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作者：Gill, David; Thanassoulis, John
作者单位：University of Oxford; University of Warwick; University of Oxford; University of Oxford
摘要：We study price competition between firms over public list or posted prices when a fraction of consumers can subsequently receive discounts with some probability. Such stochastic discounts are a feature of markets in which some consumers bargain explicitly and of markets in which sellers use the marketing practice of couponing. Even though bargainers receive reductions off the posted prices, the potential to discount dampens competitive pressure in the market, thus raising all prices and increa...
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作者：Saint-Paul, Gilles; Ticchi, Davide; Vindigni, Andrea
作者单位：Paris School of Economics; IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca; Collegio Carlo Alberto
摘要：Can an incumbent political party increase its chances at re-election by implementing inefficient policies that harm its constituency? This paper studies the possibility of such a phenomenon, which we label political entrenchment. We use a two-party dynamic model of redistribution with probabilistic voting. Political entrenchment by the Left occurs only if incumbency rents are sufficiently high. Low-skill citizens may vote for this party even though they rationally expect the adoption of these ...
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作者：Chung, Kim-Sau; Fortnow, Lance
作者单位：Chinese University of Hong Kong; Northwestern University
摘要：We formalise the argument of those American founding fathers who opposed the inclusion of the Bill of Rights into the Constitution. For some parameter values, the legislator, who is not sure whether or not there are any rights that he is unaware of, optimally chooses not to enumerate even those rights that he is aware of. We also show that, even if the legislator can add the sentence 'this Bill should not be interpreted as suggesting that any unlisted rights can be impaired by the government' ...
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作者：Barro, Robert J.; Misra, Sanjay
作者单位：Harvard University
摘要：From 1836 to 2011, gold's average annual real rate of price change is 1.1%, with a standard deviation of 13.1% and a negligible covariance with consumption growth. Because gold does not serve as a hedge against macroeconomic declines, its expected real rate of return should be close to the risk-free rate of around 1%. These properties fit an asset-pricing model with rare disasters and a high elasticity of substitution between gold services and ordinary consumption. In this scenario, gold's exp...
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作者：Sayinzoga, Aussi; Bulte, Erwin H.; Lensink, Robert
作者单位：University of Rwanda; Wageningen University & Research; University of Groningen
摘要：We organise a field experiment with smallholder farmers in Rwanda to measure the impact of financial literacy training on financial knowledge and behaviour. The training increased financial literacy of participants, changed their savings and borrowing behaviour and had a positive effect on the new business start-up. However, it failed to have a significant (short-term) impact on income. Using a two-stage regression framework, we identify enhanced financial literacy as one of the important fact...
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作者：Gould, Eric D.; Moav, Omer
作者单位：Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Hebrew University of Jerusalem; University of Warwick; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK; University of Warwick
摘要：This study examines how the sources and levels of income inequality affect how a country attracts and retains high skilled workers. With parameter values that yield realistic levels of emigration, our model shows that emigration rates increase with education when the returns to education are higher abroad. However, the relationship between unobservable skills (residual wages') and emigration can display an inverse U-shaped pattern, if unobservable skills are composed of both general' and count...
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作者：van den Berg, Gerard J.; Pinger, Pia R.; Schoch, Johannes
作者单位：University of Mannheim; Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; University of Bonn; IZA Institute Labor Economics
摘要：We estimate average causal effects of early-life hunger on late-life health by applying instrumental variable estimation, using data with self-reported periods of hunger earlier in life, with famines as instruments. The data contain samples from European countries and include birth cohorts exposed to various famines in the twentieth century. We use two-sample IV estimation to deal with imperfect recollection of conditions at very early stages of life. The estimated average causal effects may e...
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作者：Ebenstein, Avraham; Hazan, Moshe; Simhon, Avi
作者单位：Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Tel Aviv University; Centre for Economic Policy Research - UK
摘要：Prior to 1996, Israelis in collective communities (kibbutzim) shared the costs of raising children equally. This article examines the impact of privatising costs of children on the fertility behaviour of young couples. Exploiting variation in parental cost-sharing across kibbutzim, we estimate that lifetime fertility declined by 0.65 children. We also examine the exit decisions of members, and find that couples were most likely to leave the kibbutz if they were either higher income or lower fe...
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作者：Selden, Larry; Wei, Xiao
作者单位：Columbia University; University of Pennsylvania
摘要：In a single commodity setting with changing tastes, an individual's consumption plan can be obtained using naive or sophisticated choice. We provide two sufficient conditions for when the solutions are unique and agree and the common plan is representable by a non-changing tastes utility. Because the solution is not revised over time, the plan and associated preferences are referred to as being effectively consistent. Afriat-style revealed preference tests are derived. The assumption of effect...
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作者：Weeds, Helen
作者单位：University of Essex
摘要：The article examines incentives for exclusive distribution of premium television programming. Static analysis shows that a vertically integrated operator with premium programming always supplies this content to the rival distributor, using per-subscriber fees to soften competition. In a dynamic setting with switching costs exclusivity confers a market share advantage, benefiting the operator in the future. Under certain conditions this future benefit outweighs the opportunity cost of forgone w...
