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作者：Gentzkow, M; Shapiro, JM
作者单位：University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：A Bayesian consumer who is uncertain about the quality of an information source will infer that the source is of higher quality when its reports conform to the consumer's prior expectations. We use this fact to build a model of media bias in which firms slant their reports toward the prior beliefs of their customers in order to build a reputation for quality. Bias emerges in our model even though it can make all market participants worse off. The model predicts that bias will be less severe wh...
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作者：Almond, Douglas
作者单位：Columbia University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：This paper uses the 1918 influenza pandemic as a natural experiment for testing the fetal origins hypothesis. The pandemic arrived unexpectedly in the fall of 1918 and had largely subsided by January 1919, generating sharp predictions for long-term effects. Data from the 1960-80 decennial U. S. Census indicate that cohorts in utero during the pandemic displayed reduced educational attainment, increased rates of physical disability, lower income, lower socioeconomic status, and higher transfer ...
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作者：Becker, GS; Murphy, KM; Grossman, M
作者单位：University of Chicago; City University of New York (CUNY) System; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：This paper considers the costs of reducing consumption of a good by making its production illegal and punishing apprehended illegal producers. We use illegal drugs as a prominent example. We show that the more inelastic either demand for or supply of a good is, the greater the increase in social cost from further reducing its production by greater enforcement efforts. So optimal public expenditures on apprehension and conviction of illegal suppliers depend not only on the difference between th...
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作者：Edlin, Aaron S.; Karaca-Mandic, Pinar
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research; RAND Corporation
摘要：We estimate auto accident externalities ( more specifically insurance externalities) using panel data on state-average insurance premiums and loss costs. Externalities appear to be substantial in traffic-dense states: in California, for example, we find that the increase in traffic density from a typical additional driver increases total statewide insurance costs of other drivers by $1,725-$3,239 per year, depending on the model. High-traffic density states have large economically and statisti...
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作者：Chan, Tat Y.; Hamilton, Barton H.
作者单位：Washington University (WUSTL)
摘要：Many randomized experiments are plagued by attrition, even among subjects receiving more effective treatments. We estimate the subject's utility associated with the receipt of treatment, as revealed by dropout behavior, to evaluate treatment effects. Utility is a function of both publicly observed outcomes and side effects privately observed by the subject. We analyze an influential AIDS clinical trial, ACTG 175, and show that for many subjects, AZT yields the highest level of utility despite ...
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作者：Qian, YY; Roland, G; Xu, CG
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
摘要：We compare the performance of organizational forms (M-form and U-form) in experimenting with uncertain projects. In our framework, organizational forms affect the information structure of an organization and thus the way to coordinate changes. Compared to the U-form, the M-form organization achieves better coordination in attribute matching but suffers from coordination in attribute compatibility and less gains in specialization. The distinctive advantage of the M-form is its flexibility in ch...
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作者：Perotti, EC; von Thadden, EL
作者单位：University of Amsterdam; University of Mannheim
摘要：In a democracy, a political majority can influence both the corporate governance structure and the return to human and financial capital. We argue that when financial wealth is sufficiently concentrated, there is political support for high labor rents and a strong governance role for banks or large investors. The model is consistent with the great reversal phenomenon in the first half of the twentieth century. We offer evidence that in several financially developed countries a financially weak...
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作者：Doepke, Matthias; Schneider, Martin
作者单位：National Bureau of Economic Research; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Minneapolis; New York University
摘要：This study quantitatively assesses the effects of inflation through changes in the value of nominal assets. It documents nominal asset positions in the United States across sectors and groups of households and estimates the wealth redistribution caused by a moderate inflation episode. The main losers from inflation are rich, old households, the major bondholders in the economy. The main winners are young, middle-class households with fixed-rate mortgage debt. Besides transferring resources fro...
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作者：Murphy, Kevin M.; Topel, Robert H.
作者单位：University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：We develop a framework for valuing improvements in health and apply it to past and prospective reductions in mortality in the United States. We calculate social values of (i) increased longevity over the twentieth century, (ii) progress against various diseases after 1970, and (iii) potential future progress against major diseases. Cumulative gains in life expectancy after 1900 were worth over $1.2 million to the representative American in 2000, whereas post-1970 gains added about $3.2 trillio...
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作者：Brown, JD; Earle, JS; Telegdy, A
作者单位：Heriot Watt University; Central European University; HUN-REN; HUN-REN Centre for Economic & Regional Studies; Institute of Economics - HAS; Hungarian Academy of Sciences
摘要：This paper estimates the effect of privatization on multifactor productivity using comprehensive panel data on initially state-owned manufacturing firms in four economies. We exploit the data's longitudinal dimension to control for preprivatization selection and estimate long-run impacts. The estimates are robust to functional form but sensitive to selection controls. Our preferred random growth estimates imply positive multifactor productivity effects of 15 percent in Romania, 8 percent in Hu...
