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作者：Foley, C. Fritz
作者单位：Harvard University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：Analysis of daily reported incidents of major crimes in twelve U.S. cities reveals an increase in crime over the course of monthly welfare payment cycles. This increase reflects an increase in crimes that are likely to have a direct financial motivation as opposed to other kinds of crime. Temporal patterns in crime are observed in jurisdictions in which disbursements are focused at the beginning of monthly welfare payment cycles and not in jurisdictions in which disbursements are relatively mo...
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作者：Levy, Daniel; Lee, Dongwon; Chen, Haipeng (Allan); Kauffman, Robert J.; Bergen, Mark
作者单位：Bar Ilan University; Emory University; Korea University; Texas A&M University System; Texas A&M University College Station; Singapore Management University; University of Minnesota System; University of Minnesota Twin Cities
摘要：We study the link between price points and price rigidity using two data sets: weekly scanner data and Internet data. We find that 9'' is the most frequent ending for the penny, dime, dollar, and ten-dollar digits; the most common price changes are those that keep the price endings at 9''; 9-ending prices are less likely to change than non-9-ending prices; and the average size of price change is larger for 9-ending than non-9-ending prices. We conclude that 9-ending contributes to price rigidi...
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作者：Black, Sandra E.; Devereux, Paul J.; Salvanes, Kjell G.
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; National Bureau of Economic Research; University College Dublin; Trinity College Dublin; Trinity College Dublin; University College Dublin; Norwegian School of Economics (NHH)
摘要：Using Norwegian data, we examine effects of school starting age (SSA). Unlike much recent literature, we can separate SSA from test age effects using scores from IQ tests taken outside school at about age 18. We find a small, negative effect of starting school older but much larger positive effects of age at test. Also, starting older leads to lower earnings until about age 30. We find little impact of SSA on educational attainment, but boys who start older are less likely to have poor mental ...
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作者：Ouyang, Min
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Irvine
摘要：We explore the link between short-run cycles and long-run growth by examining the cyclicality of R&D. Existing theories propose that R&D is concentrated when output is low, but aggregate data repeatedly show that R&D appears procyclical. We estimate the relationship between R&D and output using an annual panel of twenty U.S. manufacturing industries from 1958 to 1998. The results indicate that R&D is in fact procyclical, but, interestingly, estimates using demand-shift instruments suggest that...
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作者：Commander, Simon; Svejnar, Jan
作者单位：Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR); University of Michigan System; University of Michigan
摘要：We use two large samples of firms to assess the effects of business environment constraints, competition, export orientation, and ownership on firm performance. We deal with omitted variables, errors in variables, and endogeneity, and find that few business constraints affect performance. Replicating the analysis with Doing Business and Heritage Foundation indicators of the business environment yields similar results. In fact, country fixed effects, reflecting time-invariant differences in the...
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作者：Brunner, Eric; Ross, Stephen L.; Washington, Ebonya
作者单位：Quinnipiac University; University of Connecticut; Yale University; National Bureau of Economic Research
摘要：Using California ballot proposition returns and exogenous shifts to labor demand, we provide the first large-scale causal evidence of the impact of economic conditions on policy preferences. Consistent with economic theory, we find that positive economic shocks decrease support for redistributive policies. More notably, we find evidence of a need for cognitive consistency in voting behavior as economic shocks have a smaller significant impact on voting on noneconomic ballot issues. While we al...
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作者：Karlan, Dean; Valdivia, Martin
作者单位：Yale University
摘要：Most academic and development policy discussions about microentrepreneurs focus on credit constraints and assume that subject to those constraints, the entrepreneurs manage their business optimally. Yet the self-employed poor rarely have any formal training in business skills. A growing number of microfinance organizations are attempting to build the human capital of microentrepreneurs in order to improve the livelihood of their clients and help further their mission of poverty alleviation. Us...
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作者：Strobl, Eric
摘要：I estimate the impact of hurricane strikes on local economic growth rates. To this end, I assemble a panel data set of U.S. coastal counties' growth rates and construct a novel hurricane destruction index that is based on a monetary loss equation, local wind speed estimates derived from a physical wind field model, and local exposure characteristics. The econometric results suggest that a county's annual economic growth rate falls on average by 0.45 percentage points, 28% of it due to richer i...
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作者：Hoffman, Mitchell
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley
摘要：This paper considers the decision of Gentiles whether to rescue Jews during the Holocaust, a situation of altruistic behavior under life-or-death stakes. I examine the role to which economic factors may have influenced the decision to be a rescuer. Using cross-country data and detailed individual-level data on rescuers and nonrescuers, I find that richer countries had many more rescuers than poorer ones, and within countries, richer people were more likely to be rescuers than poorer people. Th...
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作者：Hahn, Jinyong; Ridder, Geert
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; University of Southern California
摘要：It is shown that in a nonparametric nonseparable triangular system, the conditional moment restriction (CMR) does not identify the average structural function (ASF). The CMR identifies the ASF only if the model is structurally separable in observable covariates and unobservable random errors. This excludes, for instance, random coefficient models in which the CMR in general does not identify the average response. An implication of our results is that empirical researchers should use methods ot...
