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Blog aggregator for economics research

2018-07-17

• How to Protect Workers Without Trade Tariffs
  by Robert J. Shiller in Project Syndicate, 2018-07-17 15:24:22 UTC

  NEW HAVEN – According to a Washington Post/Schar School poll of Americans published on July 11, only 39% of respondents approved of US President Donald Trump’s imposition of tariffs on foreign countries, while 56% were opposed. But, while it’s good news that a majority of Americans oppose their president on this key issue, Trump is plunging ahead, apparently thinking the public will like the tariffs better when they are in place. It is a puzzle why even 39% support these policies. Ever since the Great Depression and World War II, and the 1947 General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the United [...]

2018-07-16

• Why Women Volunteer for Tasks That Don’t Lead to Promotions
  by Linda Babcock in HBR Blog Network, 2018-07-16 13:21:13 UTC

  Helen King/Getty Images Here’s a work scenario many of us know too well: You are in a meeting and your manager brings up a project that needs to be assigned. It’s not particularly challenging work, but it’s time-consuming, unlikely to drive revenue, and probably won’t be recognized or included in your performance evaluation. As your manager describes the project and asks for a volunteer, you and your colleagues become silent and uneasy, everyone hoping that someone else will raise their hand. The wait becomes increasingly uncomfortable. Then, finally, someone speaks up: “Okay, I’ll do it.” [...]

• Cyber Instability
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2018-07-16 12:36:25 UTC

  “[W ]e should see the global payment system for what it really is: an essential global public good whose integrity is increasingly being challenged by malicious cyberattacks and fraud attempts....” Benoît Cœuré, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, Speech , 26 June 2018 “I rob banks because that’s where the money is.” Attributed to Willie Sutton . When terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, they also attacked the U.S. financial system. In addition to destroying critical financial infrastructure, the collapse of the twin towers closed the New York Stock Exchange [...]

• Harold Hastings’s journal round-up for 16th July 2018
  by hmhastings in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2018-07-16 11:00:51 UTC

  Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of some of the most recently published peer reviewed articles from the field. We don’t cover everything, or even what’s most important – just a few papers that have interested the author. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot . If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch . Legal origins and female HIV . American Economic Review [ RePEc ] Published 13th June 2018 I made this somewhat unusual choice because the author Siwan Anderson draws an important connection between the economic [...]

2018-07-13

• How having unemployed parents affects children’s future well-being
  by Milena Nikolova, Boris Nikolaev in Up Front, 2018-07-13 21:35:38 UTC

  By Milena Nikolova, Boris Nikolaev For many people, job loss can be a catastrophe with far-reaching negative psychological and economic consequences. Unemployment leads to lower earnings, worse physical and mental health, and lasting unhappiness for those directly affected. The negative psychological consequences of unemployment can even spill over to spouses and children . In a novel research paper , forthcoming in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization , we also show that parental unemployment during childhood can have long-term consequences for adult children’s psychological well [...]

2018-07-10

• The Manhattan Skyline during the Roaring Twenties
  by Jason Barr in Building the skyline, 2018-07-10 12:27:50 UTC

  Jason M. Barr        July 10, 2018 Author’s note: The paperback of Building the Skyline: The Birth and Growth of Manhattan’s Skyscrapers was recently released. This blog post has been adapted from Chapter 9 of the book. The Roaring Twenties remains a mythical time in American culture—an age of danger, of heroes, of unrestraint. Charles Lindbergh flew solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Clandestine speakeasies served bathtub gin to flappers, swinging to the new jazz music. Babe Ruth became the Sultan of Swat. And supertall skyscrapers sprouted upwards like Jack’s beanstalk. Though the skyscraper wa [...]

2018-07-09

• Is college still worth it? : Re-examining the college premium
  by ? in FRED blog, 2018-07-09 13:00:40 UTC

  A recent symposium held by the Center for Household Financial Stability at the St. Louis Fed looks at the question of whether the college premium is still increasing and positive, using new data from the Fed’s  Survey of Consumer Finances . On an absolute level, college graduates earn more than high school graduates, as shown in the graph above. This is consistent with the understanding that the benefits of a college education are greater than the costs. If we look at the college premium, we can see that it has always been positive, indicating that there is a positive benefit of graduating w [...]

• TARGET2 Balances Mask Reduced Financial Fragmentation in the Euro Area
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2018-07-09 12:49:07 UTC

  As we write, the claims of the Bundesbank on the other euro-area national central banks (NCB) through the TARGET2 system are approaching €1 trillion. What do these claims represent? Are they subsidized German loans to other euro-area countries―primarily Italy, Portugal and Spain? Do they signal further financial disintegration in Europe? Or, as large as these numbers are, are they simply a consequence of the complex mechanics related to the construction of the Eurosystem and how it implements monetary operations? The answer is two-fold: for the first few years of the euro-area crisis―when Germ [...]

• Sam Watson’s journal round-up for 9th July 2018
  by Sam Watson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2018-07-09 11:00:47 UTC

  Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of some of the most recently published peer reviewed articles from the field. We don’t cover everything, or even what’s most important – just a few papers that have interested the author. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot . If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch . Evaluating the 2014 sugar-sweetened beverage tax in Chile: an observational study in urban areas . PLoS Medicine [ PubMed ]  Published 3rd July 2018 Sugar taxes are one of the public health policy options curren [...]

2018-07-08

• What Southgate teaches us
  by chris in Stumbling and Mumbling, 2018-07-08 12:29:28 UTC

  Whatever happens next, this has been a great World Cup for Gareth Southgate. What does this tell us? The first thing is that, as William Goldman said, nobody knows anything. When Southgate was appointed, the reaction was underwhelming . Nobody said “this guy will take us to our best World Cup performance since 1990.” This fits a pattern. “Arsene who?” asked the press when Arsenal appointed Wenger; Sir Alex Ferguson was famously one game away from the sack; and Leicester’s hiring of Claudio Ranieri was greeted with scepticism and certainly not with talk he’d win the title. The point generalizes [...]

