http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification 720 https://escholarship.org/uc/ucsbecon_rw/rss Recent eScholarship items from Recent Work Sat, 27 Jun 2026 04:37:18 +0000 https://escholarship.org/uc/item/15q4z6xj Virtually all agricultural communities worldwide are exposed to agricultural pesticides. Yet, the health consequences of such exposure are poorly understood, and the scientific literature remains ambiguous. Using individual birth and demographic characteristics for over 500 000 birth observations between 1997–2011 in the agriculturally dominated San Joaquin Valley, California, we statistically investigate if residential agricultural pesticide exposure during gestation, by trimester, and by toxicity influences birth weight, gestational length, or birth abnormalities. Overall, our analysis indicates that agricultural pesticide exposure increases adverse birth outcomes by 5–9%, but only among the population exposed to very high quantities of pesticides (e.g., top 5th percentile, i.e., ~4200 kg applied over gestation). Thus, policies and interventions targeting the extreme right tail of the pesticide distribution near human habitation could largely eliminate the adverse birth outcomes... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/15q4z6xj Fri, 13 Sep 2019 00:00:00 +0000 Larsen, Ashley E Gaines, Steven D https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7604-3483 Deschênes, Olivier https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3w5414sm Consumer Desirability of the Proposed Hyperloop https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3w5414sm Wed, 10 Jul 2019 00:00:00 +0000 Jia, Perry Zichen Razi, Kiana Wu, Nathan Wang, Casby Chen, Marty Xue, Huizhong Lui, Nick https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9dk2h7cv First generation immigrants to the United States have higher fertility rates than natives. This paper analyzes to what extent this factor provides political support for immigration, using an overlapping generation model with production and capital accumulation. In this setting, immigration represents a dynamic trade-off for native workers as more immigrants decrease current wages but increase the future return on their savings. We find that immigrant fertility has surprisingly strong effects on voter incentives, especially when there is persistence in the political process. If fertility rates are sufficiently high, native workers support immigration. Persistence, either due to inertia induced by frictions in the legal system or through expectational linkages, significantly magnifies the effects. Entry of immigrants with high fertility has redistributive impacts across generations similar to pay-as-you-go social security: initial generations are net winners, whereas later generations... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9dk2h7cv Tue, 11 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000 Bohn, Henning Lopez-Velasco, Armando R https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5cg1k3nd It is known that when people generate externalities, a birth also generates an externality and efficiency requires a Pigou tax/subsidy on having children. The size of the externality from a birth is important for studying policy. We calculate the size of this "population externality" in a specific case: we consider a maintained hypothesis that greenhouse gas emissions are a serious problem and assume government reacts by optimally restricting emissions. Calculated population externalities are large under many assumptions. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5cg1k3nd Tue, 11 Jun 2019 00:00:00 +0000 Bohn, Henning Stuart, Charles https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8m54k69f CORRESPONDENCE: Temperature and violence https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8m54k69f Mon, 25 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000 Cane, Mark A Miguel, Edward Burke, Marshall Hsiang, Solomon M Lobell, David B Meng, Kyle C Satyanath, Shanker https://escholarship.org/uc/item/16b4s9j2 Temperature and violence https://escholarship.org/uc/item/16b4s9j2 Mon, 25 Feb 2019 00:00:00 +0000 Cane, Mark A Miguel, Edward Burke, Marshall Hsiang, Solomon M Lobell, David B Meng, Kyle C Satyanath, Shanker https://escholarship.org/uc/item/25k9k1q6 In absence of third-party reporting, taxpayers are required to self-report information with various degrees of detail, ranging from uncorroborated claims to comprehensive records with receipts. Using a quasi-experimental design applied to noncash charitable contribution deductions, I show that even basic self-reporting requirements are effective at reducing evasion but impose large compliance costs on taxpayers. I find that simplified reporting requirements reduce reporting costs by $55 per person and substantially increase claimed donations. However, half of the new donations are due to evasion. Thus, information reporting should only be imposed on total reported donations above a pre-specified threshold. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/25k9k1q6 Thu, 8 Nov 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Tazhitdinova, Alisa https://escholarship.org/uc/item/70z7h8xq Intergenerational mobility and the political economy of immigration https://escholarship.org/uc/item/70z7h8xq Wed, 10 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Bohn, Henning Lopez-Velasco, Armando R https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7rd2f6vk This paper combines panel data on monthly mortality rates of US states and daily temperature variables for over a century (1900-2004) to explore the regional evolution of the temperature-mortality relationship and documents two key findings. First, the impact of extreme heat on mortality is notably smaller in states that more frequently experience extreme heat. Second, the difference in the heat-mortality relationship between hot and cold states declined over 1900-2004, though it persisted through 2004. Continuing differences in the mortality consequences of hot days suggests that health motivated adaptation to climate change may be slow and costly around the world. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7rd2f6vk Tue, 28 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Barreca, Alan Clay, Karen Deschênes, Olivier Greenstone, Michael Shapiro, Joseph S https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5580c2fs The demand for air quality depends on health impacts and defensive investments, but little research assesses the empirical importance of defenses. A rich quasi-experiment suggests that the Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) Budget Program (NBP), a cap-and-trade market, decreased NOx emissions, ambient ozone concentrations, pharmaceutical expenditures, and mortality rates. The annual reductions in pharmaceutical purchases, a key defensive investment, and mortality are valued at about $800 million and $1.3 billion, respectively, suggesting that defenses are over one-third of willingness-to-pay for reductions in NOx emissions. Further, estimates indicate that the NBP's benefits easily exceed its costs and that NOx reductions have substantial benefits. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5580c2fs Tue, 28 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Deschênes, Olivier Greenstone, Michael Shapiro, Joseph S https://escholarship.org/uc/item/08c6t2hs This paper examines the temperature-mortality relationship over the course of the twentieth-century United States both for its own interest and to identify potentially useful adaptations for coming decades. There are three primary findings. First, the mortality impact of days with mean temperature exceeding 807F declined by 75 percent. Almost the entire decline occurred after 1960. Second, the diffusion of residential air conditioning explains essentially the entire decline in hot day–related fatalities. Third, using Dubin and McFadden’s discrete continuous model, the present value of US consumer surplus from the introduction of residential air conditioning is estimated to be $85– $185 billion (2012 dollars). https://escholarship.org/uc/item/08c6t2hs Tue, 28 Aug 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Barreca, Alan Clay, Karen Deschenes, Olivier Greenstone, Michael Shapiro, Joseph S https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7s40n9fb Population genetic structure and ancestry of steelhead/rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) at the extreme southern edge of their range in North America https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7s40n9fb Wed, 25 Apr 2018 00:00:00 +0000 Abadía-Cardoso, Alicia Pearse, Devon E Jacobson, Sandra Marshall, Jack Dalrymple, Dale Kawasaki, Frank Ruiz-Campos, Gorgonio Garza, John Carlos https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8qg8869g We propose an intermediation core for an economy that explicitly specifies how traders organize themselves into trade cooperatives (intermediaries) and how trade between them gets carried out. The intermediation core allocations are closely related to the equilibrium allocations of a non-cooperative intermediation game in Townsend (1983). We show that the intermediation core contains all subgame perfect equilibrium allocations of the intermediation game, similar to the inclusion of competitive equilibrium allocations in the core usually studied. We identify intermediation core allocations that are also subgame perfect equilibrium allocations of the intermediation game in terms of the supporting intermediary structures. These results help to characterize subgame perfect equilibrium allocations of the intermediation game and to analyze their welfare and stability properties. © 2013 Elsevier B.V. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8qg8869g Tue, 24 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Kilenthong, Weerachart T Qin, Cheng-Zhong https://escholarship.org/uc/item/79j931v8 A linkage to reconcile measurable utility derived from intensity comparisons or from probability mixtures is provided in this note. This brief note is in honor of Lloyd Shapley whose relatively unknown seminal paper on measurable utility from axioms involving the fineness of perception offered a different view on utility measurement. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/79j931v8 Tue, 24 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Qin, Cheng-Zhong Shubik, Martin https://escholarship.org/uc/item/63n5h1xm Accountable care organizations (ACOs), one of the most recent and promising health care delivery innovations, encourage care coordination among providers. While ACOs hold promise for decreasing costs by reducing unnecessary procedures, improving resource use as a result of economies of scale and scope, ACOs also raise concerns about provider market power. This study examines the market-level competition factors that are associated with ACO participation and the number of ACOs. Using data from California, we find that higher levels of preexisting managed care leads to higher ACO entry and enrollment growth, while hospital concentration leads to fewer ACOs and lower enrollment. We find interesting results for physician market power - markets with concentrated physician markets have a smaller share of individuals in commercial ACOs but a larger number of commercial ACO organizations. This finding implies smaller ACOs in these markets. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/63n5h1xm Tue, 24 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Whaley, Christopher Frech, HE Scheffler, Richard M https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5mr9n08f Measuring Healthcare Efficiency https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5mr9n08f Tue, 24 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Duncan, Ian Frech, HE https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5dn8c7hp We introduce log-convexity for bargaining problems. With the requirement of some basic regularity conditions, log-convexity is shown to be necessary and sufficient for Nash’s axioms to determine a unique single-valued bargaining solution up to choices of bargaining powers. Specifically, we show that the single-valued (asymmetric) Nash solution is the unique solution under Nash’s axioms without that of symmetry on the class of regular and log-convex bargaining problems, but this is not true on any larger class. We apply our results to bargaining problems arising from duopoly and the theory of the firm. These problems turn out to be log-convex but not convex under familiar conditions. We compare the Nash solution for log-convex bargaining problems with some of its extensions in the literature. