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Deceptive Features on Platforms Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Johannes Johnen, Robert Somogyi
Many products sold on online platforms have additional features like fees for services, shipping, luggage, upgrades etc. We study when a two-sided platform shrouds additional features towards potentially-naive buyers. We explore a novel mechanism according to which platforms shroud to manipulate network externalities between buyers and sellers. Exploring this mechanism, we argue the advent of online
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Telementoring and Homeschooling During School Closures: A Randomized Experiment in Rural Bangladesh Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Hashibul Hassan, Asad Islam, Abu Siddique, Liang Choon Wang
Using a randomized experiment in 200 Bangladeshi villages, we evaluate the impact of an over-the-phone learning support intervention (telementoring) among primary school children and their mothers during Covid-19 school closures. Post-intervention, treated children scored 35% higher on a standardized test, and the homeschooling involvement of treated mothers increased by 22 minutes per day (26%). We
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Why High Incentives Cause Repugnance: A Framed Field Experiment Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-03-06 Robert Stüber
Why are high monetary payments prohibited for certain goods, thereby causing shortages in their supply? I conduct (i) a framed field experiment with a general population sample, and (ii) a survey experiment with this sample and with ethics committees. In the experiment, participants can prohibit others from being offered money to register as stem-cell donors. I document that, whereas the majority of
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The Shale Revolution and the Dynamics of the Oil Market Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Nathan S Balke, Xin Jin, Mine Yücel
We build and estimate a dynamic, structural model of the world oil market to quantify the impact of the shale revolution. We model the shale revolution as a decrease in shale production costs and find that the resultant increase in shale production lowers oil prices by 24% in the short run and 48% once the shale oil transition is complete. Current oil price volatility is lowered by 8 to 23% depending
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What to Blame? Self-Serving Attribution Bias with Multi-Dimensional Uncertainty Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-03-01 Alexander Coutts, Leonie Gerhards, Zahra Murad
People often receive feedback influenced by external factors, yet little is known about how this affects self-serving biases. Our theoretical model explores how multi-dimensional uncertainty allows additional degrees of freedom for self-serving bias. In our Primary experiment, feedback combining an individual’s ability and a teammate’s ability leads to biased belief updating. However, in a Follow-up
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Bundling Genetic and Financial Technologies for More Resilient and Productive Small-Scale Farmers in Africa Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-02-10 Stephen R Boucher, Michael R Carter, Jon Einar Flatnes, Travis J Lybbert, Jonathan G Malacarne, Paswel P Mareyna, Laura A Paul
Using a multi-year, spatially-diversified randomised controlled trial spanning two African countries, this paper explores whether a complementary bundle of genetic and financial technologies can boost the resilience and productivity of small-scale farmers. The analysis shows that both moderate droughts and more severe yield losses undermine the resilience of control group households, and that these
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The Births, Lives and Deaths of Corporations in Late Imperial Russia Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-02-10 Amanda Gregg, Steven Nafziger
Enterprise creation, destruction and evolution support the transition to modern economic growth, yet these processes are poorly understood in industrializing contexts. We investigate Imperial Russia's industrial development at the firm-level by examining entry, exit and persistence of corporations. Relying on newly developed balance sheet panel data from every non-financial Russian corporation (more
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Experimental Evidence on Four Policies to Increase Learning at Scale Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-02-03 Annie Duflo, Jessica Kiessel, Adrienne M Lucas
We partnered with the Ghanaian government to test simultaneously four methods of increasing achievement—assistant-led remedial pull-out lessons, remedial after school lessons, or smaller class sizes or teacher implemented partial day tracking—in schools with low and heterogeneous student achievement. The interventions increased student learning by about 0.1SD, rising to 0.4SD when adjusting for imperfect
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Making Policies Matter: Voter Responses to Campaign Promises Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-02-01 Cesi Cruz, Philip Keefer, Julien Labonne, Francesco Trebbi
Can voters in clientelist countries be swayed by programmatic promises? Results from a structural model and a field experiment disseminating candidate policy platforms in Philippine mayoral elections indicate that they can. Voters who received information about candidate policy promises were more likely to vote for candidates who were closer to their own preferences. Voters who were informed about
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The Political Legacy of Nazi Annexation Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-01-29 Mario Cannella, Alexey Makarin, Ricardo Pique
We explore the legacy of foreign state repression by using the case of the de-facto annexed Nazi OZ in Italy and a spatial regression discontinuity design. We show that the OZ experienced harsher political persecution and violence. Post war, these exhibited greater support for radical opposition at the expense of the moderate ruling party. Consistent with a mechanism of greater distrust in the government