2018-07-02

• 315 – Shark conservation and demand for tourism in the Maldives
  by David Pannell in Pannell Discussions, 2018-07-02 15:00:55 UTC

  As I’ve noted previously , diving with wild sharks is a growing tourism industry. It has the potential to increase the demand for shark conservation, in order to maintain the economic benefits to tourism operators, and the benefits to tourists. Here we quantify these benefits in the Maldives, as well as the cost of worsening conservation. The Republic of the Maldives is a small island nation in the central Indian Ocean. The country is composed of about 1200 islands of which 200 are inhabited, around 122 are assigned as resort islands, and the remainder are uninhabited. Tourism dominates the na [...]

• Why does cost of living vary so much? : Housing, housing, housing
  by ? in FRED blog, 2018-07-02 13:00:42 UTC

  View on GeoFRED ® If the map above looks familiar, either you’re experiencing déjà vu or you read our post last year about regional price parities (RPPs), which measure cost of living in metropolitan areas. Cost of living is generally persistent over time, which is why our updated map of the 2016 RPPs looks eerily similar to last year’s map. (The data are released on a two-year lag, by the way.) A reminder: The national average cost of living is set equal to 100. So, an RPP above 100 means an area is more expensive than the national average and an RPP below 100 means it’s less expensive than t [...]

• Fiscal Sustainability: A Primer
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2018-07-02 12:02:05 UTC

  “[T ] he principle of spending money to be paid by posterity, under the name of funding, is but swindling futurity on a large scale….” Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Taylor , 1816 Nobody likes taxes, but the objections to debt-financed government spending usually are less forceful than Jefferson’s was. Consequently, public spending frequently exceeds revenues, leading governments to borrow (remember Jefferson’s Louisiana Purchase ?). These budget deficits are a flow that add to the stock of debt. Since the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-2009, public debt in a number of advanced economies has [...]

• Chris Sampson’s journal round-up for 2nd July 2018
  by Chris Sampson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2018-07-02 11:00:43 UTC

  Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of some of the most recently published peer reviewed articles from the field. We don’t cover everything, or even what’s most important – just a few papers that have interested the author. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot . If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch . Choice in the presence of experts: the role of general practitioners in patients’ hospital choice . Journal of Health Economics [ PubMed ] [ RePEc ] Published 26th June 2018 In the UK, patients are in principle [...]

2018-06-27

• What I did today: a little community-based research (warning: self-promotion ahead)
  by John Whitehead in Environmental Economics, 2018-06-27 09:06:42 UTC

  Here is an idea for your time when the hard, gemlike flame  threatens to flicker ( BS&G ride director happy with 2018 event ):  Blood, Sweat and Gears Ride Director Scott Nelson felt the 2018 edition of the event went as well as it could. The event, which took place June 23, starting and ending at Valle Crucis Elementary School, hosted 966 riders split between riding the 100-mile and the 50-mile courses. ... The event raised $103,000 for a variety of causes. Nelson said organizers gave away $50,000 to different organizations, including $20,000 to the Western Youth Network, $10,000 to the Hung [...]

• Mujeres en Economía: dónde están, cómo les va y qué prefieren (II)
  by Javier Ferri in Nada Es Gratis, 2018-06-27 05:07:58 UTC

  Por Pilar Beneito, José E. Boscá, Javier Ferri y Manu García En la primera entrega  de esta entrada, contando un trabajo recién salido del horno , ofrecíamos evidencia de que las mujeres se distribuyen en mayor medida que los hombres por las áreas relacionadas con la microeconomía. Además, encontrábamos que las chicas, mientras están estudiando, muestran una ventaja comparativa en las notas que obtienen en las asignaturas de corte micro, pero les va peor que a los chicos en las notas de macro. Las diferencias se acusan en el último cuartil de la distribución de notas, de donde probablemente sa [...]

2018-06-26

• Mujeres en Economía: dónde están, cómo les va y qué prefieren (I)
  by Javier Ferri in Nada Es Gratis, 2018-06-26 05:00:48 UTC

  Por Pilar Beneito, José E. Boscá, Javier Ferri y Manu García Hace más de dos décadas, Marianne A. Ferber, en su crítica feminista publicada por la American Economic Association, relacionaba la baja representación de las mujeres entre los estudiantes de economía con el sesgo masculino en los libros de texto, el reducido número de profesoras, y la aproximación excesivamente estrecha, racional y optimizadora del enfoque ortodoxo, capaz de ahuyentar a muchas jóvenes mujeres. Ferber concluía, no obstante, con una invitación al optimismo: “hay razones para creer que en economía, como en muchas otra [...]

2018-06-25

• Sudden Stops: A Primer on Balance-of-Payments Crises
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2018-06-25 11:59:25 UTC

  “It is not speed that kills, it is the sudden stop.” Bankers’ adage cited by Dornbusch, Goldfajn and Valdés . After years of relative calm, in recent months several emerging economies have found the cost of attracting foreign funding is going up. Faced with a halt of external financing, Argentina obtained a three-year financing deal worth $50 billion from the IMF , while funds also appear to be flowing out of Brazil, Turkey, and elsewhere. And, recent bond market turbulence in Italy suggests the possibility that political risks are triggering outflows there. In this post, we explain balance-of [...]

• Sam Watson’s journal round-up for 25th June 2018
  by Sam Watson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2018-06-25 11:00:28 UTC

  Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of some of the most recently published peer reviewed articles from the field. We don’t cover everything, or even what’s most important – just a few papers that have interested the author. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot . If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch . The efficiency of slacking off: evidence from the emergency department . Econometrica [ RePEc ] Published May 2018 Scheduling workers is a complex task, especially in large organisations such as hospitals. Not o [...]

