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作者：Chong, Alberto; La Porta, Rafael; Lopez-de-Silanes, Florencio; Shleifer, Andrei
作者单位：University of Ottawa; Dartmouth College; Universite Catholique de Lille; EDHEC Business School; Harvard University
摘要：We mailed letters to non-existent business addresses in 159 countries (10 per country), and measured whether they come back to the return address in the United States and how long it takes. About 60% of the letters were returned, taking over six months, on average. The results provide new objective indicators of government efficiency across countries, based on a simple and universal service, and allow us to shed light on its determinants. The evidence suggests that both technology and manageme...
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作者：Bowles, Samuel; Loury, Glenn C.; Sethi, Rajiv
作者单位：The Santa Fe Institute; University of Siena; Brown University; Columbia University
摘要：We explore the combined effect of segregation in social networks, peer effects, and the relative size of a historically disadvantaged group on the incentives to invest in market-rewarded skills and the dynamics of inequality between social groups. We identify conditions under which group inequality will persist in the absence of differences in ability, credit constraints, or labor market discrimination. Under these conditions, group inequality may be amplified even if initial group differences...
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作者：Fernandez-Villaverde, Jesus; Greenwood, Jeremy; Guner, Nezih
作者单位：University of Pennsylvania; ICREA; Autonomous University of Barcelona; Barcelona School of Economics
摘要：Societies socialize children about sex. This is done in the presence of peer-group effects, which may encourage undesirable behavior. Parents want the best for their children. Still, they weigh the marginal gains from socializing their children against its costs. Churches and states may stigmatize sex, both because of a concern about the welfare of their flocks and the need to control the cost of charity associated with out-of-wedlock births. Modern contraceptives have profoundly affected the ...
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作者：Jappelli, Tullio; Padula, Mario; Pica, Giovanni
作者单位：University of Naples Federico II; Universita Ca Foscari Venezia; University of Salerno
摘要：We estimate the effect of taxes on intergenerational transfers by exploiting a sequence of Italian reforms culminating with the abolishment of transfer taxes. We use the Surveys of Household Income and Wealth from 1993 to 2006, which have data on real estate transfers, and information on potential donors and recipients. Difference-in-differences estimates indicate that the abolition of transfer taxes increases the probability of high-wealth donors making a transfer by two percentage points and...
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作者：Argenziano, Rossella; Schmidt-Dengler, Philipp
作者单位：University of Essex; University of Mannheim
摘要：We study a complete information preemption game in continuous time. A finite number of firms decide when to make an irreversible, observable investment. Upon investment, a firm receives flow profits, which decrease in the number of firms that have invested. The cost of investment declines over time exogenously. We characterize the subgame-perfect equilibrium outcome, which is unique up to a permutation of players. When the preemption race among late investors is sufficiently intense, the preem...
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作者：Ge, Suqin; Yang, Dennis Tao
作者单位：Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University; University of Virginia
摘要：Using a national sample of Urban Household Surveys, we document several profound changes in China's wage structure during a period of rapid economic growth. Between 1992 and 2007, the average real wage increased by 202%, accompanied by a sharp rise in wage inequality. Decomposition analysis reveals 80% of this wage growth to be attributable to higher pay for basic labor, rising returns to human capital, and increases in the state-sector wage premium. By employing an aggregate production functi...
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作者：Holden, Steinar; Rosen, Asa
作者单位：University of Oslo
摘要：We study a search model with employment protection legislation. We show that if the output from the match is uncertain at the hiring stage, a discriminatory equilibrium may exist in which workers with the same productive characteristics are subject to different hiring standards. If a bad match takes place, discriminated workers will take longer to find another job, prolonging the costly period for the firm. This makes it less profitable for firms to hire discriminated workers, thus sustaining ...
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作者：Bellettini, Giorgio; Ceroni, Carlotta Berti; Prarolo, Giovanni
作者单位：University of Bologna; Leibniz Association; Ifo Institut
摘要：We use a political economy model of Schumpeterian growth with entry to investigate how an incumbent politician can strategically use the level of red tape to acquire incumbency advantage. By setting sufficiently high red tape, the politician induces the incumbent firm in the intermediate sector to invest in political connections, which are valued also by voters, who recognize that bureaucratic costs can be reduced by connected firms. Within this framework, we study the Markov perfect equilibri...
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作者：Cooper, Russell; Kempf, Hubert; Peled, Dan
作者单位：European University Institute; Universite Paris Saclay; Paris School of Economics; University of Haifa
摘要：This paper studies the effects of monetary policy in the presence of debt spillovers within a monetary union. When capital markets are integrated, the fiscal policy of any member country will generally influence equilibrium wages and interest rates across the whole union. We ask whether there exists a monetary policy which can offset these spillovers. Within a general class of monetary policy rules, there does not exist one that completely insulates agents in one region from fiscal policy in t...
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作者：Iossa, Elisabetta; Rey, Patrick
作者单位：University of Rome Tor Vergata; Universite de Toulouse; Universite Toulouse 1 Capitole; Toulouse School of Economics; Center for Economic & Policy Research (CEPR)
摘要：We study how career concerns affect the dynamics of incentives in a multi-period contract, when the agent's productivity is a stochastic function of his past productivity and investment. We show that incentives are stronger and performance is higher when the contract approaches its expiry date. Contrary to common wisdom, long-term contracts may strengthen reputational effects whereas short-term contracting may be optimal when investment has persistent, long-term effects.
