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作者：Aghion, P; Alesina, A; Trebbi, F
作者单位：Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); Harvard University; Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR); National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：A fundamental aspect of institutional design is how much society chooses to delegate unchecked power to its leaders. If, once elected, a leader cannot be restrained, society runs the risk of a tyranny of the majority, if not the tyranny of a dictator. If a leader faces too many ex post checks and balances, legislative action is too often blocked. As our critical constitutional choice, we focus upon the size of the minority needed to block legislation, or conversely the size of the (super)major...
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作者：Alcalá, F; Ciccone, A
作者单位：University of Murcia; Pompeu Fabra University
摘要：We find that international trade has an economically significant and statistically robust positive effect on productivity. Our trade measure is imports plus exports relative to purchasing power parity GDP (real openness), which we argue is preferable on theoretical grounds to the nominal measure conventionally used. We also find a significantly positive aggregate scale effect. Our estimates control for proxies of institutional quality as well as geography and take into account the endogeneity ...
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作者：Lizzeri, A; Persico, N
作者单位：New York University; University of Pennsylvania
摘要：A new rationale is presented for why an elite may want to expand the franchise even in the absence of threats to the established order. Expanding the franchise can turn politicians away from particularistic politics based on ad personam redistribution within the elite and foster competition based on programs with diffuse benefits. If these programs are valuable, a majority of the elite votes in favor of an extension of the franchise despite the absence of a threat from the disenfranchised. We ...
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作者：Finkelstein, A
作者单位：Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：Public policies designed to increase utilization of existing technologies may also affect incentives to develop new technologies. This paper investigates this phenomenon by examining policies designed to increase usage of preexisting vaccines. I find that these policies were associated with a 2.5-fold increase in clinical trials for new vaccines. For several diseases, the induced innovation is socially wasteful, though small in magnitude. In one case, however, the dynamic social welfare benefi...
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作者：Schott, PK
作者单位：Yale University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：This paper exploits product-level U.S. import data to test trade theory. Although the United States increasingly sources the same products from both high- and low-wage countries, unit values within products vary systematically with exporter relative factor endowments and exporter production techniques. These facts reject factor-proportions specialization across products but are consistent with such specialization within products. The data are inconsistent with new trade theory models predictin...