2018-06-21

• Thesis Thursday: Wenjia Zhu
  by Chris Sampson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2018-06-21 06:00:42 UTC

  On the third Thursday of every month, we speak to a recent graduate about their thesis and their studies. This month’s guest is Dr Wenjia Zhu who has a PhD from  Boston University . If you would like to suggest a candidate for an upcoming Thesis Thursday, get in touch . Title Health plan innovations and health care costs in the commercial health insurance market Supervisors Randall P. Ellis , Thomas G. McGuire , Keith M. Ericson Repository link https://hdl.handle.net/2144/27355 What kinds of ‘innovations’ did you want to look at in your research, and why? My dissertation investigated health pl [...]

2018-06-20

• Debt, Asset Prices, and Financial Crises
  by thebusinesscycleblog in The business cycle blog, 2018-06-20 18:36:52 UTC

  How tightly are debt, asset prices, and financial crises linked?  The results in my recent research may surprise you. [...]

• sfc models — New working paper
  by contrarianmedia@hotmail.com (Mike Norman) in Mike Norman Economics, 2018-06-20 13:55:00 UTC

  Modeling economic forces, power relations, and stock-flow consistency: a general constrained dynamics approach by Oliver Richters and Erhard Gloetzl Abstract: In monetary Stock-Flow Consistent (SFC) models, accounting identities reduce the number of behavioral functions to avoid an overdetermined system of equations. We relax this restriction using a differential algebraic equation framework of constrained dynamics. Agents exert forces on the variables according to their desire, for instance to gradually improve their utility. The parameter ‘economic power’ corresponds to their ability to asse [...]

2018-06-19

• What Does "Serious" Mean?
  by Stephen Williamson in Stephen Williamson: New Monetarist Economics, 2018-06-19 21:40:00 UTC

  A week ago I wrote this in a tweet: I'm puzzled by the infatuation with NGDP targeting. We have good reasons to care about the path for the price level and the path for real GDP. Idea seems to be that if you smooth Py that you get optimal paths for P and y. That's hardly obvious, and doesn't fall out of any serious theory I'm aware of. The proximate cause of that outburst was this blog post by David Beckworth who, as you might know, is a proponent of nominal GDP (NGDP) targeting. I've written before about NGDP targeting - for example I found this post from six years ago. It turns out that not [...]

• A Dragan
  by Alberto Bagnai in Goofynomics, 2018-06-19 21:34:00 UTC

  Questa sera ero a cena con un amico che mi somiglia molto: perfezionista, narcisista, populista, ma ha anche dei difetti. Mi trovava ringiovanito, come mi hanno trovato ringiovanito iMercati, che sono venuti a trovarmi a Palazzo Madama (di passaggio da New York verso Milano), e spiegavo, al mio amico (ma anche a iMercati) che sì, può darsi che sembri rasserenato, perché ora dormo. "E perché non dormivi?" Perché, come vi ho detto tante e tante volte, non era bello andare in giro a spiegare a sale piene di gente che sì, eravamo in trappola, una trappola che peraltro era nota a tutti, inclusi que [...]

• Pension Policies in a Model with Endogenous Fertility
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2018-06-19 21:01:30 UTC

  By Giam Pietro Cipriani and Francesco Pascucci http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11511&r=dge We set up an overlapping generations model with endogenous fertility to study pensions policies in an ageing economy. We show that an increasing life expectancy may not be detrimental for the economy or the pension system itself. On the other hand, conventional policy measures, such as increasing the retirement age or changing the social security contribution rate could have undesired general equilibrium effects. In particular, both policies decrease capital per worker and might have negative e [...]

2018-06-18

• Monetary Policy and Inequality under Labor Market Frictions and Capital-Skill Complementarity
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2018-06-18 14:23:25 UTC

  By Juan Dolado, Gergö Motyovszki and Evi Pappa http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp11494&r=dge In order to improve our understanding of the channels through which monetary policy has distributional consequences, we build a New Keynesian model with incomplete asset markets, asymmetric search and matching (SAM) frictions across skilled and unskilled workers and, foremost, capital-skill complementarity (CSC) in the production function. Our main finding is that an unexpected monetary easing increases labor income inequality between high and low-skilled workers, and that the interaction betwe [...]

• Inflation Policy
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2018-06-18 12:36:54 UTC

  “[T]he concept of monetary policy in the United States at its core involves crucial elements of risk management.” Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, Remarks at Jackson Hole, August 29, 2003. Inflation in the United States remains at levels that most people don’t really notice. Overall, the consumer price index rose by 2.8 percent from May 2017 to May 2018 . And, when you look at core measures , the trend is still below 2 percent. With inflation and inflation expectations still so benign, it is no wonder that despite solid economic growth and the lowest unemployment rate in 50 year [...]

• Zoned Out: Building Regulations and Housing Affordability
  by Jason Barr in Building the skyline, 2018-06-18 12:34:50 UTC

  Jason M. Barr    June 18, 2018 Have you heard the old joke about gravity—it’s not just a good idea, it’s the law! Ignore the law—say by jumping off a cliff in an attempt to fly—and suffer the consequences.  The same can be said about supply and demand in economics—supply is not just a good idea, it’s the law. Evidently, when it comes to housing affordability, cities and nations world over are trying to ignore it at their own peril. Today, there is a giant disconnect between the sentiments of economists and the residents of cities. There is near universal agreement among those in the economics [...]

