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作者：Aghion, Philippe; Bloom, Nicholas; Lucking, Brian; Sadun, Raffaella; Van Reenen, John
作者单位：Universite PSL; College de France; Stanford University; National Bureau of Economic Research; Harvard University; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science
摘要：What is the optimal form of firm organization during bad times? The greater turbulence following macro shocks may benefit decentralized firms because the value of local information increases (the localist view). On the other hand, the need to make tough decisions may favor centralized firms (the centralist view). Using two large micro datasets on decentralization in firms in ten OECD countries (WMS) and US establishments (MOPS administrative data), we find that firms that delegated more power ...
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作者：Xiong, Heyu
作者单位：University System of Ohio; Case Western Reserve University
摘要：This paper studies the electoral consequences of television stardom through the career of Ronald Reagan. I utilize quasi-experimental variation in television reception to estimate the causal effect of celebrity exposure on political support. I find that Reagan's tenure as the host of a 1950s entertainment television program translated into support for his candidacy, in terms of votes and political donations, nearly two decades after the show's first airing. Placebo checks suggest that this imp...
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作者：You, Wei
作者单位：Peking University
摘要：Small firms dominated the American economy in the nineteenth century, and they still dominate in many developing economies today. This paper tests whether geographic market segmentation due to underdeveloped intracity transportation technology precludes the emergence of large retail/wholesale stores. I exploit the natural experiment of Boston's rapid electrification from its previous horse-drawn streetcar system, which occurred between 1889 and 1896. Analyzing newly digitized data, I find that...
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作者：Zinovyeva, Natalia; Tverdostup, Maryna
作者单位：University of Warwick; Aalto University; University of Innsbruck; University of Tartu
摘要：Bertrand, Kamenica, and Pan (2015) document that in the United States there is a discontinuity to the right of 0.5 in the distribution of households according to the female share of total earnings, which they attribute to the existence of a gender identity norm. We provide an alternative explanation for this discontinuity. Using linked employer-employee data from Finland, we show that the discontinuity emerges as a result of equalization and convergence of earnings in coworking couples, and it...
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作者：Keller, Wolfgang; Shiue, Carol H.; Wang, Xin
作者单位：University of Colorado System; University of Colorado Boulder; National Bureau of Economic Research; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; Peking University
摘要：Based on comprehensive grain price data, we employ a storage model to estimate consistent interest rates and compare capital market development between Britain and China. Interest rates for Britain were lower than China's on average by about 3 percentage points from 1770 to 1860. For country pairs with bilateral distance less than 200 kilometers, the regional capital market integration in the Yangzi Delta in China comes close to the British average; but at larger distances, spatial interest ra...
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作者：McKenzie, David; Puerto, Susana
作者单位：The World Bank
摘要：A common concern with efforts to directly help some small businesses to grow is that their growth comes at the expense of their unassisted competitors. We test this possibility using a two-stage randomized experiment in Kenya that randomizes business training at the market level and then within markets to selected businesses. Three years after training, the treated businesses are selling more, earn higher profits, and their owners have higher well-being. Point estimates of the spillovers on th...
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作者：Chu, Jian; Fisman, Raymond; Tan, Songtao; Wang, Yongxiang
作者单位：Nanjing University; Boston University; Renmin University of China; The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen; The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen; Shanghai Jiao Tong University
摘要：Audits are a standard mechanism for reducing corruption in government investments. The quality of audits themselves, however, may be affected by relationships between auditor and target. We study whether provincial chief auditors in China show greater leniency in evaluating prefecture governments in their hometowns. In city-fixed-effect specifications-in which the role of shared background is identified from auditor turnover-we show that hometown auditors find 38 percent less in questionable m...
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作者：Carter, Michael; Laajaj, Rachid; Yang, Dean
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Davis; University of Cape Town; Universidad de los Andes (Colombia); University of Michigan System; University of Michigan; University of Michigan System; University of Michigan
摘要：The Green Revolution, which bolstered agricultural yields and economic well-being in Asia and Latin America beginning in the 1960s, largely bypassed sub-Saharan Africa. We study the first randomized controlled trial of a government-implemented input subsidy program (ISP) in Africa intended to foment a Green Revolution. We find that this temporary subsidy for Mozambican maize farmers stimulates Green Revolution technology adoption and leads to increased maize yields. Effects of the subsidy pers...
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作者：Deshpande, Manasi; Gross, Tal; Su, Yalun
作者单位：University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research; Boston University; University of Chicago
摘要：What is the relationship between disability programs and financial distress? We provide the first evidence on this relationship using several markers of financial distress: bankruptcy, foreclosure, eviction, and home sale. Rates of these adverse financial events peak around the time of disability application. Using variation induced by an age-based eligibility rule, we find that disability allowance reduces the likelihood of bankruptcy by 20 percent, foreclosure by 33 percent, and home sale by...
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作者：Elder, Todd; Zhou, Yuqing
作者单位：Michigan State University; University of California System; University of California Los Angeles
摘要：Using two nationally representative datasets, we find large differences between Black and White children in teacher-reported measures of noncognitive skills. We show that teacher reports understate true Black-White skill gaps because of reference bias: teachers appear to rate children relative to others in the same school, and Black students have lower-skilled classmates on average than do White students. We pursue three approaches to addressing these reference biases. Each approach nearly dou...
