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作者：Alsan, Marcella
作者单位：Stanford University
摘要：The TseTse fly is unique to Africa and transmits a parasite harmful to humans and lethal to livestock. This paper tests the hypothesis that the TseTse reduced the ability of Africans to generate an agricultural surplus historically. Ethnic groups inhabiting TseTse-suitable areas were less likely to use domesticated animals and the plow, less likely to be politically centralized, and had a lower population density. These correlations are not found in the tropics outside of Africa, where the fly...
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作者：Cicala, Steve
作者单位：University of Chicago
摘要：This paper evaluates changes in fuel procurement practices by coal -and gas-fired power plants in the United States following state-level legislation that ended cost-of-service regulation of electricity generation. I find that deregulated plants substantially reduce the price paid for coal (but not gas) and tend to employ less capital-intensive sulfur abatement techniques relative to matched plants that were not subject to any regulatory change. Deregulation also led to a shift toward more pro...
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作者：Grubb, Michael D.; Osborne, Matthew
作者单位：Boston College; University of Toronto; University of Toronto
摘要：Following FCC pressure to end bill shock, cellular carriers now alert customers when they exceed usage allowances. We estimate a model of plan choice, usage, and learning using a 2002-2004 panel of cellular bills. Accounting for firm price adjustment, we predict that implementing alerts in 2002-2004 would have lowered average annual consumer welfare by $33. We show that consumers are inattentive to past usage, meaning that bill-shock alerts are informative. Additionally, our estimates imply th...
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作者：Ketcham, Jonathan D.; Lucarelli, Claudio; Powers, Christopher A.
作者单位：Arizona State University; Arizona State University-Tempe; Universidad de los Andes - Chile; University of Pennsylvania; CMS Alliance to Modernize Healthcare; Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
摘要：We study whether people became less likely to switch Medicare prescription drug plans (PDPs) due to more options and more time in Part D. Panel data for a random 20 percent sample of enrollees from 2006-2010 show that 50 percent were not in their original PDPs by 2010. Individuals switched PDPs in response to higher costs of their status quo plans, saving them money. Contrary to choice overload, larger choice sets increased switching unless the additional plans were relatively expensive. Neith...
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作者：Kendall, Chad; Nannicini, Tommaso; Trebbi, Francesco
作者单位：University of British Columbia; Bocconi University; Bocconi University
摘要：In a large-scale controlled trial in collaboration with the reelection campaign of an Italian incumbent mayor, we administered (randomized) messages about the candidate's valence or ideology. Informational treatments affected both actual votes in the precincts and individual vote declarations. Campaigning on valence brought more votes to the incumbent, but both messages affected voters' beliefs. Cross-learning occurred, as voters who received information about the incumbent also updated their ...
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作者：Koijen, Ralph S. J.; Yogo, Motohiro
作者单位：University of London; London Business School; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Minneapolis
摘要：During the financial crisis, life insurers sold long-term policies at deep discounts relative to actuarial value. The average markup was as low as -19 percent for annuities and -57 percent for life insurance. This extraordinary pricing behavior was due to financial and product market frictions, interacting with statutory reserve regulation that allowed life insurers to record far less than a dollar of reserve per dollar of future insurance liability. We identify the shadow cost of capital thro...
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作者：McRae, Shaun
作者单位：University of Michigan System; University of Michigan
摘要：Electricity and water are often subsidized in developing countries to increase their affordability for low-income households. Ideally, such subsidies would create sufficient demand in poor neighborhoods to encourage private investment in their infrastructure. Instead, many regions receiving large subsidies have precarious distribution networks supplying users who never pay. Using a structural model of household electricity demand in Colombia, I predict the change in consumption and profits fro...
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作者：Ok, Efe A.; Ortoleva, Pietro; Riella, Gil
作者单位：New York University; Columbia University; Universidade de Brasilia
摘要：This paper develops axiomatically a revealed preference theory of reference-dependent choice behavior. Instead of taking the reference for an agent as exogenously given in the description of a choice problem, we suitably relax the Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference to obtain, endogenously, the existence of reference alternatives as well as the structure of choice behavior conditional on those alternatives. We show how this model captures some well-known choice patterns such as the attraction ef...
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作者：Gowrisankaran, Gautam; Nevo, Aviv; Town, Robert
作者单位：University of Arizona; Universite de Montreal; HEC Montreal; National Bureau of Economic Research; Northwestern University; University of Pennsylvania
摘要：We estimate a bargaining model of competition between hospitals and managed care organizations (MCOs) and use the estimates to evaluate the effects of hospital mergers. We find that MCO bargaining restrains hospital prices significantly. The model demonstrates the potential impact of coinsurance rates, which allow MCOs to partly steer patients toward cheaper hospitals. We show that increasing patient coinsurance tenfold would reduce prices by 16 percent. We find that a proposed hospital acquis...
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作者：Rothstein, Jesse
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
摘要：Teacher contracts that condition pay and retention on demonstrated performance can improve selection into and out of teaching. I study alternative contracts in a simulated teacher labor market that incorporates dynamic self-selection and Bayesian learning. Bonus policies create only modest incentives and thus have small effects on selection. Reductions in tenure rates can have larger effects, but must be accompanied by substantial salary increases; elimination of tenure confers little addition...