• Rita Faria’s journal round-up for 18th June 2018
  by Rita Faria in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2018-06-18 11:00:47 UTC

  Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of some of the most recently published peer reviewed articles from the field. We don’t cover everything, or even what’s most important – just a few papers that have interested the author. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot . If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch . Objectives, budgets, thresholds, and opportunity costs—a health economics approach: an ISPOR Special Task Force report . Value in Health [ PubMed ]  Published 21st February 2018 The economic evaluation world has [...]

2018-06-16

• Jobless Recovery, Liquidity Trap, Tight Monetary Policy and the Cost Channel
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2018-06-16 17:52:46 UTC

  By Lasitha R.C. Pathberiya http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qld:uq2004:591&r=dge In this study, I examine the robustness of an unconventional monetary policy in a cost channel economy. The unconventional monetary policy proposed by Schmitt-Grohé and Uribe (2017, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, SGU henceforth), recommends a tight monetary policy during a liquidity-trapped recession to stimulate the economy and to avoid jobless recovery. The results of my study show that the existence of the cost channel implies that the SGU policy induces sharp initial contractions in the employment rate [...]

2018-06-15

• Capital Income Taxation, Economic Growth, and the Politics of Public Education
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2018-06-15 11:57:20 UTC

  By Tetsuo Ono and Yuki Uchida http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:osk:wpaper:1805&r=dge This study considers the politics of public education and its impacts on economic growth and welfare across generations. Public education is funded by taxing the labor income of the working generation and capital income of the retired. We employ probabilistic voting to demonstrate the politics of taxes and expenditure and show that aging results in a shift of the tax burden from the old to the young and a slowdown of economic growth. We then consider three alternative constraints that limit the choice of taxes and [...]

2018-06-11

• 314 – ADOPT goes online
  by David Pannell in Pannell Discussions, 2018-06-11 15:10:59 UTC

  ADOPT is the Adoption and Diffusion Outcome Prediction Tool. It is now available as an online version, replacing the spreadsheet that has over 1000 users. I’ve previous talked about how agricultural scientists, extension agents, policy makers and suppliers need to be able to predict how farmers will respond to a new practice or technology ( PD203 ). How many farmers will adopt the new practice, and how quickly will they do so? This knowledge can influence research priorities, reserach funding decisions, the design and emphasis of extension campaigns, and the effectiveness of agricultural polic [...]

• Banks and Money, Or Watch out What You Wish For
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2018-06-11 12:43:55 UTC

  “[S]overeign money is an unnecessary and dangerous experiment, which would inflict great damage on our country." Thomas Jordan, Chairman, Swiss National Bank,  Speech  at the Swiss Institute of Banking and Finance, 3 May 2018 On 10 June 2008, Switzerland held a vote on the proposal that all commercial bank demand deposits be held at the central bank. It failed by a 76% to 24% vote. This Vollgeld referendum was another incarnation of the justifiable public revulsion to financial crises and the bailouts that inevitably accompany them. Vollgeld proponents claimed that a system in which the centra [...]

2018-06-10

• Sankey Diagram for the 2018 FIFA World Cup Forecast
  by Achim Zeileis in R-bloggers, 2018-06-10 22:00:00 UTC

  (This article was first published on Achim Zeileis , and kindly contributed to R-bloggers) The probabilistic forecast from the bookmaker consensus model for the 2018 FIFA World Cup is visualized in an interactive Sankey diagram, highlighting the teams’ most likely progress through the tournament. Bookmaker consensus model Two weeks ago we published our Probabilistic Forecast for the 2018 FIFA World Cup : By adjusting quoted bookmakers’ odds for the profit margins of the bookmakers (also known as overrounds), transforming and averaging them, a predicted winning probability for each [...]

2018-06-08

• Should peer to peer lenders exist in theory?
  by bankunderground in Bank Underground, 2018-06-08 08:00:21 UTC

  John Lewis Walter Heller famously said that an economist is someone who sees something in practice and wonders if it would work in theory.  Economic theory says banks exist because they channel loanable funds more efficiently than individual savers and investors pairing up bilaterally.  Those informational, diversification and maturity transformation considerations imply that banks should be able to out-compete peer to peer (P2P) lenders .  The stylised fact that few P2P platforms have made a profit to date is in line with this theory.  If so, then P2P lenders face a difficult future and they [...]

2018-06-05

• Evaluating the Distinctive Economic Impact of Historical Female Migration in the United States
  by Fernando Arteaga in NEP-HIS blog, 2018-06-05 03:00:31 UTC

  A Woman’s Touch? Female Migration and Economic Development in the United States By Viola von Berlepsch ( London School of Economics ), Andrés Rodríguez-Pose ( London School of Economics ) and Neil Lee ( London School of Economics ), Abstract :  Does the economic effect of immigrant women differ from that of immigrants in general? This paper examines if gender has influenced the short- and long-term economic impact of mass migration to the US, using Census microdata from 1880 and 1910. By means of ordinary least squares and instrumental variable estimations, the analysis shows that a greater co [...]

2018-06-04

• Italeave: Mother of all financial crises
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2018-06-04 11:55:24 UTC

  Nearly a decade ago, Barry Eichengreen conjured a prescient scenario for the exit of Italy from the euro: “ Households and firms anticipating that domestic deposits would be redenominated into lira, which would then lose value against the euro, would shift their deposits to other euro area banks. In the worst case, a system-wide bank run could follow. Investors anticipating that their claims on the Italian government would be redenominated into lira would presumably shift into claims on other euro area governments, leading to a bond market crisis. If the precipitating factor was parliamentary [...]

2018-06-01

• Some Fairly Recent Must- and Should-Reads About Globalization
  by ? in Grasping Reality with the Invisible Hand, 2018-06-01 21:01:49 UTC

  Ken Schultz: "I’m not an IPE expert, but it seems like you must be doing tariffs wrong if they aren’t even supported by the labor union in the protected industry..." Paul Krugman: Oh, What a Stupid Trade War: "Even if tariffs were expansionary, that w [...]