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Job Polarisation, Labour Market Fluidity and the Flattening of the Phillips Curve Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-01-27 Daniele Siena, Riccardo Zago
This paper shows that job polarisation –i.e., the disappearance of routine jobs– is changing the characteristics of the labour market. This has structural implications for the relationship between inflation and unemployment, the price Phillips Curve (PC). Using data from the European Monetary Union (EMU) and exploiting the fact that job polarisation accelerates during recessions, we obtain two empirical
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Innovation and Distribution: an Equilibrium Model of Manufacturing and Retailing Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-01-25 Bart J Bronnenberg
This paper proposes a model of the distribution channel to study the decisions of manufacturers, retailers and consumers. The model is used to study how retail distribution affects manufacturing and consumers. As the cost of distribution falls, the retail sector increases assortment size and allows a larger mass of manufacturers to enter, allowing consumers to buy more variety. Entry primitives in
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Collateral Damage The Legacy of the Secret War in Laos Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-01-25 Juan Felipe Riaño, Felipe Valencia Caicedo
We investigate the long-term impact of conflict on economic development, focusing on the US ‘Secret War’ in Laos (1964-1973). We show that regions heavily bombed during the conflict experienced lower economic development, even 50 years after it officially ended. Our research employs multiple empirical strategies and data on bombing campaigns, satellite imagery, and development indicators. A one standard
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Mortality Risk Information, Survival Expectations and Sexual Behaviours Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-01-25 Alberto Ciancio, Adeline Delavande, Hans-Peter Kohler, Iliana V Kohler
We investigate the impact of a randomised information intervention about population-level mortality on health investment and subjective health expectations. Our focus is on risky sex in a high HIV-prevalence environment. Treated individuals are less likely to engage in risky sexual practices one year after the intervention, with for example an 8% increase in abstinence. We collected detailed data on
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Monopsony, Job Tasks, and Labour Market Concentration Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-01-24 Samuel Dodini, Michael Lovenheim, Kjell Salvanes, Alexander Willén
This paper extends the monopsony literature by taking a task-based approach and estimating the causal effect of concentration on labour market outcomes. Using detailed employer-employee data from Norway, we find that our job task-based measure shows lower degrees of concentration than conventional industry-and occupation-based measures. Exploiting mass layoffs as exogenous shocks to local labour demand
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Dust and Death: Evidence from the West African Harmattan Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-01-20 Achyuta Adhvaryu, Prashant Bharadwaj, James Fenske, Anant Nyshadham, Richard Stanley
Using two decades of data from twelve low-income countries in West Africa, we show that dust carried by harmattan trade winds increases infant and child mortality. Health investments respond to dust exposure, consistent with compensating behaviors. Despite these efforts, surviving children still exhibit negative health impacts. Our data allow us to investigate differential impacts over time and across
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Estimating the Cost of Capital and the Profit Share Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-01-17 Has van Vlokhoven
Capital costs are not directly observed since firms own part of their capital stock. I show under which assumptions variation in firms’ input choices reveals the user cost of capital. Using Compustat data for the United States, I find that the costs of tangible capital as a share of output have not been increasing while economic profits have been increasing over the past 50 years from around 4% to
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On the Importance of Social Status for Occupational Sorting Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-01-09 Paweł Gola
Models of self-selection predict that occupations with flat wage schedules attract workers of lower average ability. However, in certain prominent occupations such as academia and the civil service, wages are flat yet the average skill level is high. In this paper, I examine whether social status concerns can explain this puzzle. I find that within-occupation status allows flat-wage occupations to
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School Choice with Consent: An Experiment Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-01-06 Claudia Cerrone, Yoan Hermstrüwer, Onur Kesten
Public school choice often yields student assignments that are neither fair nor efficient. The efficiency-adjusted deferred acceptance mechanism (EADAM) allows students to consent to waive priorities that have no effect on their assignments. A burgeoning recent literature places EADAM at the centre of the trade-off between efficiency and fairness in school choice. Meanwhile, the Flemish Ministry of
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P-Hacking, Data Type and Data-Sharing Policy Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2024-01-06 Abel Brodeur, Nikolai Cook, Carina Neisser
This paper examines the relationship between p-hacking, publication bias, and data-sharing policies. We collect 38,876 test statistics from 1,106 articles published in leading economic journals between 2002–2020. We find that while data-sharing policies increase the provision of data, they do not decrease the extent of p-hacking and publication bias. Similarly, articles that use hard-to-access administrative
