http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification 720 https://escholarship.org/uc/ucd_econ_oapdeposits/rss Recent eScholarship items from Open Access Policy Deposits Sat, 1 Aug 2026 05:50:16 +0000 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/21j131rs Collective action problems emerge when individual incentives and group interests are misaligned, as in the case of climate change. Individuals involved in these problems are generally considered to have two options: contribute toward public solutions such as global warming mitigation or free ride. However, many collective action problems today involve a third option of investing in a private solution such as local adaptation. The availability of this third option can lead to a private solution trap whereby private solutions are adopted, collectively optimal public solutions are not provided, and existing inequalities are exacerbated. We investigated the private solution trap with a collective action game featuring private and public solutions, wealth inequality determined by luck or merit, and participants from 34 countries. We found that the joint existence of private solutions and wealth inequality had a consistent effect across countries: Participants given a higher endowment... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/21j131rs Mon, 13 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000 Malthouse, Eugene Pilgrim, Charlie Sgroi, Daniel Accerenzi, Michela Alfonso, Antonio Ashraf, Rana Baard, Max Banerjee, Sanchayan Belianin, Alexis Bhattacharjee, Swagata Bhattacharya, Mihir Brañas-Garza, Pablo Cárdenas, Juan-Camilo Carriquiry, Miguel Choi, Syngjoo Clochard, Gwen-Jiro Denzon, Eduardo Dessoulavy-Sliwinski, Bartlomiej Dini, Giorgio Dong, Lu Ertl, Antal Exadaktylos, Filippos Filiz-Ozbay, Emel Flecke, Sarah Galeotti, Fabio Garcia-Muñoz, Teresa Hanaki, Nobuyuki Hollard, Guillaume Horn, Daniel Huang, Lingbo İriş, Doruk Kiss, Hubert Koch, Juliane Kovářík, Jaromír Kwarteng, Osbert Lange, Andreas Leites, Martin Leung, Thomas Lim, Wooyoung Morren, Meike Nockur, Laila Okyere, Charles Oudah, Mayada Ozkes, Ali Page, Lionel Park, Junghyun Pfattheicher, Stefan Proestakis, Antonios Ramos, Carlos Ramos-Sosa, Mapi Ashraf, Muhammad Sanjaya, Muhammad Schwaiger, Rene Sene, Omar Song, Fei Spycher, Sarah Staněk, Rostislav Tanchingco, Norman Tavoni, Alessandro Te Velde, Vera Vázquez-De Francisco, María Visser, Martine Wang, Joseph Wang, Willy Weng, Wei-Chien Werner, Katharina Wijayanti, Amanda Winkler, Ralph Wooders, John Ying, Li Zhen, Wei Hills, Thomas https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9hz2p632 This paper presents novel evidence of price discrimination, using prices of identical goods in 28 countries. I explain the observed phenomenon via non-homothetic preferences, in a model of trade with product differentiation and firm productivity heterogeneity. The model brings theory and data closer along a key dimension: it generates positively related prices of tradables and income, while preserving exporter behavior and trade flows of existing frameworks. It further captures observations that richer countries buy more per product and consume more diverse bundles. Quantitatively, the model suggests that variable markups account for 80% of the positive price-income relationship across 123 countries. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9hz2p632 Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Simonovska, Ina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/97403651 Income Differences and Prices of Tradables https://escholarship.org/uc/item/97403651 Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Simonovska, Ina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9348330c Firm-level stock returns exhibit comovement above that in fundamentals, and the gap tends to be higher in developing countries. We investigate whether correlated beliefs among sophisticated, but imperfectly informed, traders can account for the patterns of return correlations across countries. We take a unique approach by turning to direct data on market participants’ information - namely, real-time firm-level earnings forecasts made by equity market analysts. The correlations of firm-level forecasts exceed those of fundamentals and are strongly related to return correlations across countries. A calibrated information-based model demonstrates that the correlation of beliefs implied by analyst forecasts leads to return correlations broadly in line with the data, both in levels and across countries - the correlation between predicted and actual is 0.63. Our findings have implications for market-wide volatility - the model-implied correlations alone can explain 44% of the cross-section... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9348330c Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 David, Joel M Simonovska, Ina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8qg9478n Quantitative results from a large class of structural gravity models of international trade depend critically on a single parameter governing the elasticity of trade with respect to trade frictions. We provide a new method to estimate this elasticity and illustrate the merits of our approach relative to the estimation strategy of Eaton and Kortum (2002). We employ this method on data for 123 developed and developing countries for the year 2004 using new disaggregate price and trade flow data. Our benchmark estimate for all countries is approximately 4.5, nearly 50 percent lower than the alternative estimation strategy would suggest. This difference implies a doubling of the measured welfare costs of autarky across a large class of widely used trade models. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8qg9478n Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Waugh, Michael Simonovska, Ina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/89j7998z Firm-level stock returns exhibit comovement above that in fundamentals, and the gap tends to be higher in developing countries. We investigate whether correlated beliefs among sophisticated, but imperfectly informed, traders can account for the patterns of return correlations across countries. We take a unique approach by turning to direct data on market participants’ information - namely, real-time firm-level earnings forecasts made by equity market analysts. The correlations of firm-level forecasts exceed those of fundamentals and are strongly related to return correlations across countries. A calibrated information-based model demonstrates that the correlation of beliefs implied by analyst forecasts leads to return correlations broadly in line with the data, both in levels and across countries - the correlation between predicted and actual is 0.63. Our findings have implications for market-wide volatility - the model-implied correlations alone can explain 44% of the cross-section... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/89j7998z Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Simonovska, Ina David, Joel https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7sb6g68p Empirical studies find a strong positive relationship between a country’s per-capita income and price level of final tradable goods. Among alternative explanations of this observation, I focus on variable mark-ups by firms. Mark-ups that vary with destinations’ incomes are evident from a clothing manufacturer’s online catalogue featuring unit prices of identical goods sold in 24 countries. Such price discrimination on the basis of income suggests that firms exploit lower price elasticity of demand for identical goods in richer countries. In order to capture that, I introduce non-homothetic preferences in a model of trade with product differentiation and heterogeneity in firm productivity. The model helps bring theory and data closer along a key dimension: it generates positively related prices and incomes, while preserving desirable features of firm behavior and trade flows of existing frameworks. Quantitatively, the model suggests that variable mark-ups can account for... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7sb6g68p Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Simonovska, Ina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6cm498gq We quantify a general equilibrium model of international trade and pricing-to-market that features firm-level heterogeneity and consumers with non-homothetic preferences—generalized CES (GCES). We demonstrate theoretically that, relative to existing frameworks, the GCES model exhibits features of the data that are essential to conduct quantitative analysis. The framework can reconcile the documented price dispersion across firms and markets, while maintaining consistency with cross-sectional observations on firm productivity, markups, and sales. We estimate the model's parameters to match bilateral trade flows across 66 countries as well as moments from the markup and sales distributions of Chilean firms. The model reconciles both micro and macro facts quantitatively, and yields trade elasticity estimates that are in line with the existing literature. Hence, we conclude that the GCES model constitutes a plausible and parsimonious quantitative workhorse framework that can be used... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6cm498gq Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Jung, Jae Wook Simonovska, Ina Weinberger, Ariel https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5vs7g4hc Quantitative results from a large class of structural gravity models of international trade depend critically on the elasticity of trade with respect to trade frictions. We develop a new simulated method of moments estimator to estimate this elasticity from disaggregate price and trade-flow data and we use it within Eaton and Kortum's (2002) Ricardian model. We apply our estimator to disaggregate price and trade-flow data for 123 countries in the year 2004. Our method yields a trade elasticity of roughly four, nearly fifty percent lower than Eaton and Kortum's (2002) approach. This difference doubles the welfare gains from international trade. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5vs7g4hc Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Simonovska, Ina Waugh, Michael E https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5gj644kb This paper presents novel evidence of price discrimination, using prices of identical goods in 28 countries. I explain the observed phenomenon via non-homothetic preferences, in a model of trade with product differentiation and firm productivity heterogeneity. The model brings theory and data closer along a key dimension: it generates positively related prices of tradables and income, while preserving exporter behavior and trade flows of existing frameworks. It further captures observations that richer countries buy more per product and consume more diverse bundles. Quantitatively, the model suggests that variable markups account for 80 percent of the positive price-income relationship across 123 countries. