Monthly Archives: February 2014

Use-it-or-Lose-it Budget Rules

Posted on February 27, 2014 by ozidar

From Jeff Liebman and Neale Mahoney, summarized by NBER’s Laurent Belsie: IT projects that were procured in the last week of the fiscal year were between two and six times more likely to have a lower quality rating. Federal agencies spend an … Continue reading →

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Isolated Capital Cities, Accountability and Corruption Evidence from US States

Posted on February 25, 2014 by ozidar

From Filipe Campante  and Quoc-Anh Do: We show that isolated capital cities are robustly associated with greater levels of corruption across US states. In particular, this is the case when we use the variation induced by the exogenous location of a … Continue reading →

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From Natural Variation to Optimal Policy? The Importance of Endogenous Peer Group Formation

Posted on February 24, 2014 by ozidar

From Carrell, Sacerdote, and West: We take cohorts of entering freshmen at the United States Air Force Academy and assign half to peer groups designed to maximize the academic performance of the lowest ability students. Our assignment algorithm uses nonlinear … Continue reading →

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“Cash on Hand” and Consumption: Evidence from Mortgage Refinancing

Posted on February 23, 2014 by ozidar

From Atif Mian and Amir Sufi: We investigate how house price and interest rate movements affect household spending through mortgage refinancing. Aggregate movements in house prices and interest rates generate sizable mortgage refinancing waves with a large amount of cross-sectional … Continue reading →

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US inequality due to assortative marriages | vox

Posted on February 23, 2014 by ozidar

US inequality due to assortative marriages | vox.

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Ukraine: A battle for the future of Europe

Posted on February 22, 2014 by ozidar

From Yuriy Gorodnichenko: Squeezed between European super powers, Ukraine is no stranger to tensions, but it has been a remarkably peaceful country in the modern history. The recent waves of protests and government-sponsored violence moved Ukraine to the brink of … Continue reading →

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Technology and Wages, the Analytics (Wonkish) – NYTimes.com

Posted on February 19, 2014 by ozidar

Technology and Wages, the Analytics (Wonkish) – NYTimes.com.

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Insurer Competition and Negotiated Hospital Prices

Posted on February 19, 2014 by ozidar

From Kate Ho and Robin Lee: We measure the impact of increased health insurer competition on negotiated hospital prices using detailed 2004 California claims data. We develop a theoretical bargaining model to motivate our empirical analysis, and use the competitiveness … Continue reading →

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Inequality and Technological Change: The Skill Complementarity of Broadband Internet

Posted on February 18, 2014 by ozidar

A very interesting paper from Anders Akerman, Ingvil Gaarder, Magne Mogstad: Does adoption of broadband internet in firms enhance labor productivity and increase wages? And is this technological change skill biased or factor neutral? We exploit rich Norwegian data with firm-level information on … Continue reading →

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Optimal Tax Progressivity: An Analytical Framework

Posted on February 17, 2014 by ozidar

From Jonathan Heathcote, Kjetil Storesletten, Giovanni Violante: What shapes the optimal degree of progressivity of the tax and transfer system? On the one hand, a progressive tax system can counteract inequality in initial conditions and substitute for imperfect private insurance … Continue reading →

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