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作者：Holmes, Thomas J.; Stevens, John J.
作者单位：University of Minnesota System; University of Minnesota Twin Cities; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Minneapolis; National Bureau of Economic Research; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve System Board of Governors
摘要：There is wide variation in the sizes of manufacturing plants, even within the most narrowly defined industry classifications. Standard theories attribute such size differences to productivity differences. This paper develops an alternative theory in which industries are made up of large plants producing standardized goods and small plants making custom or specialty goods. It uses confidential census data to estimate the parameters of the model. The model fits the data well. In particular, the ...
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作者：Fu, Chao
作者单位：University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison
摘要：I develop and estimate a structural equilibrium model of the college market. Students, having heterogeneous abilities and preferences, make application decisions subject to uncertainty and application costs. Colleges, observing noisy measures of student ability, choose tuition and admissions policies to compete for better students. Tuition, applications, admissions, and enrollment are joint equilibrium outcomes. I estimate the model using the NLSY97 via a three-step procedure to deal with pote...
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作者：Abramitzky, Ran; Boustan, Leah Platt; Eriksson, Katherine
作者单位：Stanford University; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; California State University System; California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo
摘要：During the Age of Mass Migration (1850-1913), the United States maintained an open border, absorbing 30 million European immigrants. Prior cross-sectional work finds that immigrants initially held lower-paid occupations than natives but converged over time. In newly assembled panel data, we show that, in fact, the average immigrant did not face a substantial occupation-based earnings penalty upon first arrival and experienced occupational advancement at the same rate as natives. Cross-sectiona...
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作者：Eeckhout, Jan; Pinheiro, Roberto; Schmidheiny, Kurt
作者单位：University of London; University College London; Pompeu Fabra University; University of Colorado System; University of Colorado Boulder; University of Basel
摘要：We investigate the role of skill complementarities in production and mobility across cities. The nature of the complementarities determines the equilibrium skill distribution across cities. With extreme-skill complementarity, the skill distribution has thicker tails in large cities; with top-skill complementarity, there is first-order stochastic dominance. Using wage and housing price data, we find robust evidence of thick tails in large cities: large cities disproportionately attract both hig...
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作者：Clark, Damon; Martorell, Paco
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Irvine; National Bureau of Economic Research; RAND Corporation; Rand Health
摘要：This paper distinguishes between the human capital and signaling theories by estimating the earnings return to a high school diploma. Unlike most indicators of education (e.g., a year of school), a diploma is essentially a piece of paper and, hence, by itself cannot affect productivity. Any earnings return to holding a diploma must therefore reflect the diploma's signaling value. Using regression discontinuity methods to compare the earnings of workers who barely passed and barely failed high ...
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作者：Acemoglu, Daron; Johnson, Simon
作者单位：Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
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作者：Fisman, Raymond; Schulz, Florian; Vig, Vikrant
作者单位：Columbia University; University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; University of London; London Business School
摘要：We study the wealth accumulation of Indian state politicians using public disclosures required of all candidates. The annual asset growth of winners is 3-5 percent higher than that of runners-up, a difference that holds also in a set of close elections. The relative asset growth of winners is greater in more corrupt states and for those holding ministerial positions. These results are consistent with a rent-seeking explanation for the relatively high rate of growth in winners' assets.
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作者：Perla, Jesse; Tonetti, Christopher
作者单位：University of British Columbia; Stanford University
摘要：The least productive agents in an economy can be vital in generating growth by spurring technology diffusion. We develop an analytically tractable model in which growth is created as a positive externality from risk taking by firms at the bottom of the productivity distribution imitating more productive firms. Heterogeneous firms choose to produce or pay a cost and search within the economy to upgrade their technology. Sustained growth comes from the feedback between the endogenously determine...
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作者：Hansen, Lars Peter
作者单位：University of Chicago
摘要：We must infer what the future situation would be without our interference, and what changes will be wrought by our actions. Fortunately, or unfortunately, none of these processes is infallible, or indeed ever accurate and complete. (Knight 1921, 201-2)
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作者：Guvenen, Fatih; Ozkan, Serdar; Song, Jae
作者单位：University of Minnesota System; University of Minnesota Twin Cities; National Bureau of Economic Research; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve System Board of Governors
摘要：We study business cycle variation in individual earnings risk using a confidential and very large data set from the US Social Security Administration. Contrary to past research, we find that the variance of idiosyncratic shocks is not countercyclical. Instead, it is the left-skewness of shocks that is strongly countercyclical: during recessions, large upward earnings movements become less likely, whereas large drops in earnings become more likely. Second, we find that the fortunes during reces...
