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作者:Ho, Christine; Pavoni, Nicola
作者单位:Singapore Management University; Bocconi University; Bocconi University
摘要:We study the design of child care subsidies in an optimal welfare problem with heterogeneous private market productivities. The optimal subsidy schedule is qualitatively similar to the existing US scheme. Efficiency mandates a subsidy on formal child care costs, with higher subsidies paid to lower income earners and a kink as a function of child care expenditure. Marginal labor income tax rates are set lower than the labor wedges, with the potential to generate negative marginal tax rates. We ...
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作者:Oprea, Ryan
作者单位:University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara
摘要:We study the complexity of rules by paying experimental subjects to implement a series of algorithms and then eliciting their willingness-to-pay to avoid implementing them again in the future. The design allows us to examine hypotheses from the theoretical automata literature about the characteristics of rules that generate complexity costs. We find substantial aversion to complexity and a number of regularities in the characteristics of rules that make them complex and costly for subjects. Ex...
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作者:Fink, Guenther; Jack, B. Kelsey; Masiye, Felix
作者单位:Swiss School of Public Health (SSPH+); University of Basel; Swiss Tropical & Public Health Institute; University of Basel; University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要:Rural economies in many developing countries are characterized by a lean season in the months preceding harvest, when farmers have depleted their cash and grain savings from the previous year. To identify the impacts of liquidity during the lean season, we offered subsidized loans in randomly selected villages in rural Zambia. Ninety-eight percent of households took up the loan. Loan eligibility led to increases in on-farm labor and agricultural output, driving up wages in local labor markets....
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作者:Johnson, Matthew S.
作者单位:Duke University
摘要:Publicizing firms' socially undesirable actions may enhance firms' incentives to avoid such actions. In 2009, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) began issuing press releases about facilities that violated safety and health regulations. Using quasi-random variation arising from a cutoff rule OSHA followed, I find that publicizing a facility's violations led other facilities to substantially improve their compliance and experience fewer occupational injuries. OSHA would nee...
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作者:Polisson, Matthew; Quah, John K-H; Renou, Ludovic
作者单位:University of Bristol; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Johns Hopkins University; National University of Singapore; University of London; Queen Mary University London; University of Adelaide
摘要:We develop a nonparametric method, called Generalized Restriction of Infinite Domains (GRID), for testing the consistency of budgetary choice data with models of choice under risk and under uncertainty. Our test can allow for risk-loving and elation-seeking attitudes, or it can require risk aversion. It can also be used to calculate, via Afriat's efficiency index, the magnitude of violations from a particular model. We evaluate the performance of various models under risk (expected utility, di...
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作者:Bauer, Michael D.; Rudebusch, Glenn D.
作者单位:Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - San Francisco
摘要:Macro finance theory implies that trend inflation and the equilibrium real interest rate are fundamental determinants of the yield curve. However, empirical models of the term structure of interest rates generally assume that these fundamentals are constant. We show that accounting for time variation in these underlying long-run trends is crucial for understanding the dynamics of Treasury yields and predicting excess bond returns. We introduce a new arbitrage-free model that captures the key r...
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作者:Baranov, Victoria; Bhalotra, Sonia; Biroli, Pietro; Maselko, Joanna
作者单位:University of Melbourne; University of Essex; University of Zurich; University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
摘要:We evaluate the medium-term impacts of treating maternal depression on women's mental health, financial empowerment, and parenting decisions. We leverage variation induced by a cluster-randomized controlled trial that provided psychotherapy to 903 prenatally depressed mothers in rural Pakistan. It was one of the world's largest psych-otherapy interventions, and it dramatically reduced postpartum depression. Seven years after psychotherapy concluded, we returned to the study site to find that i...
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作者:Sanktjohanser, Anna
作者单位:Yale University
摘要:I consider a repeated game in which, due to imperfect monitoring, no collusion can be sustained. I add a self- interested monitor who commits to obtain private signals of firms' actions and sends a public message. The monitor makes an offer specifying the precision of the signals obtained and the amount to be paid in return. First, with a low monitoring cost, collusive equilibria exist. Second, collusive equilibria are monitor-preferred. Third, in monitor-preferred equilibria, firms' payoffs a...