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作者：Farhi, Emmanuel; Werning, Ivan
作者单位：Harvard University; Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
摘要：Economies with private information provide a rationale for capital taxation. In this paper we ask what the welfare gains from following this prescription are. We develop a method to answer this question in standard general equilibrium models with idiosyncratic uncertainty and incomplete markets. We find that general equilibrium forces are important and greatly reduce the welfare gains. Once these effects are taken into account, the gains are relatively small in our benchmark calibration. These...
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作者：Krishnamurthy, Arvind; Vissing-Jorgensen, Annette
作者单位：Northwestern University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR)
摘要：Investors value the liquidity and safety of US Treasuries. We document this by showing that changes in Treasury supply have large effects on a variety of yield spreads. As a result, Treasury yields are reduced by 73 basis points, on average, from 1926 to 2008. Both the liquidity and safety attributes of Treasuries are driving this phenomenon. We document this by analyzing the spread between assets with different liquidity (but similar safety) and those with different safety (but similar liquid...
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作者：Diamond, Douglas W.; Rajan, Raghuram G.
作者单位：University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：Banks finance illiquid assets with demandable deposits, which discipline bankers but expose them to damaging runs. Authorities may not want to stand by and watch banks collapse. However, unconstrained direct bailouts undermine the disciplinary role of deposits. Moreover, competition forces banks to promise depositors more, increasing intervention and making the system worse off. By contrast, constrained central bank intervention to lower rates maintains private discipline, while offsetting con...
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作者：Gowrisankaran, Gautam; Rysman, Marc
作者单位：University of Arizona; National Bureau of Economic Research; Boston University
摘要：Most new consumer durable goods experience rapid prices declines and quality improvements, suggesting the importance of modeling dynamics. This paper specifies a dynamic model of consumer preferences for new durable goods with persistently heterogeneous consumer tastes, rational expectations, and repeat purchases over time. We estimate the model on the digital camcorder industry using panel data on prices, sales, and characteristics. We find that the 1-year elasticity in response to a transito...
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作者：Glazer, Jacob; Rubinstein, Ariel
作者单位：Tel Aviv University; Boston University; New York University
摘要：A new model of persuasion is presented. A listener first announces and commits to a codex (i.e., a set of conditions). The speaker then presents a (not necessarily true) profile that must satisfy the codex in order for the listener to be persuaded. The speaker is boundedly rational in the sense that his ability to come up with a persuasive profile is limited and depends on the true profile and the content and framing of the codex. The circumstances under which the listener can design a codex t...
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作者：Dahlberg, Matz; Edmark, Karin; Lundqvist, Helene
作者单位：Uppsala University
摘要：This paper investigates the causal link between the ethnic diversity in a society and its inhabitants' preferences for redistribution. We exploit exogenous variation in immigrant shares stemming from a nationwide program placing refugees in municipalities throughout Sweden during 1985-94 and match data on refugee placement to panel survey data on inhabitants of the receiving municipalities. We find significant, negative effects of increased immigration on the support for redistribution. The ef...
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作者：Bursztyn, Leonardo; Coffman, Lucas C.
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; University System of Ohio; Ohio State University
摘要：This paper experimentally analyzes the schooling decisions of poor households in urban Brazil. We elicit parents' choices between monthly government transfers conditional on their adolescent child attending school and guaranteed, unconditional transfers of varying sizes. In the baseline treatment, an overwhelming majority of parents prefer conditional transfers to larger unconditional transfers. However, few parents prefer conditional payments if they are offered text message notifications whe...
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作者：Baker, Scott; Mezzetti, Claudio
作者单位：Washington University (WUSTL); University of Melbourne
摘要：We examine a dynamic model of up-or-down problem solving. A decision maker can either spend resources investigating a new problem before deciding what to do or decide on the basis of similarity with precedent problems. Over time, a decision-making framework, or jurisprudence, develops. We focus on the model's application to judge-made law. We show that judges summarily apply precedent in some cases. The law may converge to efficient or inefficient rules. With positive probability, identical ca...
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作者：Sargent, Thomas J.
作者单位：New York University
摘要：Under the Articles of Confederation, the central government of the United States had limited power to tax. Therefore, large debts accumulated during the US War for Independence traded at deep discounts. That situation framed a US fiscal crisis in the 1780s. A political revolution-for that was what scuttling the Articles of Confederation in favor of the Constitution of the United States of America was-solved the fiscal crisis by transferring authority to levy tariffs from the states to the fede...
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作者：di Giovanni, Julian; Levchenko, Andrei A.
作者单位：International Monetary Fund; University of Michigan System; University of Michigan; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：This paper proposes a new mechanism by which country size and international trade affect macroeconomic volatility. We study a model with heterogeneous firms that are subject to idiosyncratic firm-specific shocks, calibrated to data for the 50 largest economies in the world. When the firm size distribution follows a power law with an exponent close to minus one, idiosyncratic shocks to large firms have an impact on aggregate volatility. Smaller countries have fewer firms and, thus, higher volat...
