firms face a sunk entry cost in the domestic market and both fixed and per-unit export costs. Only relatively more productive firms export. Exogenous shocks to aggregate productivity and entry or trade costs induce firms to enter and exit both their domestic and export markets, thus altering the composit...
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作者：Chetty, R; Saez, E
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：This paper analyzes the effects of dividend taxation on corporate behavior using the large tax cut on individual dividend income enacted in 2003. We document a 20 percent increase in dividend payments by nonfinancial, nonutility publicly traded corporations following the tax cut. An unusually large number of firms initiated or increased regular dividend payments in the year after the reform. As a result, the number of firms paying dividends began to increase in 2003 after a continuous decline ...
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作者：Jones, BF; Olken, BA
作者单位：Northwestern University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：Economic growth within countries varies sharply across decades. This paper examines one explanation for these sustained shifts in growth-changes in the national leader. We use deaths of leaders while in office as a source of exogenous variation in leadership, and ask whether these plausibly exogenous leadership transitions are associated with shifts in country growth rates. We find robust evidence that leaders matter for growth. The results suggest that the effects of individual leaders are st...
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作者：Llavador, H; Oxoby, RJ
作者单位：Pompeu Fabra University; Pompeu Fabra University; University of Calgary
摘要：We present an argument for changes in the franchise in which an elite split along economic interests uses the suffrage to influence implemented policies. Through the influence of these policies on the character of industrialization, we analyze the effects of franchise changes on economic growth. We identify in the social structure of society an explanation for the connection between enfranchisement and growth: when (1) there exists an economic conflict among the elite, (2) landed classes are n...
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作者：Fuchs-Schündeln, N; Schündeln, M
作者单位：Harvard University
摘要：We combine particular features of the German civil service with the unique event of German reunification to test the theory of precautionary savings and to quantify the importance of self-selection into occupations due to differences in risk aversion. In the presence of self-selection, failing to control for risk aversion in empirical tests of precautionary savings results in a bias that could lead to a systematic underestimation of the importance of precautionary savings. We exploit the fact ...
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作者：Luttmer, EFP
作者单位：Harvard University
摘要：This paper investigates whether individuals feel worse off when others around them earn more. In other words, do people care about relative position, and does lagging behind the Joneses diminish well-being? To answer this question, I match individual-level data containing various indicators of well-being to information about local average earnings. I find that, controlling for an individual's own income, higher earnings of neighbors are associated with lower levels of self-reported happiness. ...
