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作者:Feigenberg, Benjamin; Field, Erica; Pande, Rohini
作者单位:Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Duke University; Harvard University
摘要:Microfinance clients were randomly assigned to repayment groups that met either weekly or monthly during their first loan cycle, and then graduated to identical meeting frequency for their second loan. Long-run survey data and a follow-up public goods experiment reveal that clients initially assigned to weekly groups interact more often and exhibit a higher willingness to pool risk with group members from their first loan cycle nearly 2 years after the experiment. They were also three times le...
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作者:Costinot, Arnaud; Vogel, Jonathan; Wang, Su
作者单位:Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); National Bureau of Economic Research; Columbia University
摘要:This article develops an elementary theory of global supply chains. We consider a world economy with an arbitrary number of countries, one factor of production, a continuum of intermediate goods and one final good. Production of the final good is sequential and subject to mistakes. In the unique free trade equilibrium, countries with lower probabilities of making mistakes at all stages specialize in later stages of production. Using this simple theoretical framework, we offer a first look at h...
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作者:Kapicka, Marek
作者单位:University of California System; University of California Santa Barbara; Charles University Prague; Czech Academy of Sciences; Economics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences
摘要:This article studies efficient allocations in a dynamic private information economy with a continuum of idiosyncratic shocks that are persistent. I develop a first-order approach for this environment and show that the problem has a simple recursive structure that relies on only a small number of state variables, making the problem tractable. I find sufficient conditions that guarantee that the first-order approach is valid. To illustrate the first-order approach I numerically compute the effic...
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作者:Rohner, Dominic; Thoenig, Mathias; Zilibotti, Fabrizio
作者单位:University of Lausanne; University of Zurich
摘要:We construct a theory of persistent civil conflicts, where persistence is driven by the endogenous dynamics of inter-ethnic trust and trade. In times of peace, agents belonging to two groups are randomly matched to trade bilaterally. Trade hinges on trust and cooperation. The onset of conflict signals that the aggressor has a low propensity to cooperate, harming future trust and trade. Agents observe the history of conflicts and update their beliefs over time. The theory predicts that civil wa...
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作者:Ramalho, Esmeralda A.; Smith, Richard J.
作者单位:University of Evora; University of Cambridge
摘要:Missing values are endemic in the data sets available to econometricians. This paper suggests a semiparametrically efficient likelihood-based approach to deal with general non-ignorable missing data problems for discrete choice models. Our concern is when the dependent variable and/or covariates are unobserved for some sampling units. A supplementary random sample of observations on all covariates may be available. The key insight of this paper is the recognition of non-response as a modificat...
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作者:Gourinchas, Pierre-Olivier; Jeanne, Olivier
作者单位:University of California System; University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research; Johns Hopkins University
摘要:The textbook neoclassical growth model predicts that countries with faster productivity growth should invest more and attract more foreign capital. We show that the allocation of capital flows across developing countries is the opposite of this prediction: capital does not flow more to countries that invest and grow more. We call this puzzle the allocation puzzle. Using a wedge analysis, we find that the pattern of capital flows is driven by national saving: the allocation puzzle is a saving p...
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作者:Telyukova, Irina A.
作者单位:University of California System; University of California San Diego
摘要:In the 2001 U.S. Survey of Consumer Finances, 27% of households report simultaneously revolving significant credit card debt and holding sizeable amounts of low-return liquid assets; this is known as the credit card debt puzzle. In this article, I quantitatively evaluate the role of liquidity demand in accounting for this puzzle: households that accumulate credit card debt may not pay it off using their money in the bank, because they anticipate needing that money in situations where credit ca...
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作者:DeJong, David N.; Liesenfeld, Roman; Moura, Guilherme V.; Richard, Jean-Francois; Dharmarajan, Hariharan
作者单位:Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE); University of Pittsburgh; University of Kiel; Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina (UFSC)
摘要:We develop a numerical procedure that facilitates efficient likelihood evaluation in applications involving non-linear and non-Gaussian state-space models. The procedure employs continuous approximations of filtering densities, and delivers unconditionally optimal global approximations of targeted integrands to achieve likelihood approximation. Optimized approximations of targeted integrands are constructed via efficient importance sampling. Resulting likelihood approximations are continuous f...
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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; Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI); Barcelona School of Economics; ICREA
摘要:How did Europe escape the Iron Law of Wages? We construct a simple Malthusian model with two sectors and multiple steady states, and use it to explain why European per capita incomes and urbanization rates increased during the period 1350-1700. Productivity growth can only explain a small fraction of the rise in output per capita. Population dynamics-changes of the birth and death schedules-were far more important determinants of steady states. We show how a major shock to population can trigg...
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作者:Benabou, Roland
作者单位:Princeton University; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要:This article investigates collective denial and willful blindness in groups, organizations, and markets. Agents with anticipatory preferences, linked through an interaction structure, choose how to interpret and recall public signals about future prospects. Wishful thinking (denial of bad news) is shown to be contagious when it is harmful to others, and self-limiting when it is beneficial. Similarly, with Kreps-Porteus preferences, willful blindness (information avoidance) spreads when it incr...