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5gj644kb Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Simonovska, Ina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/55h3s5sh Making America Great Again? The Economic Impacts of Liberation Day Tariffs https://escholarship.org/uc/item/55h3s5sh Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Ignatenko, Anna Lashkaripour, Ahmad Macedoni, Luca Simonovska, Ina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4vq222ng Making America Great Again? The Economic Impacts of Liberation Day Tariffs https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4vq222ng Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Simonovska, Ina Ignatenko, Anna Lashkaripour, Ahmad Macedoni, Luca https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4vp4b6j8 I study the positive relationship between prices of tradable goods and per capita income. I develop a highly tractable general equilibrium model of international trade with heterogeneous firms and non-homothetic consumer preferences that positively links prices of tradables to consumer income. Guided by the model's testable prediction, I estimate the elasticity of price with respect to per capita income from a unique data set that I construct, which features prices of 245 identical goods sold in 29 European, Asian, and North American markets via the Internet by Spain's second largest apparel manufacturer-Mango. I find that doubling a destination's per capita income results in an 18% increase in the price of identical items sold there. Per capita income differences account for a third, whereas shipping cost differences can explain up to a third of the cross-country price variations of identical items purchased via the Internet by consumers who do not take advantage of quantity... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4vp4b6j8 Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Simonovska, Ina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4q72s9j0 We develop a general equilibrium model of trade that features "indirectly additive" preferences and heterogeneous firms. Monopolistic competition generates markups that are increasing in firm productivity and in destination country per capita income, but independent from destination population, as documented empirically. The gains from trade liberalization are lower than in models based on CES preferences, and the difference is governed by the average pass- through. When we calibrate the model so as to match observed pricing- to-market in micro- data, it generates welfare gains that are substantially lower than those predicted by commonly employed frameworks. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4q72s9j0 Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Bertoletti, Paolo Etro, Federico Simonovska, Ina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3mv3j29x Quantitative results from a large class of structural gravity models of international trade depend critically on the elasticity of trade with respect to trade frictions. We develop a new simulated method of moments estimator to estimate this elasticity from disaggregate price and trade-flow data and we use it within Eaton and Kortum's (2002) Ricardian model. We apply our estimator to disaggregate price and trade-flow data for 123 countries in the year 2004. Our method yields a trade elasticity of roughly four, nearly fifty percent lower than Eaton and Kortum's (2002) approach. This difference doubles the welfare gains from international trade. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3mv3j29x Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Simonovska, Ina Waugh, Michael E https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3g67x3x7 We study optimal portfolio choice in a two-country model where assets represent claims on future consumption and facilitate trade in markets with imperfect credit. Assuming that foreign assets trade at a cost, agents hold relatively more domestic assets. Consequently, agents have larger claims to domestic over foreign consumption. Moreover, foreign assets turn over faster than domestic assets because the former have desirable liquidity properties, but represent inferior saving tools. Our mechanism offers an answer to a long-standing puzzle in international finance: a positive relationship between consumption and asset home bias coupled with higher turnover rates of foreign over domestic assets. © 2014 Elsevier Inc. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3g67x3x7 Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Geromichalos, Athanasios Simonovska, Ina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2fs4s46z We study optimal portfolio choice in a two-country model where assets represent claims on future consumption and facilitate trade in markets with imperfect credit. Assuming that foreign assets trade at a cost, agents hold relatively more domestic assets. Consequently, agents have larger claims to domestic over foreign consumption. Moreover, foreign assets turn over faster than domestic assets because the former have desirable liquidity properties, but represent inferior saving tools. Our mechanism offers an answer to a long-standing puzzle in international finance: a positive relationship between consumption and asset home bias coupled with higher turnover rates of foreign over domestic assets. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2fs4s46z Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Geromichalos, Athanasios Simonovska, Ina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2509108w We study optimal asset portfolio choice in a two-country search-theoretic model of monetary exchange. We allow assets to not only represent claims on future consumption, but to also serve as means of payment. Assuming foreign assets trade at a cost, we characterize equilibria in which different countries’ assets arise as media of exchange in different types of trades. More frequent trading opportunities at home result in agents holding proportionately more domestic over foreign assets. Consequently, agents have larger claims to domestic over foreign consumption goods. Moreover, foreign assets turn over faster than home assets because the former have desirable liquidity properties, but unfavorable returns over time. Our mechanism offers an answer to a long-standing puzzle in international finance: a positive relationship between consumption and asset home bias, coupled with higher turnover rates of foreign over domestic assets. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2509108w Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Simonovska, Ina Geromichalos, Athanasios https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1mc051vj BUSINESS CYCLE ACCOUNTING FOR CHILE https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1mc051vj Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Simonovska, Ina Söderling, Ludvig https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1d73q3wh Making America Great Again? The Economic Impacts of Liberation Day Tariffs https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1d73q3wh Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Simonovska, Ina Lashkaripour, Ahmad Ignatenko, Anna Macedoni, Luca https://escholarship.org/uc/item/10k1v7wm Quantitative results from a large class of international trade models depend critically on the elasticity of trade with respect to trade frictions. We develop a simulated method of moments estimator to estimate this elasticity from disaggregate price and trade-flow data using the Ricardian model. We motivate our estimator by proving that the estimator developed in Eaton and Kortum (2002) is biased in any finite sample. We quantitatively show that the bias is severe and that the data requirements necessary to eliminate it in practice are extreme. Applying our estimator to new disaggregate price and trade-flow data for 123 countries in the year 2004 yields a trade elasticity of roughly four, nearly fifty percent lower than Eaton and Kortum’s (2002) approach. This difference doubles the welfare gains from international trade. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/10k1v7wm Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Simonovska, Ina Waugh, Michael E https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0n76z04x We investigate sources of economic fluctuations in Chile during 1998-2007 within the framework of a standard neoclassical growth model with time-varying frictions (wedges). We analyze the relative importance of efficiency, labor, investment, and government/trade wedges for business cycles in Chile. The purpose of this exercise is twofold: (i) focusing the policy discussion on the most important wedges in the economy and (ii) identifying which broad class of models would present fruitful avenues for further research. We find that different wedges have played different roles during our studied period, but that the efficiency, labor, and investment wedges have had the greatest impact. We also compare our results with existing studies on emerging and developed economies. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0n76z04x Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Simonovska, Ina Söderling, Ludvig https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0gn4s6qj Combining Balassa-Samuelson effects with strategic complementarities between prices of tradables and non-tradables yields a novel determinant of tradables' prices. A larger productivity difference between tradables and non-tradables raises the non-tradables' price. With strategic complementarities, producers of tradables also increase prices. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0gn4s6qj Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Bekkers, Eddy Simonovska, Ina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/05k4p2qx Firm-level stock returns exhibit comovement above that in fundamentals, and the gap tends to be higher in developing countries. We investigate whether correlated beliefs among sophisticated, but imperfectly informed, traders can account for the patterns of return correlations across countries. We take a unique approach by turning to direct data on market participants' information - namely, real-time firm-level earnings forecasts made by equity market analysts. The correlations of firm-level forecasts exceed those of fundamentals and are strongly related to return correlations across countries. A calibrated information-based model demonstrates that the correlation of beliefs implied by analyst forecasts leads to return correlations broadly in line with the data, both in levels and across countries - the correlation between predicted and actual is 0.63. Our findings have implications for market-wide volatility - the model-implied correlations alone can explain 44% of the cross-section... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/05k4p2qx Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 David, Joel M Simonovska, Ina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/03b638wg Quantitative results from a large class of structural gravity models of international trade depend critically on the elasticity of trade with respect to trade frictions. We develop a new simulated method of moments estimator to estimate this elasticity from disaggregate price and trade-flow data and we use it within Eaton and Kortum's (2002) Ricardian model. We apply our estimator to disaggregate price and trade-flow data for 123 countries in the year 2004. Our method yields a trade elasticity of roughly four, nearly fifty percent lower than Eaton and Kortum's (2002) approach. This difference doubles the welfare gains from international trade. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/03b638wg Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Simonovska, Ina Waugh, Michael E https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0144c6hj Quantitative results from a large class of structural gravity models of international trade depend critically on the elasticity of trade with respect to trade frictions. We develop a new simulated method of moments estimator to estimate this elasticity from disaggregate price and trade-flow data and we use it within Eaton and Kortum's (2002) Ricardian model. We apply our estimator to disaggregate price and trade-flow data for 123 countries in the year 2004. Our method yields a trade elasticity of roughly four, nearly fifty percent lower than Eaton and Kortum's (2002) approach. This difference doubles the welfare gains from international trade. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0144c6hj Wed, 13 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Simonovska, Ina Waugh, Michael https://escholarship.org/uc/item/12k4d6fg Global value chains in a world of uncertainty and automation https://escholarship.org/uc/item/12k4d6fg Wed, 7 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Faber, Marius Kilic, Kemal Kozliakov, Gleb Marin, Dalia https://escholarship.org/uc/item/82p4n1v1 We provide evidence of a benefit redemption cycle in the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC). Using novel administrative data on item-level redemptions, we show that unlike SNAP, WIC redemptions peak at both the beginning and end of the month. Beginning-of-the-month excess redemptions are concentrated among more popular items such as infant formula, while end-of-the-month excess redemptions are concentrated among less popular items such as infant meats. We document that a substantial share of beneficiaries go at least one month without redeeming anything and discuss how administrative burdens may drive the WIC cycle. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/82p4n1v1 Thu, 20 Mar 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Bitler, Marianne Cook, Jason Oh, Seojung Rowberry, Paige https://escholarship.org/uc/item/31t085hn We provide a new characterization of both belief update and belief revision in terms of a Kripke-Lewis semantics. We consider frames consisting of a set of states, a Kripke belief relation and a Lewis selection function. Adding a valuation to a frame yields a model. Given a model and a state, we identify the initial belief set K with the set of formulas that are believed at that state and we identify either the updated belief set K⋄ϕ or the revised belief set K⁎ϕ (prompted by the input represented by formula ϕ) as the set of formulas that are the consequent of conditionals that (1) are believed at that state and (2) have ϕ as antecedent. We show that this class of models characterizes both the Katsuno-Mendelzon (KM) belief update functions and the Alchourrón, Gärdenfors and Makinson (AGM) belief revision functions, in the following sense: (1) each model gives rise to a partial belief function that can be completed into a full KM/AGM update/revision function, and (2) for every... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/31t085hn Wed, 15 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000 Bonanno, Giacomo https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0935-3497 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2r38n8q4 Capital controls and trade policy https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2r38n8q4 Mon, 5 Aug 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Lloyd, Simon P Marin, Emile A https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6h79s0kx Alcohol Ban and Crime: The ABCs of the Bihar Prohibition https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6h79s0kx Wed, 19 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Chaudhuri, Kalyani Jha, Natasha Nilayamgode, Mrithyunjayan Suryanarayana, Revathy https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7238r0cz The emergence of COVID-19 spurred the fastest development of a vaccine in history. Yet, a large proportion of Americans remain hesitant to receive it. Our paper investigates how the social networks we inhabit might explain persistent vaccine hesitancy. We argue that the COVID-19 vaccination status of respondents closest associates inhibits or motivates their decision to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. To test our argument, we conduct an original survey asking respondents a battery of questions about the people with whom individuals most frequently discuss vaccines and COVID-19. Our survey reports that individuals discussion networks are polarized by vaccination status. Concurrently, there is a strong association between the social networks vaccination status and the respondents vaccination status. This association is so robust that partisanship does not moderate the association between discussants vaccination status and respondents vaccination status. Together, our results imply that... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7238r0cz Mon, 3 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Amlani, Sharif Kiesel, Spencer Butters, Ross https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9k04j2mn We apply "value-added" models to estimate the effects of teachers on an outcome they cannot plausibly affect: student height. When fitting commonly estimated models to New York City data, we find that the standard deviation of teacher effects on height is nearly as large as that for math and reading, raising potential concerns about value-added estimates of teacher effectiveness. We consider two explanations: non-random sorting of students to teachers and idiosyncratic classroom-level variation. We cannot rule out sorting on unobservables, but find students are not sorted to teachers based on lagged height. The correlation in teacher effects estimates on height across years and the correlation between teacher effects on height and teacher effects on achievement are insignificant. The large estimated "effects" for height appear to be driven by year-to-year classroom by teacher variation that is not often separable from true effects in models commonly estimated in practice. Reassuringly... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9k04j2mn Wed, 14 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Bitler, Marianne Corcoran, Sean P Domina, Thurston Penner, Emily K https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1hs5r5hz Using data on the NBER working paper series, we show that the dissemination of economics research suffers from a congestion problem: An increase in the number of weekly released working papers on average reduces downloads, abstract views, and media attention for each paper. Subsequent publishing and citation outcomes are harmed as well. Papers written by prominent authors are not immune to this congestion effect. Finally, suggestive evidence on viewership and downloads implies that working papers substitute for the dissemination function of publication. Our results highlight how readers face time and cognitive constraints, with increased congestion in working papers leading to real impacts on how research is consumed. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1hs5r5hz Wed, 14 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Lusher, Lester Yang, Wenni Carrell, Scott E https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7pd6868r Fiscal policy and the monetary transmission mechanism https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7pd6868r Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Caramp, Nicolas Silva, Dejanir H https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2966b6mt Safe asset shortages can expose an economy to liquidity traps. The nature of these traps is determined by the cyclicality of the bond premium. A counter-cyclical bond premium opens the possibility of expectations-driven liquidity traps in which small issuances of government debt crowd out private debt and reduce output. In contrast, when the bond premium is pro-cyclical and the economy is in a liquidity trap, government debt is expansionary. In the data, we find evidence of a counter-cyclical bond premium. Large interventions can prevent the emergence of self-fulfilling traps, but they require sufficient fiscal capacity. In a quantitative model calibrated to the Great Recession, a promise to increase the government debt-to-GDP ratio by 20 percentage points precludes the possibility of self-fulfilling traps. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2966b6mt Wed, 31 Jan 2024 00:00:00 +0000 Caramp, Nicolas Singh, Sanjay R https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6075-4125 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7mf9s4nq We study the link between fiscal austerity and Nazi electoral success. Voting data from a thousand districts and a hundred cities for four elections between 1930 and 1933 show that areas more affected by austerity (spending cuts and tax increases) had relatively higher vote shares for the Nazi Party. We also find that the localities with relatively high austerity experienced relatively high suffering (measured by mortality rates) and these areas' electorates were more likely to vote for the Nazi Party. Our findings are robust to a range of specifications including an instrumental variable strategy and a border-pair policy discontinuity design. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7mf9s4nq Wed, 4 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Galofré-Vilà, Gregori Meissner, Christopher M McKee, Martin Stuckler, David https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1g3493z7 The Cobden-Chevalier treaty of 1860 eliminated French import prohibitions and lowered tariffs between France and Great Britain. The policy change was largely unexpected and unusually free from direct lobbying. A series of commercial treaties with other nations followed. Post-1860, we find a significant rise in French intra-industry trade. Sectors that liberalized more experienced higher two-way trade. Our findings are consistent with the idea that trade liberalization led to smooth adjustment that avoided costly inter-sectoral re-allocations of factors. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1g3493z7 Wed, 4 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Becuwe, Stéphane Blancheton, Bertrand Meissner, Christopher M https://escholarship.org/uc/item/11x4g0k7 Do exchange rate movements matter for how markets price foreign currency denominated sovereign bonds? High-frequency bond price data from 1931 show that depreciation against the dollar/gold was associated with elevated risk premia on US dollar/gold public debt. We use a theoretical model to illustrate how foreign currency debt influences exchange rate policy and foreign currency bond prices. We use these theoretical results, the timing of sterling's devaluation in September 1931, and historically determined fundamentals to identify the impact of exchange rate policy on hard-currency bond yields in the Great Depression. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/11x4g0k7 Wed, 4 Oct 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Bordo, MD Meissner, CM https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1x98444s The COVID-19 pandemic produced a significant decline in international immigration to the USA between 2020 and 2021. This paper documents the timing, characteristics, and heterogeneity of the change in immigration across states and economic sectors. Additionally, we describe the trends in internal native mobility in the USA prior to and after the pandemic, investigating whether natives responded to the decrease in immigration by relocating either geographically or across sectors. Despite the substantial drop in international migration, we do not observe any significant changes in native internal mobility. Employing a panel regression and a shift-share IV, we study the effect of foreign immigration, the emergence of remote-work, and changes in labor demand on cross-state native mobility. Our results indicate that the decline in immigration following COVID-19 and the differential availability of remote-work opportunities across sectors and states did not drive changes in natives’... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1x98444s Wed, 16 Aug 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Peri, Giovanni https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4979-8426 Zaiour, Reem https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4jx187v7 We examine multi-generational impacts of positive in utero health interventions using a new research design that exploits sharp increases in prenatal Medicaid eligibility that occurred in some states. Our analyses are based on U.S. Vital Statistics Natality files, which enables linkages between individuals' early life Medicaid exposure and the next generation's health at birth. We find evidence that the health benefits associated with treated generations' early life program exposure extend to later offspring. Our results suggest that the returns on early life health investments may be substantively underestimated. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4jx187v7 Tue, 25 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 East, Chloe N Miller, Sarah Page, Marianne Wherry, Laura R https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4gb5s5n9 <h4>Background</h4>Breastfeeding is important for the health and development of the child, and for maternal health, in all country contexts. However, global sales of breast-milk substitutes (BMS), including infant, follow-up and toddler formulas, have 'boomed' in recent decades. This raises the importance of international food standards established by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex) on the safety, composition and labelling of BMS. Such standards appear to be strongly contested by governments, industry and civil society groups, yet few studies have investigated the politics of Codex standard-setting processes. The aim of this paper is to understand who participates in decision-making, and how actors frame and contest proposals to revise the Codex Standard on Follow-up Formula (FUF).<h4>Methods</h4>We adopted a case study design involving two steps. First, we enumerated government, industry, civil society, and international organization stakeholders participating in standard-setting... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4gb5s5n9 Thu, 13 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Boatwright, Monique Lawrence, Mark Russell, Cherie Russ, Katheryn McCoy, David Baker, Phillip https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6pz5d426 In the U.S., means-tested cash, in-kind assistance, and social insurance are part of a patchwork safety net, often run with substantial involvement of state and local governments. Take-up–participation among eligible persons in this system is incomplete. A large literature points to both neo-classical and behavioral science explanations for low take-up. In this paper, we explore the response of the safety net to COVID-19 using newly-collected survey data from one U.S. state–Utah. The rich Utah data ask about income and demographics as well as use of three social safety net programs which collectively provided a large share of relief spending: the Unemployment Insurance program, a social insurance program providing workers who lose their jobs with payments; the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which provides benefit cards for purchasing unprepared food at retailers; and Economic Impact Payments, which provided relatively universal relief payments to individuals. The data... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6pz5d426 Thu, 6 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Bitler, Marianne Cook, Jason Horn, Danea Seegert, Nathan https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2fx5v85k Hispanic families have historically used means-tested assistance less than high-poverty peers, and one explanation for this may be that anti-immigrant politics and policies are a barrier to program participation. We document the participation of Hispanic children in three antipoverty programs by age and parental citizenship and the correlation of participation with state immigrant-based restrictions. Hispanic citizen children with citizen parents participate in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Medicaid more than Hispanic citizen children with noncitizen parents. Foreign-born Hispanic mothers use Medicaid less than their socioeconomic status would suggest. However, little evidence exists that child participation in Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) varies by mother's nativity: foreign-born mothers of Hispanic infants participate in WIC at higher rates than U.S.-born Hispanic mothers. State policies that restrict immigrant... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2fx5v85k Tue, 4 Jul 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Bitler, Marianne Genetian, Lisa A Gibson-Davis, Christina Rangel, Marcos A https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4gd8n14b BACKGROUND: International food standards set by the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC), have become more prominent in international trade politics, since being referenced by various World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements. We examine how this impacts implementation of the World Health Organization (WHO) <i>International Code of Marketing of Breast-milk Substitutes</i>. METHODS: Using trade in commercial milk formulas (CMFs) as a case study, we collected detailed data on interventions across various WTO bodies between 1995 and 2019. We used language from these interventions to guide data collection on member state and observer positions during the CAC review of the <i>Codex Standard for Follow-up Formula</i> (CSFUF), and during CAC discussions on the relevance of WHO policies and guidelines. RESULTS: Exporting member states made 245 interventions regarding CMFs at the WTO, many citing deviations from standards set by the CAC. These did not occur in formal disputes, but in WTO... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4gd8n14b Sat, 24 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Russ, Katheryn https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0997-8809 Baker, Phillip Byrd, Michaela Kang, Manho Siregar, Rizki Nauli Zahid, Hammad McCoy, David https://escholarship.org/uc/item/00d6r5x0 We ask whether mortality from historical pandemics has any predictive content for mortality in the Covid-19 pandemic. We find strong persistence in public health performance. Places that performed worse in terms of mortality in the 1918 influenza pandemic also have higher Covid-19 mortality today. This is true across countries as well as across a sample of large US cities. Experience with SARS in 2003 is associated with slightly lower mortality today. We discuss some socio-political factors that may account for persistence including distrust of expert advice, lack of cooperation, over-confidence, and health care supply shortages. Multi-generational effects of past pandemics may also matter. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/00d6r5x0 Sat, 24 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Lin, Peter Z Meissner, Christopher M https://escholarship.org/uc/item/78t4z95p Although colorectal cancer (CRC) screening is highly effective, screening rates lag far below recommended levels, particularly for low-income people. The Colorectal Cancer Control Program (CRCCP) funded $100 million in competitively awarded grants to 25 states from 2009-2015 to increase CRC screening rates among low-income, uninsured populations, in part by directly providing and paying for screening services. Using data from the 2001-2015 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) and a difference-in-differences strategy, we find no effects of CRCCP on the use of relatively cheap fecal occult blood tests (FOBT). We do, however, find that the CRCCP significantly increased the likelihood that uninsured 50-64-year-olds report ever having a relatively expensive endoscopic CRC screening (sigmoidoscopy or colonoscopy) by 2.9 percentage points, or 10.7%. These effects are larger for women, minorities, and individuals who did not undertake other types of preventive care. We do... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/78t4z95p Fri, 23 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Bitler, Marianne P Carpenter, Christopher S Horn, Danea https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7nq7d9wg BackgroundThe global milk formula market has ‘boomed’ in recent decades, raising serious concerns for breastfeeding, and child and maternal health. Despite these developments, few studies have investigated the global expansion of the baby food industry, nor the market and political practices corporations have used to grow and sustain their markets. In this paper, our aim is to understand the strategies used by the baby food industry to shape ‘first-foods systems’ across its diverse markets, and in doing so, drive milk formula consumption on a global scale. We used a theoretically guided synthesis review method, which integrated diverse qualitative and quantitative data sources.ResultsGlobal milk formula sales grew from ~US$1.5 billion in 1978 to US$55.6 billion in 2019. This remarkable&nbsp;expansion has occurred along two main historical axes. First, the widening geographical reach of the baby food industry and its marketing practices, both globally and within countries, as corporations... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7nq7d9wg Wed, 21 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Baker, Phillip Russ, Katheryn https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0997-8809 Kang, Manho Santos, Thiago M Neves, Paulo AR Smith, Julie Kingston, Gillian Mialon, Melissa Lawrence, Mark Wood, Benjamin Moodie, Rob Clark, David Sievert, Katherine Boatwright, Monique McCoy, David https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4pv736j0 Emigration of young, highly educated individuals may deprive origin countries of entrepreneurs. We identify exogenous variation in emigration from Italy by interacting past diaspora networks and current economic pull factors in destination countries. We find that a 1 standard deviation increase in the emigration rate generates a 4.8 percent decline in firms’ creation in the local labor market of origin. An accounting exercise decomposes the estimated effect into four components: subtraction of individuals with average entrepreneurial propensity, selection of young and college-educated among emigrants, negative spillovers on firm creation, and selection on unobservable characteristics positively associated with entrepreneurship. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4pv736j0 Wed, 7 Jun 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Anelli, Massimo Basso, Gaetano Ippedico, Giuseppe Peri, Giovanni https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4979-8426 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/91r1c51f For a long time, social scientists have used correlations in social status, measured by such characteristics as schooling, income, or occupation, across family members to capture family resemblance in social status. In this study, we use millions of records from a public registry to estimate the wealth correlations among Taiwanese kinship members, from the closest parent-child pairing to the farthest kinship ties, with only 1/32 genetic relatedness. Based on this wealth correlation, we present a complete picture of economic similarity among kin members. These correlations give us a better grasp of the hitherto obscure Chinese family structure than that of mechanical genetic relatedness. We obtain statistical evidence to support the following hypotheses: Family members' wealth resemblance to male egos is stronger than to female egos, wealth correlations are larger along patrilineal lines than along matrilineal counterparts, wealthy families have larger correlations within the nuclear... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/91r1c51f Sat, 27 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Chu, CY Cyrus Kan, Kamhon Lin, Jou Chun https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6rq3j25h We use experimental data to estimate impacts on school readiness of different kinds of preschool curricula - a largely neglected preschool input and measure of preschool quality. We find that the widely-used "whole-child" curricula found in most Head Start and pre-K classrooms produced higher classroom process quality than did locally-developed curricula, but failed to improve children's school readiness. A curriculum focused on building mathematics skills increased both classroom math activities and children's math achievement relative to the whole-child curricula. Similarly, curricula focused on literacy skills increased literacy achievement relative to whole-child curricula, despite failing to boost measured classroom process quality. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6rq3j25h Mon, 22 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Jenkins, Jade M Duncan, Greg J https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9869-6311 Auger, Anamarie Bitler, Marianne Domina, Thurston Burchinal, Margaret https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1qk1m983 Nowhere to Hide: Time-Varying Inflation Risk and Bond-Stock Correlation https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1qk1m983 Wed, 10 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Seo, Jinyoung https://escholarship.org/uc/item/53n4d0f2 Can data from mobile phones be used to observe economic shocks and their consequences at multiple scales? Here we present novel methods to detect mass layoffs, identify individuals affected by them and predict changes in aggregate unemployment rates using call detail records (CDRs) from mobile phones. Using the closure of a large manufacturing plant as a case study, we first describe a structural break model to correctly detect the date of a mass layoff and estimate its size. We then use a Bayesian classification model to identify affected individuals by observing changes in calling behaviour following the plant's closure. For these affected individuals, we observe significant declines in social behaviour and mobility following job loss. Using the features identified at the micro level, we show that the same changes in these calling behaviours, aggregated at the regional level, can improve forecasts of macro unemployment rates. These methods and results highlight promise of new... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/53n4d0f2 Wed, 3 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Toole, Jameson L Lin, Yu-Ru Muehlegger, Erich Shoag, Daniel González, Marta C Lazer, David https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7sn134gt OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effects of state insurance mandates requiring insurance plans to cover Pap tests, the standard screening for cervical cancer that is recommended for nearly all adult women. DATA SOURCES: Individual-level data on 600,000 women age 19-64 from the CDC's Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. STUDY DESIGN: Twenty-four states adopted state mandates requiring private insurers in the state to cover Pap tests from 1988 to 2000. We performed a difference-in-differences analysis comparing within-state changes in Pap test rates before and after adoption of a mandate, controlling for the associated changes in other states that did not adopt a mandate. PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Difference-in-differences estimates indicated that the Pap test mandates significantly increased past 2-year cervical cancer screenings by 1.3 percentage points, with larger effects for Hispanic and non-Hispanic white women. These effects are plausibly concentrated among insured women. CONCLUSIONS:... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7sn134gt Tue, 2 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Bitler, Marianne P Carpenter, Christopher S https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1j2661sh What do the behavior of monkeys in captivity and the financial system have in common? The nodes in such social systems relate to each other through multiple and keystone networks, not just one network. Each network in the system has its own topology, and the interactions among the system's networks change over time. In such systems, the lead into a crisis appears to be characterized by a decoupling of the networks from the keystone network. This decoupling can also be seen in the crumbling of the keystone's power structure toward a more horizontal hierarchy. This paper develops nonparametric methods for describing the joint model of the latent architecture of interconnected networks in order to describe this process of decoupling, and hence provide an early warning system of an impending crisis. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1j2661sh Fri, 28 Apr 2023 00:00:00 +0000 Fushing, Hsieh Jordà, Òscar Beisner, Brianne McCowan, Brenda https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9pk1t8mn We consider decision problems under complete ignorance and extend the minimax regret principle to situations where, after taking an action, the decision maker does not necessarily learn the state of the world. For example, if the decision maker only learns what the outcome is, then all she knows is that the actual state is one of the (possibly several) states that yield the observed outcome under the chosen action. We refer to this situation as imperfect ex-post information. We show that, given a choice between more information and less information, the decision maker prefers the latter. We also extend the framework to encompass the possibility of less than the extreme degree of pessimism that characterizes the minimax regret criterion. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9pk1t8mn Fri, 28 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Bonanno, Giacomo https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0935-3497 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2vw3368k In an earlier paper [Rational choice and AGM belief revision, Artificial Intelligence, 2009] a correspondence was established between the set-theoretic structures of revealed-preference theory (developed in economics) and the syntactic belief revision functions of the AGM theory (developed in philosophy and computer science). In this paper we extend the re-interpretation of those structures in terms of one-shot belief revision by relating them to the trichotomous attitude towards information studied in Garapa (Rev Symb Logic, 1–21, 2020) where information may be either (1) fully accepted or (2) rejected or (3) taken seriously but not fully accepted. We begin by introducing the syntactic notion of filtered belief revision and providing a characterization of it in terms of a mixture of both AGM revision and contraction. We then establish a correspondence between the proposed notion of filtered belief revision and the above-mentioned set-theoretic structures, interpreted as semantic... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2vw3368k Fri, 28 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000 Bonanno, Giacomo https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0935-3497 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0mm4x3b7 This paper measures social mobility rates in Hungary during the period 1949 to 2017, using surnames to measure social status. In those years, there were two very different social regimes. The first was the Hungarian People’s Republic (1949–1989), which was a communist regime with an avowed aim of favouring the working class. The second is the modern liberal democracy (1989–2017), which is a free-market economy. We find five surprising things. First, social mobility rates were low for both upper- and lower-class families during 1949–2017, with an underlying intergenerational status correlation of 0.6–0.8. Second, social mobility rates under communism were the same as in the subsequent capitalist regime. Third, the Romani minority throughout both periods showed even lower social mobility rates. Fourth, the descendants of the eighteenth-century noble class in Hungary were still significantly privileged in 1949 and later. And fifth, although social mobility rates did not change measurably... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0mm4x3b7 Mon, 25 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000 Bukowski, Paweł Clark, Gregory Gáspár, Attila Pető, Rita https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6xg160bc Understanding Global Banking https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6xg160bc Wed, 3 Feb 2021 00:00:00 +0000 de Haan, Jakob Hale, Galina https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5604-9730 Russ, Katheryn https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0jd8k9j5 Popular discussions of changes in American families over the past 60 years have revolved around the “retreat from marriage.” Concern has focused on increasing levels of nonmarital childbearing, as well as falling marriage rates that stem from both increases in the age at first marriage and greater marital instability. Often lost in these discussions is the fact that the decline of marriage has coincided with a rise in cohabitation. Many “single” Americans now live with a domestic partner and a substantial fraction of “single” mothers are cohabiting, often with the child's father. The share of women who have ever cohabited has nearly doubled over the past 25 years, and the majority of nonmarital births now occur to cohabiting rather than to unpartnered mothers at all levels of education. The emergence of cohabitation as an alternative to marriage has been a key feature of the post–World War II transformation of the American family. These changes in the patterns and trajectories... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0jd8k9j5 Mon, 21 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Lundberg, Shelly Pollak, Robert A Stearns, Jenna https://escholarship.org/uc/item/099703q8 Women are still a minority in the economics profession. By the mid-2000s, just under 35 percent of PhD students and 30 percent of assistant professors were female, and these numbers have remained roughly constant ever since. Over the past two decades, women’s progress in academic economics has slowed, with virtually no improvement in the female share of junior faculty or graduate students in decades. Little consensus has emerged as to why, though there has been a renewal of widespread interest in the status and future of women in economics and of the barriers they face to professional success. In this paper, we first document trends in the gender composition of academic economists over the past 25 years, the extent to which these trends encompass the most elite departments, and how women’s representation across fields of study within economics has changed. We then review the recent literature on other dimensions of women’s relative position in the discipline, including research... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/099703q8 Mon, 21 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Lundberg, Shelly Stearns, Jenna https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4hv9v47f A conclusion of the European Fertility Project in 1986 was that pretransition populations mostly displayed natural fertility, where parity-dependent birth control was absent. This conclusion has recently been challenged for England by new empirical results and has also been widely rejected by theorists of long-run economic growth, where pre-industrial fertility control is integral to most models. In this study, we use the accident of twin births to show that for three Western European–derived pre-industrial populations—namely, England (1730–1879), France (1670–1788), and Québec (1621–1835)—we find no evidence for parity-dependent control of marital fertility. If a twin was born in any of these populations, family size increased by 1 compared with families with a singleton birth at the same parity and mother age, with no reduction of subsequent fertility. Numbers of children surviving to age 14 also increased. Twin births also show no differential effect on fertility when they... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4hv9v47f Mon, 7 Sep 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Clark, Gregory Cummins, Neil Curtis, Matthew https://escholarship.org/uc/item/74p8p4px Language Training and Refugees' Integration https://escholarship.org/uc/item/74p8p4px Tue, 18 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Nielsen Arendt, Jacob Bolvig, Iben Foged, Mette Hasager, Linea Peri, Giovanni https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4979-8426 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/22n12360 Uncertainty, Risk and Information https://escholarship.org/uc/item/22n12360 Tue, 9 Jun 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Bonanno, Giacomo https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0935-3497 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5s68r26q The ‘China shock’ operated in part through the housing market, which is one reason why its impact was so large on the U.S. labor market. We add housing to a multi-region multi-sector model, with individuals choosing whether and where to work. Controlling for housing reduces the negative direct impact of import exposure on manufacturing employment by 26%–31%, with a significant magnification through the housing market. A variance decomposition analysis shows that the indirect effect of the China shock through the housing market contributes an added 11% to the variance in manufacturing employment as compared to the direct effect of import exposure. For manufacturing and construction employment combined, the indirect effect even outweighs the direct effect. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5s68r26q Tue, 21 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Xu, Yuan Ma, Hong Feenstra, Robert https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2x76j0fj Estimating the Benefits of New Products https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2x76j0fj Tue, 21 Jan 2020 00:00:00 +0000 Diewert, Erwin Feenstra, Robert C https://escholarship.org/uc/item/89w546vc This textbook incorporates the author’s previous book "The Economics of Uncertainty and Insurance" and extends it with the addition of several new chapters on risk sharing, asymmetric information, adverse selection, signaling and moral hazard. It provides a comprehensive introduction to the analysis of economic decisions under uncertainty and to the role of asymmetric information in contractual relationships. It is richly illustrated with 150 figures. It is suitable for both self-study and as the basis for an upper-division undergraduate course. The book is written to be accessible to anyone with minimum knowledge of calculus, in particular the ability to calculate the (partial) derivative of a function of one or two variables. The book contains a total of 150 fully solved exercises. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/89w546vc Sat, 14 Dec 2019 00:00:00 +0000 Bonanno, Giacomo https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7c5995p8 In an earlier paper [Rational choice and AGM belief revision, Artificial Intelligence, 2009] a correspondence was established between the choice structures of revealed-preference theory (developed in economics) and the syntactic belief revision functions of the AGM theory (developed in philosophy and computer science). In this paper we extend the re-interpretation of (a generalized notion of) choice structure in terms of belief revision by adding: (1) the possibility that an item of “information” might be discarded as not credible (thus dropping the AGM success axiom) and (2) the possibility that an item of information, while not accepted as fully credible, may still be “taken seriously” (we call such items of information “allowable”). We establish a correspondence between generalized choice structures (GCS) and AGM belief revision; furthermore, we provide a syntactic analysis of the proposed notion of belief revision, which we call filtered belief revision. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7c5995p8 Tue, 6 Aug 2019 00:00:00 +0000 Bonanno, Giacomo https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0935-3497 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/22m501m4 This paper investigates if research findings change political leaders’ beliefs and cause policy change. Collaborating with the National Confederation of Municipalities in Brazil, we work with 2,150 municipalities and the mayors who control their policies. We use experiments to measure mayors’ demand for research information and their response to learning research findings. In one experiment, we find that mayors and other municipal officials are willing to pay to learn the results of impact evaluations, and update their beliefs when informed of the findings. They value larger-sample studies more, while not distinguishing on average between studies conducted in rich and poor countries. In a second experiment, we find that informing mayors about research on a simple and effective policy (reminder letters for taxpayers) increases the probability that their municipality implements the policy by 10 percentage points. In sum, we provide direct evidence that providing research information... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/22m501m4 Wed, 10 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000 Hjort, Jonas Moreira, Diana Rao, Gautam Santini, Juan Francisco https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0027s8tv We examine the price and variety of a sample of consumer goods at the barcode level in cities within China. Unlike the position in the United States, in China the prices of goods tend to be lower in larger cities. We explain that difference between the countries by the more uneven spatial distribution of manufacturers' sales and retailers in China, and we confirm the pro-competitive effect of city size on reducing markups there. In both countries, there is a greater variety of goods in larger cities, but that effect is more pronounced in China. Combining the lower prices and greater variety, the price indexes in China for the goods we study fall with city size by around seven times more than in the United States. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0027s8tv Wed, 12 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000 Feenstra, Robert C Xu, Mingzhi Antoniades, Alexis https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2261h9qf Introduction to the Special Section on Logic and the Foundations of Game and Decision Theory (LOFT12) https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2261h9qf Thu, 21 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000 Bonanno, Giacomo van der Hoek, Wiebe Perea, Andrés https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1979f4zm This text provides an introduction to the analysis of economic decisions under uncertainty, with particular focus on insurance markets. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1979f4zm Thu, 21 Mar 2019 00:00:00 +0000 Bonanno, Giacomo https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0935-3497 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3hp54912 With apologies, an incorrect author list was given in the article. An additional author, Chris von Rueden, (Jepson School of Leadership Studies, University of Richmond) also contributed to this work. Author Ryan Schacht's affiliation was out-of-date. His correct affiliation is: Department of Anthropology, East Carolina University. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3hp54912 Tue, 20 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Ross, Cody T Mulder, Monique Borgerhoff Oh, Seung-Yun Bowles, Samuel Beheim, Bret Bunce, John Caudell, Mark Clark, Gregory Colleran, Heidi Cortez, Carmen Draper, Patricia Greaves, Russell D Gurven, Michael Headland, Thomas Headland, Janet Hill, Kim Hewlett, Barry Kaplan, Hillard S Koster, Jeremy Kramer, Karen Marlowe, Frank McElreath, Richard Nolin, David Quinlan, Marsha Quinlan, Robert Revilla-Minaya, Caissa Scelza, Brooke Schacht, Ryan Shenk, Mary Uehara, Ray Voland, Eckart Willführ, Kai Winterhalder, Bruce https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6560-3302 Ziker, John von Rueden, Chris https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9x44j0f1 I study the positive relationship between prices of tradable goods and per capita income. I develop a highly tractable general equilibrium model of international trade with heterogeneous firms and non-homothetic consumer preferences that positively links prices of tradables to consumer income. Guided by the model's testable prediction, I estimate the elasticity of price with respect to per capita income from a unique data set that I construct, which features prices of 245 identical goods sold in 29 European, Asian, and North American markets via the Internet by Spain's second largest apparel manufacturer—Mango. I find that doubling a destination's per capita income results in an 18% increase in the price of identical items sold there. Per capita income differences account for a third, whereas shipping cost differences can explain up to a third of the cross-country price variations of identical items purchased via the Internet by consumers who do not take advantage of quantity... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9x44j0f1 Tue, 6 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Simonovska, Ina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0gc774qf We develop a general equilibrium model of trade that features "indirectly additive" preferences and heterogeneous firms. Monopolistic competition generates markups that are increasing in firm productivity and in destination country per capita income, but independent from destination population, as documented empirically. The gains from trade liberalization are lower than in models based on CES preferences, and the difference is governed by the average pass-through. When we calibrate the model so as to match observed pricing-to-market in micro-data, it generates welfare gains that are substantially lower than those predicted by commonly employed frameworks. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0gc774qf Tue, 6 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Bertoletti, Paolo Etro, Federico Simonovska, Ina https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8hn8r6cp We study common belief of weak-dominance rationality in strategic-form games with ordinal utilities, employing a qualitative model of beliefs. We characterize two standard solution concepts for such games: the Iterated Deletion of Börgers-dominated Strategies (IDBS) and the Iterated Deletion of Inferior Strategy Profiles (IDIP). We do so by imposing nested restrictions on the doxastic models: namely, the respective epistemic conditions differ in the fact that IDIP requires the truth axiom whereas IDBS does not. Hence, IDIP refines IDBS. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8hn8r6cp Tue, 23 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Bonanno, Giacomo https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0935-3497 Tsakas, Elias https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8592c8fg Introduction to the Special Issue on Logic and the Foundations of Game and Decision Theory (LOFT12) https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8592c8fg Tue, 3 Jul 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Bonanno, Giacomo https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0935-3497 van der Hoek, Wiebe Perea, Andrés https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6n38g41z We study the employment responses to the expansion of US exports and to the import competition, especially from China. We find that although import competition reduces jobs, export expansion also creates a substantial number of jobs. At the industry level, job gains due to US export expansion largely offset job losses due to Chinese import competition, resulting in a net gain of 379 thousand jobs over 1991–2011 in our preferred estimate. At the commuting zone level, job gains and losses are roughly balanced, with a slight net loss of 68 thousand jobs and a substantial range around this preferred estimate depending on the specification. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6n38g41z Tue, 5 Jun 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Feenstra, Robert C Ma, Hong Xu, Yuan https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5qx1k5gx Decision-Making https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5qx1k5gx Tue, 27 Mar 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Bonanno, Giacomo https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0935-3497 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9kn0v0nz What is the Price of Tea in China? Towards the Relative Cost of Living in Chinese and U.S. Cities https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9kn0v0nz Tue, 27 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Feenstra, Robert C Xu, Mingzhi Antoniades, Alexis https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7kx1463p Tariff Reductions, Entry, and Welfare: Theory and Evidence for the Last Two Decades https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7kx1463p Tue, 27 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Caliendo, Lorenzo Feenstra, Robert C Romalis, John Taylor, Alan M https://escholarship.org/uc/item/66k7k8mr What is the Price of Tea in China? Towards the Relative Cost of Living in Chinese and U.S. Cities https://escholarship.org/uc/item/66k7k8mr Tue, 27 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Feenstra, Robert C Xu, Mingzhi Antoniades, Alexis https://escholarship.org/uc/item/49h4179q Statistics to Measure Offshoring and its Impact https://escholarship.org/uc/item/49h4179q Tue, 27 Feb 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Feenstra, Robert C https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2fk92707 This text provides an introduction to the topic of rational decision making as well as a brief overview of the most common biases in judgment and decision making. "Decision Making" is relatively short (300 pages) and richly illustrated with approximately 100 figures. It is suitable for both self-study and as the basis for an upper-division undergraduate course in judgment and decision making. The book is written to be accessible to anybody with minimum knowledge of mathematics (high-school level algebra and some elementary notions of set theory and probability, which are reviewed in the book). At the end of each chapter there is a collection of exercises that are grouped according to that chapter’s sections. Complete and detailed answers for each exercise are given in the last section of each chapter. The book contains a total of 121 fully solved exercises. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2fk92707 Thu, 7 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Bonanno, Giacomo https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6dk22157 Doxastic characterizations of the set of Nash equilibrium outcomes and of the set of backward-induction outcomes are provided for general perfect-information games (where there may be multiple backward-induction solutions). We use models that are behavioral, rather than strategy-based, where a state only specifies the actual play of the game and not the hypothetical choices of the players at nodes that are not reached by the actual play. The analysis is completely free of counterfactuals and no belief revision theory is required, since only the beliefs at reached histories are specified. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6dk22157 Tue, 24 Oct 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Bonanno, Giacomo https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0935-3497 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9m38r5b1 This paper develops a multiple-goal investment strategy for sovereign wealth funds. In our investment strategy, we embed the Black-Litterman (B-L) model into the mean variance mental accounting (MVMA) approach. The B-L method provides a means of modeling return expectations, and the MVMA framework allows the derivation of the optimal asset allocation from a global investment perspective, in a response to a specific macroeconomic environment. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9m38r5b1 Thu, 6 Jul 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Xie, Li Woo, Thye Zhang, Zhichao Zhang, Zhuang https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9sq769mj We study common belief of rationality in strategic-form games with ordinal utilities, employing a model of qualitative beliefs. We characterize the three main solution concepts for such games, viz., Iterated Deletion of Strictly Dominated Strategies (IDSDS), Iterated Deletion of Boergers-dominated Strategies (IDBS) and Iterated Deletion of Inferior Strategy Profiles (IDIP), by means of gradually restrictive properties imposed on the models of qualitative beliefs. As a corollary, we prove that IDIP refines IDBS, which refines IDSDS. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9sq769mj Tue, 20 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Bonanno, Giacomo https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0935-3497 Tsakas, Elias https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4946n9tr This is an Open Access textbook on non-cooperative Game Theory with 165 solved exercises. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4946n9tr Tue, 13 Jun 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Bonanno, Giacomo https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5gr5g4ct From a data set of Chinese firms in the 200507 period, we find that government investment boosted the performance of zombie firms and crowded out the growth of private firms; we also found that the higher the concentration of state banks (and of state-owned enterprises), the more conducive is the environment for nurturing zombie firms. With the exit of zombie firms, (a) the industrial output growth rate would be higher by 2.12 percentage points, (b) the capital accumulation rate would be higher by 1.4 percentage points, (c) the employment growth rate would be higher by 0.84 percentage points, and (d) the rate total factor productivity growth would be higher by 1.06 percentage points. Our results support a radical change in the way that government investment has been carried out, and support comprehensive reform of the state sector, but they do not necessarily argue against government investment in large infrastructure projects and strategically-critical areas. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5gr5g4ct Sun, 2 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Tan, Y Huang, Y Woo, WT https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0bg628rq This paper projects China's national savings through 2040 based on China's national account data, demographic data, and data on rural and urban life-cycle income and consumption. Our baseline projections show that China's national saving in 2040 will be 16 times the current national saving. The annual growth rate of wealth will decline from 16.3 percent in 2012 to 9.5 percent in 2040. Lowering the growth rate of wealth accumulation to the current rate of return to wealth increases consumption through 2040; lowering the growth rate of wealth further may increase consumption more in the short run, but less in the long run. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0bg628rq Sun, 2 Apr 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Li, Shiyu Kotlikoff, Laurence J Lin, Shuanglin Woo, Thye Jiang, Yunyun https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1jq5d0pq A Practitioner’s Guide to Cluster-Robust Inference https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1jq5d0pq Tue, 28 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Colin Cameron, A Miller, Douglas L https://escholarship.org/uc/item/04s3m0hn The Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity and Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 imposed time limits on the receipt of welfare cash benefits and mandated cash benefit sanctions for failure to meet work requirements. Many studies examining the health implications of PRWORA have found associated declines in health insurance coverage and healthcare utilization among single mothers but no impact of PRWORA on health outcomes. A limitation of this literature is that most studies cover a time period before time limits were implemented in all states and also before individuals began actually timing out. This work builds on previous studies by exploring this research question using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation that covers a time period after all states have implemented time limits (1991-2009). We use a difference-in-differences study design that exploits variability in eligibility for cash welfare benefits by marital status and state-level variation in timing... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/04s3m0hn Tue, 28 Mar 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Narain, Kimberly Bitler, Marianne Ponce, Ninez https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5151-6718 Kominski, Gerald https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5214-7133 Ettner, Susan https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9s20220c This paper uses the framework of an OLG economy with three-period lived agents in which a durable good serves as collateral for loans, to study the effect of an unanticipated income shock when the economy is in a steady state equilibrium. We focus on the consequence of default on loans when the value of the collateral falls below the value of the debt it secures. We analyze the impulse response functions of the price and production of the durable good and show that there is an asymmetry between the response of the price and investment of the durable good to a positive and a negative income shock arising from default on the collateralized loans. We show that this asymmetry can be seen in the data on housing prices and construction and is attributable to the default on mortgages in periods of decreasing prices which acts as a turbo mechanism magnifying the decline in investment. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9s20220c Tue, 14 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Magill, Michael Quinzii, Martine https://escholarship.org/uc/item/92f6g1wp There is a widely held view within the general public that large corporations should act in the interests of a broader group of agents than just their shareholders (the stakeholder view). This paper presents a framework where this idea can be justified. The point of departure is the observation that a large firm typically faces endogenous risks that may have a significant impact on the workers it employs and the consumers it serves. These risks generate externalities on these stakeholders which are not internalized by shareholders. As a result, in the competitive equilibrium, there is under-investment in the prevention of these risks. We suggest that this under-investment problem can be alleviated if firms are instructed to maximize the total welfare of their stakeholders rather than shareholder value alone (stakeholder equilibrium). The stakeholder equilibrium can be implemented by introducing new property rights (employee rights and consumer rights) and instructing managers... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/92f6g1wp Tue, 14 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Magill, Michael Quinzii, Martine Rochet, Jean‐Charles https://escholarship.org/uc/item/50j712k4 Tariff Reductions, Entry, and Welfare: Theory and Evidence for the Last Two Decades https://escholarship.org/uc/item/50j712k4 Tue, 14 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Caliendo, Lorenzo Feenstra, Robert C Romalis, John Taylor, Alan M https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3659032r This paper studies a simple monetary model with a Ricardian fiscal policy in which equilibria are indeterminate if monetary policy consists solely of a rule for fixing the short-term interest rate. We introduce explicitly into the model the agents' expectations of inflation which create the indeterminacy and show that there are two types of policies-a term structure rule or a forward guidance rule for the short rate-which lead to determinacy. The first consists in fixing the interest rates on a family of bonds of different maturities as function of realized inflation; the second consists in fixing the short-term interest rate and the expected values of the short-term interest rate for a sequence of periods into the future as a function of realized inflation. If the monetary authority chooses an inflation process that satisfies conditions derived in the paper and applies one of these rules, it anchors agents' expectations to this process, in the sense that it is the unique inflation... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3659032r Tue, 14 Feb 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Magill, Michael Quinzii, Martine https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5p80p519 We review Immigration Economics by George J. Borjas, published in 2014 by Harvard University Press. The book is written as a graduate-level textbook, and summarizes and updates many of Borjas's important contributions to the field over the past thirty years. A key message of the book is that immigration poses significant costs to many members of the host-country labor market. Though the theoretical and econometric approaches presented in the book will be very useful for students and specialists in the field, we argue that the book presents a one-sided view of immigration, with little or no attention to the growing body of work that offers a more nuanced picture of how immigrants fit into the host-country market and affect native workers. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5p80p519 Tue, 17 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Card, David Peri, Giovanni https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4979-8426 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2ts1q7rs Immigration has been a steady force acting on population and employment within countries throughout human history. Focusing on the last four decades, we show that the mix of immigrants to rich countries has been, overall, rather balanced between college and non-college educated. The growth of immigration has been driven by immigrants from nonrich countries. The economic impact of immigration on receiving economies needs to be understood by analyzing the specific skills brought by immigrants. The complementarity and substitutability between immigrants and natives in employment, and the response of receiving economies in terms of specialization and technological choices, are important when considering the general equilibrium effects of immigration. In the United States, a balanced composition of immigrants between college and noncollege educated, together with the adjustment of demand and technology, imply that general equilibrium effects on relative and absolute wages have been small. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/2ts1q7rs Tue, 17 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Peri, Giovanni https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4979-8426 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/57h76223 Local television stations are platforms in a two-sided market connecting advertisers and viewers. This paper explicitly examines the effect that important intermediaries (such as cable, telephone, and satellite distributors) may have on a platform's pricing behavior in a two-sided market. I find that stations raise their fees to cable distributors because stations prefer that viewers access their content through satellite distributors with whom they do not compete in the local advertising market, and that station mergers lower stations' fees to distributors by partially internalizing a pricing externality that results from the mandatory bundling of local content. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/57h76223 Tue, 25 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000 Boik, Andre https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0w72j870 In the context of sellers who sell their products through intermediary platforms, a platform most-favored-nation (PMFN) clause is a contractual restriction requiring that a particular seller will not sell at a lower price through a platform other than the one with which it has the PMFN agreement. Contractual restrictions observed in markets for e-books and travel services, among other settings, can be viewed as examples of this phenomenon. We show that PMFN clauses typically raise platform fees and retail prices and curtail entry or skew positioning decisions by potential entrants pursuing low-end business models. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0w72j870 Tue, 25 Oct 2016 00:00:00 +0000 Boik, Andre Corts, Kenneth S