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Taking Back Control? Quasi-Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Retirement on Locus of Control Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-12-28 Andrew E Clark, Rong Zhu
We use Australian panel data to examine the impact of retirement on individual locus of control, a socio-emotional skill with substantial explanatory power for a broad range of life outcomes. Exploiting the eligibility age for the Australian Age Pension, we find that retirement leads to increased internal locus of control. This greater internal control explains around one-third and one-fifth of the
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Partisan Effects of Information Campaigns in Competitive Authoritarian Elections: Evidence from Bangladesh Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-12-28 Firoz Ahmed, Roland Hodler, Asad Islam
To study the effects of non-partisan information and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) campaigns on the partisan composition of the voting population in competitive authoritarian elections, we conducted a large-scale field experiment prior to the 2018 Bangladeshi general election. Our two treatments highlight that high turnout increases the winning party’s legitimacy and that election outcomes matter for policy
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Solar Eclipses and the Origins of Critical Thinking and Complexity Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-12-28 Anastasia Litina, Èric Roca Fernández
This paper relates curiosity to economic development through its impact on human capital formation and technological advancement in pre-modern times. More specifically, we propose that exposure to inexplicable phenomena prompts curiosity and thinking in an attempt to comprehend these mysteries, thus raising human capital and technology, and ultimately, fostering growth. We focus on solar eclipses as
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Social Value of Public Information in Bargaining Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-12-22 Deepal Basak
We consider a bargaining game in which both sides are uncertain about their opponent’s commitment, which leads to delay and welfare loss in equilibrium. We address the following question: does ex ante better public information about a player improve expected social welfare? We show that if the information cannot turn the bargaining table (turns the weak bargainer into a strong one and vice versa),
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Surveillance and Self-Control Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-12-19 Deborah A Cobb-Clark, Sarah C Dahmann, Daniel A Kamhöfer, Hannah Schildberg-Hörisch
This paper studies important determinants of adult self-control using population-representative data and exploiting Germany’s division as quasi-experimental variation. We find that former East Germans have substantially more self-control than West Germans and provide evidence for government surveillance as a possible underlying mechanism. We thereby demonstrate that institutional factors can shape
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Gender and Leadership in Organisations: The Threat of Backlash Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-12-07 Priyanka Chakraborty, Danila Serra
Decisions made by leaders please some people and upset others. We examine whether the possibility of backlash has a differential impact on men’s and women’s self-selection into leadership roles, and their decisions as leaders. In a laboratory experiment that simulates corporate decision-making, we find that women are significantly less likely to self-select into a leadership position when they can
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Conservative News Media and Criminal Justice: Evidence from Exposure to Fox News Channel Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-12-07 Elliott Ash, Michael Poyker
Local exposure to conservative news causes judges to impose harsher criminal sentences. Our evidence comes from an instrumental variables analysis, where randomness in television channel positioning across localities induces exogenous variation in exposure to Fox News Channel. These treatment data on news viewership are taken to outcomes data on almost 7 million criminal sentencing decisions in the
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Economic Distress and Children’s Mental Health: Evidence from the Brazilian High Risk Cohort Study for Mental Conditions Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-12-05 L F Fontes, M Mrejen, B Rache, R Rocha
This paper assesses the effects of adverse economic shocks on children’s mental health. We rely on the Brazilian High Risk Cohort Study for Mental Conditions, which provides an unprecedented array of data on psychopathology, life events, family medical history as well as parental behavior and polygenic scores for mental disorders over a 10-year period. Our empirical strategy exploits parental job loss
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The Political Scar of Epidemics Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-12-05 Barry Eichengreen, Orkun Saka, Cevat Giray Aksoy
Epidemic exposure in an individual's “impressionable years” (ages 18 to 25) has a persistent negative effect on confidence in political institutions and leaders. This loss of trust is associated with epidemic-induced economic difficulties, such as lower income and unemployment later in life. It is observed for political institutions and leaders only and does not carry over to other institutions and
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Immigration, Female Labour Supply and Local Cultural Norms Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-12-01 Jonas Jessen, Sophia Schmitz, Felix Weinhardt
We study the local evolution of female labour supply and cultural norms in West Germany in reaction to the sudden presence of East Germans who migrated to the West after reunification. These migrants grew up with high rates of maternal employment, whereas West German families mostly followed the traditional breadwinner-housewife model. We find that West German women increase their labour supply and
