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作者:Juhasz, Reka
作者单位:Columbia University
摘要:This paper uses a natural experiment to estimate the causal effect of temporary trade protection on long-term economic development. I find that regions in the French Empire which became better protected from trade with the British for exogenous reasons during the Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815) increased capacity in mechanized cotton spinning to a larger extent than regions which remained more exposed to trade. In the long run, regions with exogenously higher spinning capacity had higher activity ...
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作者:Ulyssea, Gabriel
作者单位:University of Oxford
摘要:This paper develops and estimates an equilibrium model where heterogeneous firms can exploit two margins of informality: (i) not register their business, the extensive margin: and (ii) hire workers off the books, the intensive margin. The model encompasses the main competing frameworks for understanding informality and provides a natural setting to infer their empirical relevance. The counterfactual analysis shows that once the intensive margin is accounted for, firm and labor informality need...
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作者:Bastos, Paulo; Silva, Joana; Verhoogen, Eric
作者单位:The World Bank; The World Bank; Columbia University
摘要:This paper examines the relationship between the destination of exports and the input prices paid by firms, using detailed customs and firm-product-level data from Portugal. Both ordinary least squares regressions and an instrumental-variable strategy using exchange-rate movements (interacted with. indicators for initial exports) as a source of variation in destinations indicate that exporting to richer countries leads firms to pay higher prices for inputs, other things equal. The results are ...
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作者:Xu, Guo
作者单位:University of California System; University of California Berkeley
摘要:I combine newly digitized personnel and public finance data from the British colonial administration for the period 1854-1966 to study how patronage affects the promotion and incentives of governors. Governors are more likely to be promoted to higher salaried colonies when connected to their superior during the period of patronage. Once allocated, they provide more tax exemptions, raise less revenue, and invest less. The promotion and performance gaps disappear after the abolition of patronage...
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作者:Bergemann, Dirk; Bonatti, Alessandro; Smolin, Alex
作者单位:Yale University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); University of Bonn
摘要:A data buyer faces a decision problem under uncertainty. He can augment his initial private information with supplemental data from a data seller. His willingness to pay for supplemental data is determined by the quality of his initial private information. The data seller optimally offers a menu of statistical experiments. We establish the properties that any revenue-maximizing menu of experiments must satisfy. Every experiment is a non-dispersed stochastic matrix, and every menu contains a fu...
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作者:Blumenstock, Joshua; Callen, Michael; Ghani, Tarek
作者单位:University of California System; University of California Berkeley; University of California System; University of California San Diego; Washington University (WUSTL)
摘要:We report on an experiment examining why default options impact behavior. By randomly assigning employees to different varieties of a salary-linked savings account, we find that default enrollment increases participation by 40 percentage points-an effect equivalent to providing a 50 percent matching incentive. We then use a series of experimental interventions to differentiate between explanations for the default effect, which we conclude is driven largely by present-biased preferences and the...
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作者:Qin, Bei; Stromberg, David; Wu, Yanhui
作者单位:University of Hong Kong; Stockholm University; University of Southern California
摘要:This paper examines whether and how market competition affected the political bias of government-owned newspapers in China from 1981 to 2011. We measure media bias based on coverage of government mouthpiece content (propaganda) relative to commercial content. We first find that a reform that forced newspaper exits (reduced competition) affected media bias by increasing product specialization, with some papers focusing on propaganda and others on commercial content. Second, lower-level governme...
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作者:Dinerstein, Michael; Einav, Liran; Levin, Jonathan; Sundaresan, Neel
作者单位:University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research; Stanford University; Stanford University; Microsoft
摘要:The platform design, the process that helps potential buyers on the internet navigate toward products they may purchase, plays a - critical role in reducing search frictions and determining market outcomes. We study a key - trade-off associated with two important roles of - efficient platform design: guiding consumers to their most desired product while also strengthening seller incentives to lower prices. We use simple theory to illustrate this, and then combine detailed browsing data from eB...
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作者:Shapiro, Joseph S.; Walker, Reed
作者单位:University of California System; University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要:Between 1990 and 2008, air pollution emissions from US manufacturing fell by 60 percent despite a substantial increase in manufacturing output. We show that these emissions reductions are primarily driven by within-product changes in emissions intensity rather than changes in output or in the composition of products produced. We then develop and estimate a quantitative model linking trade with the environment to better understand the economic forces driving these changes. Our estimates suggest...
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作者:Carrell, Scott E.; Hoekstra, Mark; Kuka, Elira
作者单位:University of California System; University of California Davis; National Bureau of Economic Research; Texas A&M University System; Texas A&M University College Station; Southern Methodist University
摘要:A large and growing literature has documented the importance of peer effects in education. However, there is relatively little evidence on the long-run educational and labor market consequences of childhood peers. We examine this question by linking administrative data on elementary school students to subsequent test scores, college attendance and completion, and earnings. To distinguish the effect of peers from confounding factors, we exploit the population variation in the proportion of chil...