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作者：Davis, Steven J.; Grim, Cheryl; Haltiwanger, John; Streitwieser, Mary
作者单位：University of Chicago; National Bureau of Economic Research; American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
摘要：We measure unit value electricity prices using 2 million annual observations on U.S. manufacturing plants from 1963 to 2000. These prices display tremendous cross-sectional dispersion, 85-95% of which reflects differences by plant location and purchase quantity. Spatial differentials decline markedly until the late 1980s for large purchasers but rise over time for small purchasers. Unit value price gaps between larger and smaller purchasers are enormous, diminish through the late 1970s, and th...
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作者：Molloy, Raven; Shan, Hui
摘要：By raising commuting costs, an increase in gasoline prices should reduce the demand for housing in areas far from employment centers relative to locations closer to jobs. Using annual panel data on a large number of postal codes and municipalities from 1981 to 2008, we find that a 10% increase in gas prices leads to a 10% decrease in construction in locations with a long average commute relative to other locations but to no significant change in house prices. Thus, the supply response prevents...
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作者：Rigbi, Oren
作者单位：Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
摘要：Usury laws cap the interest rates that lenders can charge. Using data from Prosper.com, an online lending marketplace, I investigate the effects of these laws. The key to my empirical strategy is that there was initially substantial variability in states' interest rate caps, ranging from 6% to 36%. A behind-the-scenes change in loan origination, however, suddenly increased the cap to 36%. The main findings of the study are that higher interest rate caps increase the probability that a loan wil...
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作者：Bosker, Maarten; Buringh, Eltjo; van Zanden, Jan Luiten
作者单位：Erasmus University Rotterdam - Excl Erasmus MC; Erasmus University Rotterdam; Utrecht University; Tinbergen Institute; Utrecht University
摘要：This paper empirically investigates why, between 800 and 1800, the urban center of gravity moved from the Islamic world to Europe. Using a large new city-specific data set covering Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa, we unravel the role of geography and institutions in determining long-run city development in the two regions. We find that the main reasons for the Islamic world's stagnation and Europe's longterm success are specific to each region: any significant positive interaction be...
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作者：Cadena, Brian C.; Keys, Benjamin J.
作者单位：University of Colorado System; University of Colorado Boulder; University of Chicago
摘要：This paper uses insights from behavioral economics to explain a particularly surprising borrowing phenomenon: one in six undergraduate students offered interest-free loans turns them down. Models of impulse control predict that students may optimally reject subsidized loans to avoid excessive consumption during school. Using the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, we investigate students' take-up decisions and identify a group of students for whom the loans create an especially tempting ...
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作者：Ahmed, Faisal Z.
作者单位：University of Oxford
摘要：I use a natural experiment of oil-price-driven remittance flows to poor, non-oil-producing Muslim countries to demonstrate that remittances deteriorate the quality of governance, especially in countries with weak democratic institutions. The results indicate that a 1 standard deviation increase in remittances raises corruption by 1.5 index points (on a 6-point scale), which is equivalent to a $ 600 decrease in per capita GDP. Concomitantly, remittances may enable governments to reduce their de...
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作者：Bell, Brian; Fasani, Francesco; Machin, Stephen
作者单位：University of Oxford; University of London; London School Economics & Political Science; Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas (CSIC); CSIC - Institut d'Analisi Economica (IAE); University of London; University College London
摘要：This paper focuses on empirical connections between crime and immigration, studying two large waves of recent U. K. immigration ( the late 1990s/early 2000s asylum seekers and the post-2004 inflow from EU accession countries). The first wave led to a modest but significant rise in property crime, while the second wave had a small negative impact. There was no effect on violent crime; arrest rates were not different, and changes in crime cannot be ascribed to crimes against immigrants. The find...
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作者：Leduc, Sylvain; Sill, Keith
作者单位：Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - San Francisco; Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Philadelphia
摘要：Using survey-based measures of future U.S. economic activity from the Livingston Survey and the Survey of Professional Forecasters, we study how changes in expectations and their interaction with monetary policy contribute to fluctuations in macroeconomic aggregates. We find that changes in expected future economic activity are a quantitatively important driver of economic fluctuations: a perception that good times are ahead typically leads to a significant rise in current measures of economic...
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作者：Card, David; Giuliano, Laura
作者单位：University of California System; University of California Berkeley; National Bureau of Economic Research; University of Miami
摘要：We study social interactions in the initiation of sex and other risky behaviors by best friend pairs in the Add Health panel. Focusing on friends with minimal experience at the baseline interview, we estimate bivariate ordered-choice models that include both peer effects and unobserved heterogeneity. We find significant peer effects in sexual initiation: the likelihood of initiating intercourse within a year increases by almost 5 percentage points (on an 11% base rate) if one's friend also ini...
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作者：Cooper, Daniel
作者单位：Federal Reserve System - USA; Federal Reserve Bank - Boston
摘要：Rising house prices affect household spending by either loosening a household's lifetime budget constraint (pure wealth effect) or the household's borrowing constraint so that consumption rises toward the level implied by the consumption Euler equation (borrowing collateral effect). The empirical findings in this paper are consistent with house price appreciation affecting household spending through the borrowing collateral channel and not the pure wealth effect channel. The consumption of pot...
