What are the economic effects of taxing household wealth? While an enormous literature estimates the impact of taxes on labor supply and taxable income, much less is known about how taxes affect the supply of capital. The lack of evidence makes it hard to assess the desirability of taxing top-end wealth, a proposal that has […]
The First 2,000 Days: Investing in Children’s Skills Through Early Intervention
Children from poorer backgrounds typically have lower cognitive and socio-emotional skills. This is due to differences in the quality of the environment, with disadvantaged children facing lower family incomes, higher levels of stress, poorer parenting practices, and less academic stimulation.[1] Consequently, living in disadvantaged circumstances early in life is frequently associated with poorer health, education, […]
Consumer spending during unemployment: evidence from US bank account data
Nearly all of us experience unemployment at some point in our careers. For example, the Bureau of Labor Statistics finds that 90% of baby boomers have been out of work at least once in their lives. Unemployment is stressful in part because many people do not have enough savings to maintain their standard of living […]
Jury verdicts: evidence from eighteenth century London of the dangers of sequential decision-making
Every day, people make numerous decisions and judgments. Although these decisions differ in many dimensions – including the degree of deliberation, the number of people involved, and the stakes or consequences – many are sequential in nature. Research in a wide range of contexts has documented potential biases that can arise with such sequential decision-making, […]
The Age of Mass Migration: contrasting economic and political effects
Over the past 40 years or so, both Europe and the United States have experienced a dramatic rise in immigration (Frey, 2014; Hanson and McIntosh, 2016). These trends have renewed interest in the effects of diversity on both economic growth and social cohesion. Despite the potential benefits from diversity typically predicted by economic analysis (Alesina […]
Performance management and workplace culture: evidence from a US trucking firm
There is a growing consensus among economists that management practices are an important explanation for the large observed variation in productivity among firms. Different firms often adopt different practices, even in a narrowly defined industry. In turn, some researchers have speculated that this variety is related to differences in the less tangible attributes of firms. […]
The impact of new entry in regulated transport markets: evidence from New York City taxis
Our study explores the importance of these two factors – technological innovation and regulatory arbitrage – in the New York City taxi market. Our study is part of an emerging body of research in economics that explores the implications of technological change in the transport sector. Another notable study that complements ours is by Nick […]
Who benefits from rent control? Evidence from San Francisco
In 2019, Oregon and California became the first states to pass statewide rent control. Lawmakers in other states, including Colorado and Illinois, are considering repealing laws that limit cities’ abilities to pass or expand rent control. Rent control is already extremely popular around the San Francisco Bay Area: nine cities already impose rent control regulations, […]
Effects of vertical mergers in multichannel TV markets: evidence from regional sports programming
So-called ‘vertical’ mergers between producers of TV channels and distributors of those channels are regular – and sometimes highly contested – events, both in the United States and elsewhere in the world. The attention that such mergers have attracted is partly due to the industry’s overwhelming reach and size: over 80% of the approximately 120 […]
When Fewer Options are Better for Consumers: The Benefits of Narrow Health Insurance Networks
The desirability and effectiveness of health network regulation depends on the reasons insurers might engage in exclusion in the first place, and whether the gains they realize are shared with consumers. In our research, we identify three main reasons why an insurer might wish to exclude a medical provider from its network, and we highlight […]
