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作者：Heckman, JJ
作者单位：University of Chicago
摘要：The major contributions of twentieth century econometrics to knowledge were the definition of causal parameters within well-defined economic models in which agents are constrained by resources and markets and causes are interrelated, the analysis of what is required to recover causal parameters from data (the identification problem), and clarification of the role of causal parameters in policy evaluation and in forecasting the effects of policies never previously experienced. This paper summar...
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作者：Berman, E
作者单位：Boston University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：Israeli Ultra-Orthodox men study full-time in yeshiva until age 40 on average. Why do fathers with families in poverty choose yeshiva over work? Draft deferments subsidize yeshiva attendance, yet attendance typically continues long after exemption. Fertility rates are high (TFR = 7.6) and rising. A social interaction approach explains these anomalies. Yeshiva attendance signals commitment to the community, which provides mutual insurance to members. Prohibitions strengthen communities by effec...
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作者：Weitzman, ML
作者单位：Harvard University
摘要：There is a long-standing trade-off in bioculture between concentrating on high-yield varieties and maintaining sufficient diversity to lower the risks of catastrophic infection. The paper uses a simple ecology-based model of endogenous disease to indicate how a local decision to plant more of a widely grown crop creates negative externalities by increasing the probability that new pathogens will evolve to attack the crop globally. Society's basic issue concerns where to locate on an efficiency...
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作者：Lazear, EP
作者单位：University of Chicago
摘要：Economics is not only a social science, it is a genuine science. Like the physical sciences, economics uses a methodology that produces refutable implications and tests these implications using solid statistical techniques. In particular, economics stresses three factors that distinguish it from other social sciences. Economists use the construct of rational individuals who engage in maximizing behavior. Economic models adhere strictly to the importance of equilibrium as part of any theory. Fi...
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作者：Heckman, J; Hohmann, N; Smith, J; Khoo, M
作者单位：University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research; Western University (University of Western Ontario)
摘要：This paper considers the interpretation of evidence from social experiments when persons randomized out of a program being evaluated have good substitutes for it, and when persons randomized into a program drop out to pursue better alternatives. Using data from an experimental evaluation of a classroom training program, we document the empirical importance of control group substitution and treatment group dropping out. Evidence that one program is ineffective relative to close substitutes is n...
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作者：Ruhm, CJ
作者单位：University of North Carolina; University of North Carolina Greensboro; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：This study investigates the relationship between economic conditions and health. Total mortality and eight of the ten sources of fatalities examined are shown to exhibit a procyclical fluctuation, with suicides representing an important exception. The variations are largest for those causes and age groups where behavioral responses are most plausible, and there is some evidence that the unfavorable health effects of temporary upturns are partially or fully offset if the economic growth is long...
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作者：Blanchard, O
作者单位：Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：This essay argues that the history of macroeconomics during the twentieth century can be divided into three epochs. Pre-1940: a period of exploration, during which all the right ingredients were developed. But also a period where confusion reigned, because of the lack of an integrated framework. From 1940 to 1980: a period during which an integrated framework was developed-from the IS-LM to dynamic general equilibrium models. But a construction with an Achilles' heel, too casual a treatment of...
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作者：Kagel, JH; Roth, AE
作者单位：University System of Ohio; Ohio State University; Harvard University
摘要：We create an environment in which congestion forces agents to match inefficiently early. We then introduce one of two centralized clearinghouse mechanisms. One of these has been successfully used to halt this kind of unraveling in a number of labor markets, while the other has failed. When it is costly for firms and workers to be mismatched compared with the costs of matching early, the experimental observations reproduce the field observations. Furthermore, the experiment permits us to observ...
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作者：La Porta, R; López-De-Silanes, F
作者单位：Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：Critics of privatization argue that the increased profitability of privatized companies comes at the expense of society. Using data from 97 percent of those nonfinancial firms privatized in Mexico during the period 1983-1991, we study two channels for social losses: (1) increased prices, and (2) layoffs and lower wages. Privatization is followed by a 24-percentage-point increase in the mean ratio of operating income to sales as firms catch up with industry-matched control groups. We estimate t...
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作者：Rabin, M; Schrag, JL
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley; Emory University
摘要：Psychological research indicates that people have a cognitive bias that leads them to misinterpret new information as supporting previously held hypotheses. We show in a simple model that such confirmatory bias induces overconfidence: given any probabilistic assessment by an agent that one of two hypotheses is true, the appropriate beliefs would deem it less likely to be true. Indeed, the hypothesis that the agent believes in may be more Likely to be wrong than right. We also show that the age...