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5dn8c7hp Tue, 24 Jan 2017 00:00:00 +0000 Qin, Cheng-Zhong Shi, Shuzhong Tan, Guofu https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8g60j076 A recent study by Burke et al. [Burke M, Miguel E, Satyanath S, Dykema J, Lobell D (2009) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 106(49):20670-20674] reports statistical evidence that the likelihood of civil wars in African countries was elevated in hotter years. A following study by Buhaug [Buhaug H (2010) Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107(38):16477-16482] reports that a reexamination of the evidence overturns Burke et al.'s findings when alternative statistical models and alternative measures of conflict are used. We show that the conclusion by Buhaug is based on absent or incorrect statistical tests, both in model selection and in the comparison of results with Burke et al. When we implement the correct tests, we find there is no evidence presented in Buhaug that rejects the original results of Burke et al. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8g60j076 Tue, 22 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000 Hsiang, Solomon M Meng, Kyle C https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7870h7hc Why wealth is systematically lower in the tropics remains a puzzle. We point out that latitude may have fundamental economic consequence because it plays a key role in how countries experience geophysical processes that have economic implications. We demonstrate that annual fluctuations in the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) leads to hotter and dryer local weather across tropical countries and subsequently to substantial losses in agricultural yields, output, and value-added. If volatility in agricultural production impedes economic growth, the relatively stronger influence of ENSO on the tropics may offer yet another partial explanation for slower historical growth in the tropics. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7870h7hc Tue, 22 Nov 2016 00:00:00 +0000 Hsiang, Solomon M Meng, Kyle C https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4tc5d9pb Target carbon's costs, policy designs, and developing countries There have been dramatic advances in understanding the physical science of climate change, facilitated by substantial and reliable research support. The social value of these advances depends on understanding their implications for society, an arena where research support has been more modest and research progress slower. Some advances have been made in understanding and formalizing climate-economy linkages, but knowledge gaps remain [e.g., as discussed in ( 1 , 2 )]. We outline three areas where we believe research progress on climate economics is both sorely needed, in light of policy relevance, and possible within the next few years given appropriate funding: (i) refining the social cost of carbon (SCC), (ii) improving understanding of the consequences of particular policies, and (iii) better understanding of the economic impacts and policy choices in developing economies. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4tc5d9pb Tue, 26 Apr 2016 00:00:00 +0000 Burke, M Craxton, M Kolstad, CD Onda, C Allcott, H Baker, E Barrage, L Carson, R Gillingham, K Graff-Zivin, J Greenstone, M Hallegatte, S Hanemann, WM Heal, G Hsiang, S Jones, B Kelly, DL Kopp, R Kotchen, M Mendelsohn, R Meng, K Metcalf, G Moreno-Cruz, J Pindyck, R Rose, S Rudik, I Stock, J Tol, RSJ https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9pn4w03q This paper applies the theory of the evolution of risk-taking in the presence of idiosyncratic and environmental risks to the example of food hoarding by animals and explores implications of the resulting theory for human attitudes toward risk. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9pn4w03q Tue, 1 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000 Bergstrom, Theodore C https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9245c5d1 Empirical research with Markov regime-switching models often requires the researcher not only to estimate the model but also to test for the presence of more than one regime. Despite the need for both estimation and testing, methods of estimation are better understood than are methods of testing. We bridge this gap by explaining, in detail, how to apply the newest results in the theory of regime testing, developed by Cho and White [Cho, J. S., and H. White 2007. “Testing for Regime Switching.” Econometrica 75 (6): 1671–1720.]. A key insight in Cho and White is to expand the null region to guard against false rejection of the null hypothesis due to a small group of extremal values. Because the resulting asymptotic null distribution is a function of a Gaussian process, the critical values are not obtained from a closed-form distribution such as the χ². Moreover, the critical values depend on the covariance of the Gaussian process and so depend both on the specification of the model... https://escholarship.org/uc/item/9245c5d1 Tue, 1 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000 Steigerwald, D Carter, A https://escholarship.org/uc/item/535178qf Obtaining critical values for test of Markov regime switching https://escholarship.org/uc/item/535178qf Tue, 1 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000 Bostwick, VK Steigerwald, DG https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4xf9h43j Large commercial publishers sell bundled online subscriptions to their entire list of academic journals at prices significantly lower than the sum of their á la carte prices. Bundle prices differ drastically between institutions, but they are not publicly posted. The data that we have collected enable us to compare the bundle prices charged by commercial publishers with those of nonprofit societies and to examine the types of price discrimination practiced by commercial and nonprofit journal publishers. This information is of interest to economists who study monopolist pricing, librarians interested in making efficient use of library budgets, and scholars who are interested in the availability of the work that they publish. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/4xf9h43j Tue, 1 Sep 2015 00:00:00 +0000 Bergstrom, Theodore C Courant, Paul N McAfee, R Preston Williams, Michael A