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Critical Periods in Cognitive and Socioemotional Development: Evidence from Weather Shocks in Indonesia Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-11-30 Duncan Webb
Early life circumstances are important determinants of long-run human capital and wellbeing outcomes. The first 1000 days of life are often cited as a ‘critical period’ for child development, but this notion has rarely been directly tested. In a setting where children are potentially subject to shocks in every year of their childhood, I estimate the impact of early life weather shocks on adult cognitive
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Do Celebrity Endorsements Matter? a Twitter Experiment Promoting Vaccination in Indonesia Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-11-28 Vivi Alatas, Arun G Chandrasekhar, Markus Mobius, Benjamin A Olken, Cindy Paladines
Do celebrity endorsements matter? And if so, how can celebrities communicate effectively? We conduct a nationwide Twitter experiment in Indonesia promoting vaccination. Celebrity messages are 72 percent more likely to be passed on or liked than similar messages without a celebrity’s imprimatur. In total, 66 percent of the celebrity effect comes from authorship, compared to passing on messages. Citing
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The Limitations of Activity-Based Instruction to Improve the Productivity of Schooling Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-11-23 Andreas de Barros, Johanna Fajardo-Gonzalez, Paul Glewwe, Ashwini Sankar
There is substantial emphasis on improving classroom practices, primarily through activity-based instruction, to increase the productivity of schooling. We study a large programme that seeks to promote mathematics learning in government primary schools in India. Through a cluster-randomised trial, we find that the programme increased activity-based instruction but yielded only muted impacts on learning
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The Welfare Effects of Mobile Internet Access: Evidence from Roam-Like-at-Home Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-11-23 Martin Quinn, Miguel Godinho de Matos, Christian Peukert
We evaluate the welfare effects of the Roam-Like-At-Home regulation, which has drastically reduced the price of accessing the mobile Internet for residents of the European Economic Area (EEA) when travelling abroad in the EEA. Our estimates using individual-level consumption data suggest that consumer surplus increased by around € 2.44 per user and travel day. We show that around 40% of the consumer
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Human Capital and Financial Development: Firm-Level Interactions and Macroeconomic Implications Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-11-20 Lian Allub, Pedro Gomes, Zoë Kuehn
Capital-skill complementarity in production implies non-trivial interactions between the availability of human capital and financial constraints. Firms that are constrained in their access to finance hire a lower proportion of skilled workers than do unconstrained firms. Conversely, a lack of human capital increases skilled wages, reducing firms’ desired capital intensity and thus loosening firms’
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Expectation Formation with Correlated Variables Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-11-06 Simin He, Simas Kučinskas
We experimentally study how people form expectations about correlated variables. Subjects forecast a time-series variable A. In treatment Baseline, subjects only observe past values of A. In treatment Correlated, they additionally observe a correlated variable B; A is equally predictable and has the same univariate properties in both treatments. Subjects are significantly less accurate and underreact
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Data-Driven Envelopment with Privacy-Policy Tying Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-11-06 Daniele Condorelli, Jorge Padilla
We present a theory of monopoly protection by means of entry in adjacent markets that have a common customer base (i.e., envelopment). A firm dominant in its market enters a data-rich secondary market and engages in predatory pricing and privacy-policy tying. We define the latter as conditioning service provision to the subscription of a privacy-policy that allows bundling of user data across all sources
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Spurious Regressions and Panel IV Estimation: Revisiting the Causes of Conflict Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-10-26 Paul Christian, Christopher B Barrett
The long-recognized spurious regressions problem can lead to mistaken inference in panel instrumental variables (IV) estimation. Spurious correlations arising from correlated cycles in finite time horizons can make irrelevant instruments appear strong with signable consequences for estimated IV coefficients, or interfere with valid of inference of causal effects from IV coefficients estimated using
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Radicalisation Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-10-26 Jean-Paul Carvalho, Michael Sacks
This paper analyses the rise of radical movements and the design of counter-radicalisation policies. A group derives meaning from participation in identity-based activities and a forward-looking organisation provides a platform for these activities. The warning sign for radicalisation is cultural purification by the organisation, i.e. the screening out of moderates and exclusive recruitment of radicals
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Macroevolutionary Origins of Comparative Development Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-10-26 Ideen A Riahi
Advances in evolutionary theories (the Extended Synthesis) demonstrate that organisms systematically modify environments in ways that influence their own and other species’ evolution. This paper utilizes these theories to examine the economic consequences of human dispersal from Africa. Evidence shows that early humans’ dispersal affected the adaptability of animal species to human environments and
