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作者：La Porta, R; López-De-Silanes, F
作者单位：Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：Critics of privatization argue that the increased profitability of privatized companies comes at the expense of society. Using data from 97 percent of those nonfinancial firms privatized in Mexico during the period 1983-1991, we study two channels for social losses: (1) increased prices, and (2) layoffs and lower wages. Privatization is followed by a 24-percentage-point increase in the mean ratio of operating income to sales as firms catch up with industry-matched control groups. We estimate t...
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作者：Rabin, M; Schrag, JL
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley; Emory University
摘要：Psychological research indicates that people have a cognitive bias that leads them to misinterpret new information as supporting previously held hypotheses. We show in a simple model that such confirmatory bias induces overconfidence: given any probabilistic assessment by an agent that one of two hypotheses is true, the appropriate beliefs would deem it less likely to be true. Indeed, the hypothesis that the agent believes in may be more Likely to be wrong than right. We also show that the age...
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作者：Lee, DS
作者单位：Princeton University
摘要：The magnitude of growth in underlying wage inequality in the United States during the 1980s is obscured by a concurrent decline in the federal minimum wage, which itself could cause an increase in observed wage inequality. This study uses regional variation in the relative level of the federal minimum wage to separately identify the impact of the minimum wage from nationwide growth in latent wage dispersion during the 1980s. The analysis suggests that the minimum wage can account for much of t...
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作者：Isham, J; Kaufmann, D
作者单位：University System of Maryland; University of Maryland College Park; The World Bank
摘要：Using economic rates of return from World Bank-funded investments, we investigate how country characteristics and policies that influence aggregate performance affect investment productivity. Controlling for other characteristics, countries with undistorted (distorted) macroeconomic, exchange rate, trade, and pricing policies have highly productive (unproductive) investments. No type of project-in tradable or nontradable sectors-can be insulated from poor policies, where returns on investments...
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作者：Newell, RG; Jaffe, AB; Stavins, RN
作者单位：Brandeis University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Harvard University
摘要：We develop a methodology for testing Hicks's induced innovation hypothesis by estimating a product-characteristics model of energy-using consumer durables, augmenting the hypothesis to allow for the influence of government regulations. For the products we explored, the evidence suggests that (i) the rate of overall innovation was independent of energy prices and regulations; (ii) the direction of innovation was responsive to energy price changes for some products but not for others; (iii) ener...
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作者：Perotti, R
作者单位：Columbia University; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
摘要：In the 1980s several countries with large government debt or deficit implemented substantial, and in some cases drastic, deficit cuts. Contrary to widespread expectations, in many cases private consumption boomed rather than contracted. This paper shows that in times of fiscal stress'' shocks to government revenues and, especially, expenditure have very different effects on private consumption than in normal'' times.
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作者：Krueger, AB
作者单位：Princeton University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：This paper analyzes data on 11,600 students and their teachers who were randomly assigned to different size classes from kindergarten through third grade. Statistical methods are used to adjust for nonrandom attrition and transitions between classes. The main conclusions are (1) on average, performance on standardized tests increases by four percentile points the first year students attend small classes; (2) the test score advantage of students in small classes expands by about one percentile ...
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作者：Hall, RE; Jones, CI
作者单位：Stanford University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：Output per worker varies enormously across countries. Why? On an accounting basis our analysis shows that differences in physical capital and educational attainment can only partially explain the variation in output per worker-we find a large amount of variation in the level of the Solow residual across countries. At a deeper level, we document that the differences in capital accumulation, productivity, and therefore output per worker are driven by differences in institutions and government po...
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作者：Hamermesh, DS
作者单位：University of Texas System; University of Texas Austin; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：Among U.S. industries where earnings rose relatively from 1979-1995, injury rates declined relatively. Obversely, during the 1960s narrowing interindustry wage differentials were associated with an increase in the relative risk of injury in high-wage industries. Evidence from the NLSY suggests similar results among full-time workers between 1988 and 1996. Between 1973 and 1991 the disamenity of evening/night work was increasingly borne by low-wage male workers. Changing earnings inequality has...
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作者：Dotsey, M; King, RG; Wolman, AL
作者单位：University of Virginia; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Richmond; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：Economists have long suggested that nominal product prices are changed infrequently because of fixed costs. In such a setting, optimal price adjustment should depend on the state of the economy. Yet, while widely discussed, state-dependent pricing has proved difficult to incorporate into macroeconomic models. This paper develops a new, tractable theoretical state-dependent pricing framework. We use it to study how optimal pricing depends on the persistence of monetary shocks, the elasticities ...