• Protecting Customers’ Privacy Requires More than Anonymizing Their Data
  by Sachin Gupta in HBR Blog Network, 2018-06-01 14:00:49 UTC

  Becky Hayes/EyeEm/Getty Images Today, good marketing relies on having detailed and accurate customer data. And companies, not surprisingly, are eager to collect vast troves of it. For instance, Amazon continuously tracks the behaviors of its 100 million Prime members , an example of “first-party” data. And many companies have found that sharing their own customer information with other companies creates synergies for both parties, especially with the increasing availability of “internet of things” data (GPS sensors, smart utility meters, fitness devices, etc.). These are examples of “secon [...]

• Why the MPC needs experts
  by chris in Stumbling and Mumbling, 2018-06-01 13:33:58 UTC

  There’s no doubt that Jonathan Haskel is an excellent appointment to the MPC. What we should be asking is rather: isn’t he over-qualified? What I mean is that not much hangs upon interest rate decisions. The Bank’s own work estimates that a quarter-point rise reduces output only by around 0.15%. Granted, it’s possible that the economy might now be more sensitive than this to rate changes now. But even so, the cost of interest rate mistakes are small. Put it this way. For a monetary policy error to have had the same cost as fiscal austerity or Brexit, interest rates would have had to rise to we [...]

• Suggested Reading for June
  by Dave Giles in Econometrics Beat: Dave Giles' Blog, 2018-06-01 12:49:00 UTC

  Colussi, T. , 2018. Social ties in academia: A friend is a treasure. Review of Economics and Statistics , 100, 45-50. Dette, H., K. Möllenhoff, S. Volgushev, & F. Bretz , 2018. Equivalence of regression curves. Journal of the American Statistical Association , online. Kumbhaker, S. C., C. F. Parmeter, & V. Zelenyuk , 2018. Stochastic frontier analysis: Foundations and advances. Working paper No. WP02/2018, Centre for Efficiency and productivity Analysis, School of Economics, University of Queensland. Morshed, A. A., E. Andreou, & O. Boldea , 2018. Structural break tests robust to regression mi [...]

• Statistics: Brazil will play Germany in the FIFA World Cup final
  by ? in Brinkwire, 2018-06-01 08:16:59 UTC

  [...]

2018-05-31

• Building Height and Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The Case of New York City
  by Jason Barr in Building the skyline, 2018-05-31 15:06:50 UTC

  Jason M. Barr      May 31, 2018 A growing body of research demonstrates that across the United States there is significant variation in household greenhouse gas emissions. [1] Regionally speaking, the “sweet spots” are those places with warm winters and cool summers , such as California. Within regions, however, CO 2 emissions have an inverted u-shape . Starting in the rural areas, household carbon production tends to be low or moderate. Moving toward suburban areas, emissions rise and then peak. They then fall in the densest central parts of the city. The reason is due first to income. Wealth [...]

• Comprendiendo la severidad de las crisis financieras españolas
  by admin in Nada Es Gratis, 2018-05-31 05:01:24 UTC

  De Concha Betrán y María A. Pons Tras la crisis de 2008 se han publicado numerosos trabajos cuyo objetivo es explicar los principales determinantes de las crisis financieras. Los dos factores más destacados en el debate actual son los desequilibrios externos generados por el endeudamiento exterior (o entradas netas de flujos internacionales de capital) y el endeudamiento interno (o expansión del crédito). Las últimas décadas del siglo XX y el inicio del siglo XXI se caracterizaron por la acumulación de fuertes desequilibrios de balanza por cuenta corriente que podrían estar detrás del origen [...]

2018-05-30

• Ученые оценили вероятность успеха каждой из команд на чемпионате мира по футболу
  by ? in N+1: научные статьи, новости, открытия, 2018-05-30 17:10:34 UTC

  Австрийские математики оценили вероятность победы каждой из команд на стартующем 14 июня чемпионате мира по футболу. [...]

2018-05-29

• ECB research provides a withering critique of mainstream macroeconomics
  by bill in Bill Mitchell - billy blog, 2018-05-29 03:30:31 UTC

  Although this blog post considers some very technical material its message is simple. Mainstream macroeconomic models that are used to determine policy choices by governments are deeply flawed and the evidence strongly supports a central thrust of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) – that fiscal policy is powerful and that austerity will kill growth. In that sense, it helps us understand why various nations and blocs (such as the Eurozone) struggled after the onset of the GFC. It also explains why the deliberate attack on Greek prosperity by the Troika was so successful in demolishing any prospect o [...]

• The Economic Consequences of the Napoleonic Wars
  by guidoalfani in NEP-HIS blog, 2018-05-29 02:35:41 UTC

  The Napoleonic Wars: A Watershed in Spanish History? By Leandro Prados de la Escosura ( Carlos III University de Madrid ) and Carlos Santiago-Caballero ( Carlos III University de Madrid ). Abstract : The Napoleonic Wars had dramatic consequences for Spain’s economy. The Peninsular War had higher demographic impact than any other military conflict, including civil wars, in the modern era. Farmers suffered confiscation of their crops and destruction of their main capital asset, livestock. The shrinking demand, the disruption of international and domestic trade, and the shortage of inputs hampere [...]

2018-05-28

• Dr. Krugman on Coal Miners and Coal Towns
  by Matthew Kahn in Environmental and Urban Economics, 2018-05-28 15:22:00 UTC

  San Francisco, New York, Boston, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Portland are booming.� Such areas offer great opportunities for our best young minds.� These progressive cities limit housing supply and this limits population growth, causes suburbanization, and contributes to sky high local real estate prices.� Moretti's local multiplier effect hypothesis posits that the booming local economy creates local opportunity for middle class people. We all know that other places are not doing well.� The geography of upward mobility and despair is a major research topic. Raj Chetty claims that "place" is cen [...]