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Commuting for crime Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-10-24 Tom Kirchmaier, Monica Langella, Alan Manning
People care about crime, with the spatial distribution of both actual and perceived crime affecting the amenities from living in different areas and residential decisions. The literature finds that crime tends to happen close to the offender's residence but does not clearly establish whether this is because the location of likely offenders and crime opportunities are close to each other, whether more
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Austerity Harmed Student Achievement Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-10-24 Caterina Pavese, Enrico Rubolino
This paper shows that austerity spending cuts harmed student performance in standardized national tests. To identify this relationship, we use cross-municipality variation in the timing of eligibility for the Italian Domestic Stability Pact as an exogenous shifter of local public spending. We then compare test scores for students that were from the same municipality, but who were exposed to different
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Declining search frictions, unemployment and self-employment Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-10-24 Piotr Denderski, Florian Sniekers
In most OECD countries, unemployment rates show no trend, which is puzzling if advancements in ICT decrease labour market frictions. We show, both analytically and quantitatively, that accounting for the secular decline in self-employment rates solves the puzzle. While declining labour market frictions can theoretically explain these trends, we provide contradictory causal evidence that the rollout
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Taste-Based Gender Favouritism in High Stakes Decisions: Evidence from The Price Is Right Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-10-10 Pavel Atanasov, Jason D Dana, Bouke Klein Teeselink
Gender discrimination is present across various fields, but identifying the underlying mechanism is challenging. We demonstrate own-gender favouritism in a field setting that allows for clean identification of tastes versus beliefs: the One Bid game on the TV show The Price Is Right. Players must guess an item’s value without exceeding it, leaving the last bidder with a dominant ‘cutoff’ strategy of
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Technology shocks and predictable Minsky cycles Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-10-07 Jean-Paul L’Huillier, Gregory Phelan, Hunter Wieman
Big technological improvements in a new, secondary sector lead to a period of excitement about the future prospects of the overall economy, generating boom-bust dynamics propagating through credit markets. Increased future capital prices relax collateral constraints today, leading to a boom before the realization of the shock. But reallocation of capital toward the secondary sector when the shock hits
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Is Digital Credit Filling A Hole or Digging a Hole? Evidence from Malawi Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-10-07 Valentina Brailovskaya, Pascaline Dupas, Jonathan Robinson
Digital credit has expanded rapidly in Africa, with opaque loan terms amidst low consumer financial literacy. Rich data from Malawi shows substantial demand for a digital loan with a base interest rate of 10% over 15 days, yet most borrowers are not aware of loan terms, repay late and incur substantial late fees. Regression discontinuity analyses show no evidence that access to small digital loans
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Echo Chambers: Social Learning under Unobserved Heterogeneity Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-10-05 Cole Williams
People are often more influenced by opinions similar to their own and even seek information from those with whom they expect to most agree—behaviors often attributed to irrational biases. In this paper, I argue that these behaviors can be understood within the context of rational social learning by accounting for the presence of unobserved heterogeneity in preferences or priors. Individuals display
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Strategic Campaign Communication: Evidence from 30,000 Candidate Manifestos Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-10-04 Caroline Le Pennec
Politicians seeking to persuade voters may not always be able to say what they would like to. Adopting policy positions opposite to that of their party or contradicting their previous policy announcements may be costly. I use computational text analysis on 30,000 candidate manifestos from two-round French elections to show that politicians take these costs into account, by toeing the party line and
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Child Penalties in Politics Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-10-04 Jon H Fiva, Max-Emil M King
Women tend to experience a substantial decline in their labour income after their first child is born, while men do not. Do such ‘child penalties’ also exist in the political arena? Using comprehensive administrative data from Norway, we find that women are less likely than men to secure elected office after their first child is born. The effects manifest already from the nomination stage, where mothers
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Negative Tail Events, Emotions & Risk Taking Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-09-29 Brice Corgnet, Camille Cornand, Nobuyuki Hanaki
We design a novel experiment to assess investors’ behavioural and physiological reactions to negative tail events. Investors who observed, without suffering from, tail events decreased their bids whereas investors suffering tail losses increased them. However, the increase in bids after tail losses was not observed for those who exhibited no emotional arousal. This suggests that emotions are key in
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The Boss is Watching: How Monitoring Decisions Hurt Black Workers Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-09-28 Costas Cavounidis, Kevin Lang, Russell Weinstein
