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作者:Drozd, Lukasz A.; Serrano-Padial, Ricardo
作者单位:Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Philadelphia; Drexel University
摘要:We investigate the role of information technology (IT) in the collection of delinquent consumer debt. We argue that the widespread adoption of IT by the debt collection industry in the 1990s contributed to the observed expansion of unsecured risky lending such as credit cards. Our model stresses the importance of delinquency and private information about borrower solvency. The prevalence of delinquency implies that the costs of debt collection must be borne by lenders to sustain incentives to ...
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作者:Farhi, Emmanuel; Werning, Ivan
作者单位:Harvard University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
摘要:We study cross-country risk sharing as a second-best problem for members of a currency union using an open economy model with nominal rigidities and provide two key results. First, we show that if financial markets are incomplete, the value of gaining access to any given level of aggregate risk sharing is greater for countries that are members of a currency union. Second, we show that even if financial markets are complete, privately optimal risk sharing is constrained inefficient. A role emer...
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作者:Dix-Carneiro, Rafael; Kovak, Brian K.
作者单位:Duke University; Carnegie Mellon University
摘要:We study the evolution of trade liberalization's effects on Brazilian local labor markets. Regions facing larger tariff cuts experienced prolonged declines in formal sector employment and earnings relative to other regions. The impact of tariff changes on regional earnings 20 years after liberalization was three times the effect after 10 years. These increasing effects on regional earnings are inconsistent with conventional spatial equilibrium models, which predict declining effects due to spa...
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作者:Fagereng, Andreas; Guiso, Luigi; Pistaferri, Luigi
作者单位:Statistics Norway; Stanford University
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作者:Hill, Elaine; Ma, Lala
作者单位:University of Rochester; University of Kentucky
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作者:Gul, Faruk; Pesendorfer, Wolfgang; Strzalecki, Tomasz
作者单位:Princeton University; Harvard University
摘要:We introduce a notion of coarse competitive equilibrium, to study agents' inability to tailor their consumption to prices. Our goal is to incorporate limited cognitive ability (in particular limited attention, memory, and complexity) into the analysis of competitive equilibrium. Compared to standard competitive equilibrium, our concept yields more extreme prices and, when all agents have the same endowment, riskier allocations. We provide a tractable model suitable for general equilibrium anal...
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作者:Jayachandran, Seema; Pande, Rohini
作者单位:Northwestern University; Harvard University
摘要:Child stunting in India exceeds that in poorer regions like sub-Saharan Africa. Data on over 168,000 children show that, relative to Africa, India's height disadvantage increases sharply with birth order. We posit that India's steep birth order gradient is due to favoritism toward eldest sons, which affects parents' fertility decisions and resource allocation across children. We show that, within India, the gradient is steeper for high-son-preference regions and religions. The gradient also va...
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作者:McKenzie, David
作者单位:The World Bank
摘要:Almost all firms in developing countries have fewer than ten workers, with a modal size of one. Are there potential high-growth entrepreneurs, and can public policy help identify them and facilitate their growth? A large-scale national business plan competition in Nigeria provides evidence on these questions. Random assignment of US$34 million in grants provided each winner with approximately US$50,000. Surveys tracking applicants over five years show that winning leads to greater firm entry, ...
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作者:Frydman, Carola; Hilt, Eric
作者单位:Northwestern University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Wellesley College
摘要:We study the effect of financial relationships on firms' investment decisions and access to external finance. In the early twentieth century, securities underwriters commonly held directorships with American corporations. Section 10 of the Clayton Antitrust Act prohibited bankers from serving on the boards of railroads for which they underwrote securities. We find that following the implementation of Section 10, railroads with strong preexisting relationships with underwriters saw declines in ...
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作者:Mueller, Andreas I.
作者单位:Columbia University; National Bureau of Economic Research; IZA Institute Labor Economics
摘要:This paper establishes a new fact about the compositional changes in the pool of unemployed over the US business cycle. Using micro-data from the Current Population Survey for the years 1962-2012, it documents that in recessions the pool of unemployed shifts toward workers with high wages in their previous job and that these shifts are driven by the high cyclicality of separations for high-wage workers. The paper finds that standard theories of wage setting and unemployment have difficulty in ...