• To Form a More Perfect Union
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2018-05-28 11:38:54 UTC

  “In a monetary union with the consequent financial integration, there are features like centralised supervision, deposit insurance and resolution of banks…that are necessary for the whole framework to function effectively.” ECB Vice President Vítor Constâncio, 17 May 2018 . On 31 May 2018, Vítor Constâncio completes 18 years on the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB)—8 as Vice President and 10 as Governor of the Bank of Portugal before that. Ahead of his departure, Vice President Constâncio delivered a valedictory address setting out his views on what needs to be done to make [...]

• Alastair Canaway’s journal round-up for 28th May 2018
  by captaincanaway in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2018-05-28 11:00:22 UTC

  Every Monday our authors provide a round-up of some of the most recently published peer reviewed articles from the field. We don’t cover everything, or even what’s most important – just a few papers that have interested the author. Visit our Resources page for links to more journals or follow the HealthEconBot . If you’d like to write one of our weekly journal round-ups, get in touch . Information, education, and health behaviours: evidence from the MMR vaccine autism controversy . Health Economics [ PubMed ] Published 2nd May 2018 In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published (in the Lancet) his infamo [...]

2018-05-27

• Some Fairly Recent Must- and Should-Reads About: Political Economy
  by ? in Grasping Reality with the Invisible Hand, 2018-05-27 15:31:57 UTC

  David Glasner: Neo- and Other Liberalisms: "The point of neoliberalism 1.0 was to moderate classical laissez-faire liberal orthodoxy... Not quite true. It is what the Left New Dealers' consensus was. They had lost power in the U.S. But enough of them ma [...]

2018-05-26

• Saturday assorted links
  by Tyler Cowen in Marginal Revolution, 2018-05-26 15:54:18 UTC

  1. East Germans still buy fewer stocks . 2. New results about crypto and the stock market that neither Samir Varma nor I can quite bring ourselves to believe . 3. A somewhat off-base but still interesting thread on housing supply . 4. This is the kind of rhetorical and blah blah blah piece I don’t usually link to, yet the main point is correct and still underappreciated: there is a crisis of European weakness . 5.  Do Chinese communists fund Jacinda Ardern’s NZ Labour Party ? 6.  Jonathan Rauch replies to Rosser on happiness . The post Saturday assorted links appeared first on Marginal REVOLUT [...]

2018-05-24

• Are economists’ standard solutions part of the problem in fragile states?
  by Tobias Haque in Development Policy Blog, 2018-05-24 20:00:42 UTC

  Work to be done International development agencies are being asked to do more about conflict and fragility . In the wake of the Arab spring and the spread of conflict among middle-income countries, and with many of the poorest states continuing to experience protracted conflicts, the international community is calling on aid agencies to do more and spend more in conflict contexts. This call to action extends beyond humanitarian and peacebuilding interventions, and encompasses institutions with explicit economic development mandates, such as the World Bank and IMF. But what do those of us conce [...]

2018-05-22

• Are Macroprudential Tools as Caring and Forethinking as They Claim to Be? Financial Stability and Monetary Policy in the Long Run
  by chechurris in NEP-HIS blog, 2018-05-22 04:06:21 UTC

  An Historical Perspective on the Quest for Financial Stability and the Monetary Policy Regime By Michael D. Bordo ( Rutgers University ) Abstract: This paper surveys the co-evolution of monetary policy and financial stability for a n umber of countries across four exchange rate regimes from 1880 to the present. I present historical evidence on the incidence, costs and determinants of financial crises, combined with narratives on some famous financial crises. I then focus on some empirical historical evidence on the relationship between credit booms, asset price booms and serious financial cri [...]

2018-05-21

• Making Unelected Power Legitimate
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2018-05-21 12:24:46 UTC

  “[W]hile many democratic societies have independent central banks, everyone leaves tax policy in the hands of elected officials.” Alan S. Blinder, Central Bank in Theory and Practice , page 59. Through what administrative means should a democratic society in an advanced economy implement regulation? How can we promote the various interests of the people efficiently , while being faithful to the evolving wishes of the majority? Ultimately, these are questions of legitimacy. However effective a form of administration may be, its sustainability in a democracy depends on maintaining the trust of t [...]

2018-05-20

• Ethics of Behavioural Science Policy
  by Liam Delaney in Economics, Psychology and Policy, 2018-05-20 18:20:00 UTC

  One of the three key themes of the new group in Dublin will be to examine the ethical aspects of behavioural science applications in policy. See the link here for a recent workshop we conducted in this area joint with Stirling Behavioural Science Centre and Newcastle University Law School. The readings below gives a sense of the interest in the ethical implications of nudging. I have been updating this list throughout the last three years as part of developing our teaching programme. But more generally, ethical issues are always worth thinking about when devising and evaluating interventions t [...]

2018-05-18

• Method of the month: custom likelihoods with Stan
  by Sam Watson in The Academic Health Economists' Blog, 2018-05-18 06:00:27 UTC

  Once a month we discuss a particular research method that may be of interest to people working in health economics. We’ll consider widely used key methodologies, as well as more novel approaches. Our reviews are not designed to be comprehensive but provide an introduction to the method, its underlying principles, some applied examples, and where to find out more. If you’d like to write a post for this series, get in touch . This month’s method is custom likelihoods with Stan . Principles Regular readers of this blog will know that I am a fan of Bayesian methods. The exponential growth in perso [...]

