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作者:Benmelech, E; Garmaise, MJ; Moskowitz, TJ
作者单位:Harvard University; University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要:We examine the impact of asset liquidation value on debt contracting using a unique set of commercial property loan contracts. We employ commercial zoning regulation to capture the flexibility of a property's permitted uses as a measure of an asset's redeployability or value in its next best use. Within a census tract, more redeployable assets receive larger loans with longer maturities and durations, lower interest rates, and fewer creditors, controlling for the property's type, sale price, a...
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作者:Currie, J; Neidell, M
作者单位:University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; National Bureau of Economic Research; Columbia University
摘要:We examine the impact of air pollution on infant death in California over the 1990s. Our work offers several innovations: first, most previous studies examine populations subject to far greater levels of pollution. Second, many studies examine a single pollutant in isolation. We examine three criteria pollutants in a common framework. Third, we use rich individual-level data and pollution measured at the weekly level. Our most novel finding is a significant effect of CO on infant mortality: we...
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作者:Glaeser, EL
作者单位:Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要:This paper develops a model of the interaction between the supply of hate-creating stories from politicians and the willingness of voters to listen to hatred. Hatred is fostered with stories of an out-group's crimes, but the impact of these stories comes from repetition not truth. Hate-creating stories are supplied by politicians when such actions help to discredit opponents whose policies benefit an out-group. Egalitarians foment hatred against rich minorities; opponents of redistribution bui...
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作者:Brown, CO; Dinç, IS
作者单位:University of Michigan System; University of Michigan
摘要:This paper studies large private banks in 21 major emerging markets in the 1990s. It first demonstrates that bank failures are very common in these countries: about 25 percent of these banks failed during the seven-year sample period. The paper also shows that political concerns play a significant role in delaying government interventions to failing banks. Failing banks are much less likely to be taken over by the government or to lose their licenses before elections than after. This result is...
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作者:Ghironi, F; Melitz, MJ
作者单位:Boston College; Harvard University; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要:We develop a stochastic, general equilibrium, two-country model of trade and macroeconomic dynamics. Productivity differs across individual, monopolistically competitive firms in each country. Firms face a sunk entry cost in the domestic market and both fixed and per-unit export costs. Only relatively more productive firms export. Exogenous shocks to aggregate productivity and entry or trade costs induce firms to enter and exit both their domestic and export markets, thus altering the composit...
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作者:Chetty, R; Saez, E
作者单位:University of California System; University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要:This paper analyzes the effects of dividend taxation on corporate behavior using the large tax cut on individual dividend income enacted in 2003. We document a 20 percent increase in dividend payments by nonfinancial, nonutility publicly traded corporations following the tax cut. An unusually large number of firms initiated or increased regular dividend payments in the year after the reform. As a result, the number of firms paying dividends began to increase in 2003 after a continuous decline ...
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作者:Oster, E
作者单位:Harvard University
摘要:Forty million people are infected with HIV worldwide; twenty-five million of them are in Sub-Saharan Africa. This paper addresses the question of why Africa has been so heavily affected by HIV, and what explains the variation within Africa. I present a model that decomposes epidemic level into differences in sexual behavior and differences in viral transmission rates. I argue, using evidence drawn from the existing medical literature, that Africa has very high HIV transmission rates, likely du...
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作者:Levy, G
作者单位:University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
摘要:Public provision of education is usually viewed as a form of redistribution in kind. However, does it arise when income redistribution is feasible as well? I analyze a two-dimensional model of political decision-making with endogenous political parties. Society chooses both the tax rate and the allocation of the revenues between income redistribution and public education. Agents differ in their income and in their age, where young agents prefer public education and the old prefer income redist...
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作者:Baicker, K; Staiger, D
作者单位:Dartmouth College; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要:We explore the effectiveness of matching grants when lower levels of government can expropriate some of the funds for other uses. Using data on the Medicaid Disproportionate Share program, we identify states that were most able to expropriate funds. Payments to public hospitals in these states were systematically diverted and had no significant impact on patient mortality. Payments that were not expropriated were associated with significant declines in patient mortality. Overall, subsidies wer...
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作者:Jones, BF; Olken, BA
作者单位:Northwestern University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要:Economic growth within countries varies sharply across decades. This paper examines one explanation for these sustained shifts in growth-changes in the national leader. We use deaths of leaders while in office as a source of exogenous variation in leadership, and ask whether these plausibly exogenous leadership transitions are associated with shifts in country growth rates. We find robust evidence that leaders matter for growth. The results suggest that the effects of individual leaders are st...