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作者：Schmieder, Johannes F.; von Wachter, Till; Bender, Stefan
作者单位：Boston University; Columbia University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：One goal of extending the duration of unemployment insurance (UI) in recessions is to increase UI coverage in the face of longer unemployment spells. Although it is a common concern that such extensions may themselves raise nonemployment durations, it is not known how recessions would affect the magnitude of this moral hazard. To obtain causal estimates of the differential effects of UI in booms and recessions, this article exploits the fact that in Germany, potential UI benefit duration is a ...
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作者：Eggertsson, Gauti B.; Krugman, Paul
作者单位：Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - New York; Princeton University
摘要：In this article we present a simple new Keynesian-style model of debt-driven slumps-that is, situations in which an overhang of debt on the part of some agents, who are forced into rapid deleveraging, is depressing aggregate demand. Making some agents debt-constrained is a surprisingly powerful assumption. Fisherian debt deflation, the possibility of a liquidity trap, the paradox of thrift and toil, a Keynesian-type multiplier, and a rationale for expansionary fiscal policy all emerge naturall...
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作者：Voigtlaender, Nico; Voth, Hans-Joachim
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; National Bureau of Economic Research; ICREA; Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI); Pompeu Fabra University
摘要：How persistent are cultural traits? Using data on anti-Semitism in Germany, we find local continuity over 600 years. Jews were often blamed when the Black Death killed at least a third of Europe's population during 1348-50. We use plague-era pogroms as an indicator for medieval anti-Semitism. They reliably predict violence against Jews in the 1920s, votes for the Nazi Party, deportations after 1933, attacks on synagogues, and letters to Der Sturmer. We also identify areas where persistence was...
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作者：Gabaix, Xavier
作者单位：New York University
摘要：This article incorporates a time-varying severity of disasters into the hypothesis proposed by Rietz (1988) and Barro (2006) that risk premia result from the possibility of rare large disasters. During a disaster an asset's fundamental value falls by a time-varying amount. This in turn generates time-varying risk premia and, thus, volatile asset prices and return predictability. Using the recent technique of linearity-generating processes, the model is tractable and all prices are exactly solv...
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作者：Besley, Timothy J.; Burchardi, Konrad B.; Ghatak, Maitreesh
作者单位：University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
摘要：This paper explores the consequences of improving property rights to facilitate the use of fixed assets as collateral, popularly attributed to the influential policy advocate Hernando de Soto. We use an equilibrium model of a credit market with moral hazard to characterize the theoretical effects and also develop a quantitative analysis using data from Sri Lanka. We show that the effects are likely to be nonlinear and heterogeneous by wealth group. They also depend on the extent of competition...
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作者：Bloom, Nicholas; Sadun, Raffaella; Van Reenen, John
作者单位：University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; National Bureau of Economic Research; Harvard University
摘要：We argue that social capital as proxied by trust increases aggregate productivity by affecting the organization of firms. To do this we collect new data on the decentralization of investment, hiring, production, and sales decisions from corporate headquarters to local plant managers in almost 4,000 firms in the United States, Europe, and Asia. We find that firms headquartered in high-trust regions are significantly more likely to decentralize. To help identify causal effects, we look within mu...
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作者：Piccione, Michele; Spiegler, Ran
作者单位：University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Tel Aviv University; University of London; University College London
摘要：This article studies market competition when firms can influence consumers' ability to compare market alternatives through their choice of price formats. In our model, the ability of a consumer to make a comparison depends on the firms' format choices. Our main results concern the interaction between firms' equilibrium price and format decisions and its implications for industry profits and consumer switching rates. In particular, market forces drive down the firms' profits to a constrained co...
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作者：Bleakley, Hoyt; Lin, Jeffrey
作者单位：University of Chicago; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Philadelphia
摘要：Many cities in North America formed at obstacles to water navigation, where continued transport required overland hauling or portage. Portage sites attracted commerce and supporting services, and places where the falls provided water power attracted manufacturing during early industrialization. We examine portage sites in the U.S. South, Mid-Atlantic, and Midwest, including those on the fall line, a geomorphological feature in the southeastern United States marking the final rapids on rivers b...
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作者：Kling, Jeffrey R.; Mullainathan, Sendhil; Shafir, Eldar; Vermeulen, Lee C.; Wrobel, Marian V.
作者单位：National Bureau of Economic Research; Harvard University; Princeton University; University of Wisconsin System; University of Wisconsin Madison
摘要：Consumers need information to compare alternatives for markets to function efficiently. Recognizing this, public policies often pair competition with easy access to comparative information. The implicit assumption is that comparison friction-the wedge between the availability of comparative information and consumers' use of it-is inconsequential because when information is readily available, consumers will access this information and make effective choices. We examine the extent of comparison ...
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作者：Mian, Atif; Sufi, Amir
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Chicago
摘要：We evaluate the impact of the 2009 Cash for Clunkers program on short- and medium-run auto purchases. Our empirical strategy exploits variation across U.S. cities in ex ante exposure to the program as measured by the number of clunkers in the city as of summer 2008. We find that the program induced the purchase of an additional 370,000 cars in July and August 2009. However, we find strong evidence of reversal; high clunker counties bought fewer autos in the 10 months after the program expired,...