• Centralized vs. Decentralized Social Welfare Maximizers
  by Eric Falkenstein in Falkenblog, 2018-05-18 01:06:00 UTC

  Faith in a select group of public servants to maximize social welfare is no better founded than the belief in the supernatural gifts of kings or noblemen. Just as misguided is the idea that good things, as decided by a majority, should be mandated. It should be remembered that our current prosperity and freedom have resulted from unwanted gradual changes in mores related to property rights, which when firmly established sparked the Industrial Revolution. Nobody planned that. Property rights were not created to win wars or eliminate poverty, though they did that as well as many other good thing [...]

2018-05-17

• Religion and the European Union
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2018-05-17 20:24:46 UTC

  By: Benito Arruñada  ;  Matthias Krapf We review a recent literature on cultural differences across euro member states.We point out that this literature fails to address cultural differences between Protestants and Catholics, which are likely a major underlying reason for cross-country differences. We argue that confessional culture explains why Catholic countries tend to have weaker institutions but are more open to economic and political integration. EU policies after the economic crisis looked clumsy and failed to address all concerns, but were viable, caused only a manageable amount [...]

• Immigration and the Future of the Welfare State in Europe
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2018-05-17 20:23:56 UTC

  By: Alberto Alesina  (Harvard University [Cambridge], IGIER) ;  Johann Harnoss  (UP1 – Université Panthéon-Sorbonne) ;  Hillel Rapoport  (PJSE – Paris Jourdan Sciences Economiques – UP1 – Université Panthéon-Sorbonne – ENS Paris – École normale supérieure – Paris – INRA – Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique – EHESS – École des hautes études en sciences sociales – ENPC – École des Ponts ParisTech – CNRS – Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, PSE – Paris School of Economics) We analyze the effect of immigration on attitudes to redistribution in Europe. Using data for [...]

• The Welfare Implications of Addictive Substances: A Longitudinal Study of Life Satisfaction of Drug Users
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2018-05-17 20:23:15 UTC

  By: Julie Moschion  (Melbourne Institute: Applied Economic & Social Research, The University of Melbourne) ;  Nattavudh Powdthavee  (Warwick Business School; and Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics) This paper provides an empirical test of the rational addiction model, used in economics to model individuals’ consumption of addictive substances, versus the utility misprediction model, used in psychology to explain the discrepancy between people’s decision and their subsequent experiences. By exploiting a unique data set of disadvantaged Australians, we provide long [...]

• Evaluating intergenerational persistence of economic preferences: A large scale experiment with families in Bangladesh
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2018-05-17 20:22:25 UTC

  By: Chowdhury, Shyamal  (University of Sydney, and IZA Bonn) ;  Sutter, Matthias  (Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods Bonn, and University of Cologne) ;  Zimmermann, Klaus F.  (UNU-MERIT) Economic preferences – like time, risk and social preferences – have been shown to be very influential for real-life outcomes, such as educational achievements, labour market outcomes, or health status. We contribute to the recent literature that has examined how and when economic preferences are formed, putting particular emphasis on the role of intergenerational transmission of [...]

• Explaining cross-state earnings inequality differentials in India: An RIF decomposition approach
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2018-05-17 20:20:56 UTC

  By: Carlos Gradín Despite the relevance of geographical disparities in India, earnings inequality occurs mostly within states, but with a broad range of variability in its levels. We investigate the sources of such variability using RIF decompositions of the inequality gaps between most populous states and India. Our results point to substantial compositional effects associated with cross-state variability in the extent of high-skilled formal employment outside the farm and construction sectors, and along the degree of urbanization and some demographic factors. Cross-state differences in [...]

• Revisiting Gender Differences in Ultimatum Bargaining: Experimental Evidence from the US and China
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2018-05-17 20:00:29 UTC

  By: Shuwen Li  (Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science and Department of Economics, George Mason University) ;  Xiandong Qin  (Department of Applied Economics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University) ;  Daniel Houser  (Interdisciplinary Center for Economic Science and Department of Economics, George Mason University) We report results from a replication of Solnick (2001), which finds using an ultimatum game that, in relation to males, more is demanded from female proposers and less is offered to female responders. We conduct Solnick†s (2001) game using participants from a large US univer [...]

• Welfare Analysis and Redistributive Policies
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2018-05-17 19:59:29 UTC

  By: Bargain, Olivier Applied welfare analyses of redistributive systems nowadays benefit from powerful tax benefit microsimulation programs combined with administrative data. Arguably, most of the distributional studies of that kind focus on social welfare defined as a function – typically inequality or poverty indices – of household equivalized income. In parallel, economic research has made considerable progress in the measurement of welfare along several dimensions. Distinct but related branches of the literature have attempted (i) to model different behaviour (in a way that m [...]

• Gender: An Historical Perspective
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2018-05-17 19:58:24 UTC

  By: Giuliano, Paola Social attitudes toward women vary significantly across societies. This chapter reviews recent empirical research on various historical determinants of contemporary differences in gender roles and gender gaps across societies, and how these differences are transmitted from parents to children and therefore persist until today. We review work on the historical origin of differences in female labor-force participation, fertility, education, marriage arrangements, competitive attitudes, domestic violence, and other forms of difference in gender norms. Most of the res [...]

• The Long-Lasting Effects of Family and Childhood on Adult Wellbeing: Evidence from British Cohort Data
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2018-05-17 19:57:21 UTC

  By: Andrew E. Clark  ;  Sarah Flèche  ;  Warn N. Lekfuangfu To what extent do childhood experiences continue to affect adult wellbeing over the life course? Previous work on this link has been carried out either at one particular adult age or for some average of adulthood. We here use two British birth-cohort datasets (the 1958 NCDS and the 1970 BCS) to map out the time profile of the effect of childhood on adult outcomes, including life satisfaction. We find that the effect of many aspects of childhood do not fade away over time, but are rather remarkably stable. In both birth cohorts c [...]

