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作者：Gibbs, Michael; Neckermann, Susanne; Siemroth, Christoph
作者单位：University of Chicago; IZA Institute Labor Economics; Leibniz Association; Zentrum fur Europaische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW); University of Essex
摘要：We study a field experiment at a large technology company. Employees were encouraged to submit ideas on process and product improvements. The company randomly assigned nineteen teams into treatment and control groups. Treatment team employees received rewards if their ideas were approved. Nothing changed for control team employees. Our main finding is that rewards substantially increased the quality of ideas. Rewards increased participation in the suggestion system but decreased ideas per part...
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作者：Addoum, Jawad M.
作者单位：Cornell University
摘要：This study examines household portfolio choice through the retirement transition. I show that couples significantly decrease their stock allocations after retirement, whereas singles' allocations remain relatively unchanged. Reallocations are concentrated among couples in which the wife is more risk averse than her husband. Husbands' and wives' respective retirement events are followed by opposite-signed changes in stock allocations. These findings are consistent with a model of collective hou...
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作者：Osterrieder, Daniela u; Schotman, Peter C.
作者单位：Rutgers University System; Rutgers University New Brunswick; Maastricht University; Tilburg University
摘要：We develop an almost affine term-structure model with a closed-form solution for factor loadings in which the spot rate and the risk price are fractionally integrated processes with different integration orders. This model is used to explain two stylized facts. First, predictability of longterm excess bond returns requires sufficient volatility and persistence in the risk price. Second, the large volatility of long-term bond returns requires persistence in the spot rate. Decomposing long-term ...
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作者：Stevenson, Megan
作者单位：George Mason University
摘要：I conduct a series of tests of peer influence in juvenile incarceration facilities motivated by three mechanisms: criminal skill transfer, the formation of new criminal networks, and the social contagion of crime-oriented noncognitive factors. Identifying peer influence off natural variation in small cohorts within the same facility, I find evidence consistent with social contagion: exposure to peers who come from unstable homes and have high levels of aggression leads to an increase in crime ...
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作者：Gortz, Christoph; Tsoukalas, John D.
作者单位：University of Birmingham; University of Glasgow
摘要：An important disconnect in the news view of fluctuations is the lack of consistent evidence suggestive of significant macroeconomic effects of news shocks. Findings from estimated DSGE models that in theory allow news shocks to matter quantitatively suggest that they do not. This disconnect can be resolved once we augment a DSGE model with a financial channel that provides amplification to news shocks. Our results suggest that news shocks to the future growth prospects of the economy are signi...
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作者：Koopman, S. J.; Mesters, G.
作者单位：Tinbergen Institute; Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam; CREATES; Aarhus University; Pompeu Fabra University; Barcelona School of Economics; Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
摘要：We consider the dynamic factor model where the loading matrix, the dynamic factors, and the disturbances are treated as latent stochastic processes. We present empirical Bayes methods that enable the shrinkagebased estimation of the loadings and factors. We investigate the methods in a large Monte Carlo study where we evaluate the finite sample properties of the empirical Bayes methods for quadratic loss functions. Finally, we present and discuss the results of an empirical study concerning th...
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作者：Keskin, Pinar; Shastry, Gauri Kartini; Willis, Helen
作者单位：Wellesley College; University of California System; University of California Berkeley
摘要：Decades of campaigns have cautioned households in Bangladesh about waterborne contaminants such as arsenic. In addition to switching water sources, mothers can protect young children from contaminated water by breastfeeding longer. We exploit time series variation in whether children were born before or after a nationwide information campaign and geographic variation in exposure to arsenic. We find that mothers breast-feed children longer in response to the campaign, especially when they have ...
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作者：Amisano, Gianni; Geweke, John
作者单位：Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve System Board of Governors; University of Washington; University of Washington Seattle
摘要：We establish methods that improve the predictions of macroeconometric modelsdynamic factor models, dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models, and vector autoregressionsusing a quarterly U.S. data set. We measure prediction quality with one-step-ahead probability densities assigned in real time. Two steps lead to substantial improvements: (a) the use of full Bayesian predictive distributions rather than conditioning on the posterior mode for parameters and (b) the use of an equally weighted...
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作者：Park, Kyung H.
作者单位：Wellesley College
摘要：Numerous studies find that criminal court judges issue racially disparate sentences, but whether these patterns reflect tastes for discrimination remains unclear. An alternative explanation is statistical discrimination, which implies that judges rely on race to predict a felon's latent criminality in the absence of perfect information. This paper uses an empirical approach that distinguishes between taste-based and statistical discrimination. The intuition is that if the rank order of judicia...
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作者：Penney, Jeffrey
作者单位：Pontificia Universidad Javeriana
摘要：Research as to the size of the black-white test score gap often comes to contradictory conclusions. Recent literature has affirmed that the source of these contradictions and other controversies in education economics may be due to the fact that test scores contain only ordinal information. In this paper, I propose a normalization of test scores that is invariant to monotonic transformations. Under fairly weak assumptions, this metric has interval properties and thus solves the ordinality prob...