African Americans face shorter employment durations than similar whites. We hypothesise that employers discriminate in acquiring or acting on ability-relevant information. In our model, monitoring black but not white workers is self-sustaining. New black hires were more likely fired by previous employers after monitoring. This reduces firms’ beliefs about ability, incentivizing discriminatory monitoring
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Unintended Consequences of Central Bank Lending in Financial Crises Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-09-22 C G F van der Kwaak
I investigate the macroeconomic impact of central bank funding becoming a more attractive funding source to financial intermediaries in times of crisis. I show that the requirement to pledge collateral has a contractionary effect on private credit everything else equal, and thereby reduces the expansionary effect that such lending otherwise has. I use an estimated New-Keynesian model with financial
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Management Practices and Quality of Care: Evidence from the Private Health Care Sector in Tanzania Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-09-19 Timothy Powell-Jackson, JessicaJC King, Christina Makungu, Matthew Quaife, Catherine Goodman
We measure the adoption of management practices in over 220 private for-profit and non-profit health facilities in 64 districts across Tanzania and link these data to process quality of care metrics, assessed using undercover standardised patients and clinical observations. We find that better managed health facilities are more likely to provide correct treatment in accordance with national treatment
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Unemployment and Development Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-09-19 Ying Feng, David Lagakos, James E Rauch
We draw on household survey data from countries of all income levels and document that average unemployment rates increase with GDP per capita. This is accounted for almost entirely by low-rather than high-educated workers. We interpret these facts in a model with frictional labor markets, a traditional self-employment sector, skill-biased productivity differences across countries, and unemployment
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The Welfare Effects of Greenbelt Policy: Evidence from England Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-09-19 Hans R A Koster
I measure the economic effects of greenbelts that prohibit new construction beyond a predefined urban fringe and therefore act as urban growth boundaries. I focus on England, where $13\%$ of the land is designated as greenbelt land. I provide reduced-form evidence and estimate a quantitative equilibrium model that includes amenities, housing supply, a traffic congestion externality, agglomeration forces
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Deliberate Surrender? the Impact of Interwar Indian Protection Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-09-14 Vellore Arthi, Markus Lampe, Ashwin Nair, Kevin Hjortshøj O’Rourke
What is the role of trade policy in promoting intra-Empire trade? We address the question in the context of interwar India, whose trade policies have been accused of harming British export interests. We quantify the impact of trade policy on the value and composition of Indian imports, using novel disaggregated data on both trade policies and imports for 114 commodity categories coming from 42 countries
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Do students learn more with an additional teacher in the classroom? Evidence from a field experiment [Effects of an additional teacher] Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-09-13 Venke Furre Haaland, Mari Rege, Oddny Judith Solheim
We present a field experiment investigating treatment effects of an additional teacher in the classroom on student learning. The treatment targets literacy instruction during first and second grade. Nearly 6,000 students in 300 classrooms participated in the experiment. The treatment has on average no effects on student learning. However, boys seem to benefit, with treatment impacts of about .12 and
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Unexpected Supply Effects of Quantitative Easing and Tightening Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-09-12 Stefania D’Amico, Tim Seida
To analyse the evolution of the effects of quantitative easing (QE) and tightening (QT) across consecutive announcements, we focus on their unexpected component. Treasury yield sensitivities to QT supply surprises are on average larger than sensitivities to QE surprises, implying supply effects did not diminish during periods of market calm amid economic expansion. Yield sensitivities to later QE and
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Corrupted by Algorithms? How AI-Generated and Human-Written Advice Shape (DIS)Honesty Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-09-12 Margarita Leib, Nils Köbis, Rainer Michael Rilke, Marloes Hagens, Bernd Irlenbusch
Artificial Intelligence (AI) increasingly becomes an indispensable advisor. New ethical concerns arise if AI persuades people to behave dishonestly. In an experiment, we study how AI advice (generated by a Natural-Language-Processing algorithm) affects (dis)honesty, compare it to equivalent human advice, and test whether transparency about advice source matters. We find that dishonesty-promoting advice
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The Mortality Effects of Winter Heating Prices Econ. J. (IF 3.721) Pub Date : 2023-09-06 Janjala Chirakijja, Seema Jayachandran, Pinchuan Ong
This paper examines how the price of home heating affects mortality in the US. Exposure to cold is one reason that mortality peaks in winter, and a higher heating price increases exposure to cold by reducing heating use. Our empirical approach combines spatial variation in the energy source used for home heating and temporal variation in the national prices of natural gas and electricity. We find that