• Understanding Cultural Persistence and Change
  by maximorossi in NEP-LTV blog, 2018-05-17 19:54:59 UTC

  By: Paola Giuliano  ;  Nathan Nunn When does culture persist and when does it change? We examine a determinant that has been put forth in the anthropology literature: the variability of the environment from one generation to the next. A prediction, which emerges from a class of existing models from evolutionary anthropology, is that following the customs of the previous generation is relatively more beneficial in stable environments where the culture that has evolved up to the previous generation is more likely to be relevant for the subsequent generation. We test this hypothesis by meas [...]

2018-05-15

• Sovereign Money Reforms and Welfare
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2018-05-15 16:09:59 UTC

  By Philippe Bacchetta and Elena Perazzi http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:lau:crdeep:18.02&r=dge A monetary reform is submitted for vote to the Swiss people in 2018. The Sovereign Money Initiative proposes that all sight deposits should be controlled by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) and that the SNB could distribute its additional resources. While a sovereign money reform would clearly affect the structure of the banking sector, it would also have macroeconomic implications, in particular because it transfers resources from banks to the central bank. The objective of this paper is to analyze these [...]

2018-05-14

• La théorie du ruissellement existe-t-elle ?
  by Antoine Belgodere in Optimum, 2018-05-14 23:00:00 UTC

  "Si l'on commence à jeter des cailloux sur les premiers de cordée c'est toute la cordée qui dégringole", déclarait le président Macron en octobre dernier. Cette phrase est une illustration assez parfaite de ce qu'on appelle la "théorie du ruissellement" (Trickle down theory en anglais). Cette théorie veut que l'enrichissement des plus riches finisse par bénéficier à terme aux masses. Ne vous précipitez toutefois pas sur google pour savoir qui est l'inventeur de cette théorie. A l'instar du néolibéralisme ou de la théorie du genre, il s'agit d'une étiquette dont personne ou presque ne se ré [...]

• Finance and the Blockchain: A Primer
  by Steve Cecchetti and Kim Schoenholtz in Money, Banking and Financial Markets, 2018-05-14 11:37:17 UTC

  “Only 1% of 3,138 chief information officers at companies surveyed by Gartner last year said they had ‘any kind of blockchain adoption’….” The Wall Street Journal , May 7, 2018. Blockchain is all the rage. We are constantly bombarded by reports of how it will change the world. While it may alter many aspects of our lives, our suspicion is that they will be in areas that we experience only indirectly. That is, blockchain technology mostly will change the implementation of invisible processes—what businesses think of as their back-office functions. In this post, we briefly describe blockchain te [...]

• Crisis, contagion and international policy spillovers under foreign ownership of banks
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2018-05-14 04:15:06 UTC

  By Michał Brzoza-Brzezina, Marcin Kolasa and Krzysztof Makarski http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:fme:wpaper:18&r=dge This paper checks how international spillovers of shocks and policies are modified when banks are foreign owned. To this end we build a two-country macroeconomic model with banking sectors that are owned by residents of one (big and foreign) country. Consistently with empirical findings, in our model foreign ownership of banks amplifies spillovers from foreign shocks. It also strengthens the international transmission of monetary and macroprudential policies. We next use the model t [...]

2018-05-13

• Time-Consistent Consumption Taxation
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2018-05-13 03:44:28 UTC

  By Sarolta Laczo and Raffaele Rossi http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:qmw:qmwecw:857&r=dge We characterise optimal tax policies when the government has access to consumption taxation and cannot credibly commit to future policies. We consider a neoclassical economy where factor income taxation is distortionary within the period, due to endogenous labour and capital utilisation and non-tax-deductibility of depreciation. Contrary to the case where only labour and capital income are taxed, the optimal time-consistent policies with consumption taxation are remarkably similar to their Ramsey counterpar [...]

2018-05-12

• Editors’ Briefing: This Week in Political Economy (May 4–May 12)
  by ProMarket writers in Pro-Market, 2018-05-12 13:37:22 UTC

  A whistleblower alleges fraud in the audits of Silicon Valley companies; AT&T acknowledges that hiring Michael Cohen was a “bad mistake”;  new analysis finds that Amazon has not been consistent with the stated selection criteria for HQ2; and a majority of Americans  back a constitutional amendment that would outlaw Citizens United. This week in political economy.      Photo by Luismt94  [ CC BY-SA 4.0 ], via Wikimedia Commons   POGO (Project on Government Oversight) reports on the story of Mauro Botta, a former senior manager at PricewaterhouseCoopers who decided to become a whistleblower af [...]

2018-05-11

• On the effects of ranking by unemployment duration
  by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog, 2018-05-11 18:53:45 UTC

  By Javier Fernandez-Blanco and Edgar Preugschat http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:85310&r=dge We propose a theory based on the firm’s hiring behavior that rationalizes the observed significant decline of callback rates for an interview and exit rates from unemployment and the mild decline of reemployment wages over unemployment duration. We build a directed search model with symmetric incomplete information on worker types and non-sequential search by firms. Sorting due to firms’ testing of applicants in the past makes expected productivity fall with duration, which induces firms to rank [...]

• Job Guarantee: Marxist or Keynesian?
  by chris in Stumbling and Mumbling, 2018-05-11 13:07:19 UTC

  For decades there has been a debate about the differences and similarities between Marx and Keynes. The question of whether we should introduce a job guarantee highlights this debate: is it a means of supporting capitalism, or a challenge to it? A job guarantee is the offer by the government of a job at a living wage to anybody that wants one. This would, in effect, eliminate involuntary unemployment. Pavlina Tcherneva has a nice paper (pdf) describing the details. Other advocates of it are Randy Wray (pdf)   and colleagues , FitzRoy and Jin (pdf) , Paul, Darity and Hamilton and Wisman and Pac [...]

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