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CSQIEP Session on Economic History and Development Economics

Paper Session

Saturday, Jan. 8, 2022 12:15 PM - 2:15 PM (EST)

Hosted By: American Economic Association & Committee on the Status of LGBTQ+ Individuals in the Economics Profession
  • Chair: Martha Olney, University of California-Berkeley

Impacts of the Clean Air Act on the Power Sector from 1938-1994: Anticipation and Adaptation

Karen Clay
,
Carnegie Mellon University
Akshaya Jha
,
Carnegie Mellon University
Joshua Lewis
,
University of Montreal
Edson Severnini
,
Carnegie Mellon University

Abstract

The passage of landmark government regulation is often the culmination of evolving social pressure and incremental policy change. During this process, firms may preemptively adjust behavior in anticipation of impending regulation, making it difficult to quantify the overall economic impact of the legislation. This study leverages newly digitized data on the operation of virtually every fossil-fuel power plant in the United States from 1938-1994 to examine the economic impacts of the 1970 Clean Air Act (CAA) on the power sector. This unique long panel provides us an extended pre-regulation benchmark, allowing us to account for both anticipatory behavior by electric utilities in the years leading up to the Act's passage and reallocative effects of the CAA across plant vintages. We find that the CAA led to large and persistent decreases in output and productivity, but only for plants that opened before 1963. The timing aligns with the passage of the original 1963 CAA, which provided the federal government with the authority to “control” air pollution, sending a strong signal to firms of impending federal regulation. We provide historical evidence of anticipatory responses by utilities in the design and siting of plants that opened after 1963. We also find that the aggregate productivity losses of the CAA borne by the power sector were substantially mitigated by the reallocation of output from older less efficient power plants to newer plants.

The Research University, Invention, and Industry: Evidence from German History

Jeremiah Dittmar
,
London School of Economics
Ralf Meisenzahl
,
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

Abstract

We study the role of higher education in promoting the transition to industrial capitalism where modern research universities first developed: nineteenth century Germany. We construct novel microdata on invention, scientific activity, and manufacturing across virtually all towns in Germany between 1760 and 1900. Invention, scientific activity, and manufacturing developed similarly in towns nearer to and farther from universities in the 1700s, and then shifted towards universities and accelerated in the early 1800s. After 1800, we find a significant positive shift in the probability that inventors were educated or employed at universities. Manufacturing in which invention was university-intensive located nearer to universities. These shifts in invention and manufacturing reflected changes in German universities, politics, and culture that were precipitated by the French Revolution and Napoleonic invasion of the early 1800s.

Stifled by Stigma? Experimental Effects of Updating Husbands' Beliefs on Participation in Women's Household Work

Tamara McGavock
,
Grinnell College
Ellen McCullough
,
University of Georgia
Nicholas P. Magnan
,
University of Georgia
Thomas Assefa
,
University of Georgia

Abstract

We empirically test whether correcting men's beliefs about their peer's acceptance about men doing women's work encourages men to take on more tasks (e.g. collecting firewood and laundry) traditionally assigned to women in rural Amhara, Ethiopia. While most men claim they believe it’s acceptable for men to perform select women-specific tasks, they also significantly under-estimate the extent to which their peers are accepting due to longstanding gender norms that traditionally allocate the majority of household work to women. We share true peer beliefs about acceptability through a simple lab-in-the-field information experiment. Men who receive the information treatment are more likely to report privately after the session that they intend to perform the activity in the coming week. While we find some indication of a positive treatment effect on the likelihood that men perform the task over the following week, we find no evidence that women’s total time spent on household work decreases among women whose husbands received the treatment.

The Impacts of Universal Healthcare Extension in Mexico

Francois Cohen
,
University of Barcelona

Abstract

Emerging countries have expanded government-supported health insurance in the past 15 years. However, evidence is scare on the impact of these programs on human health, and even scarcer regarding impacts on other factors such as the size of the informal sector or social cohesion. In this paper, I use the state-of-the-art staggered difference-in-difference model of Chaisemartin and d’Hautefeuille (2020) to assess the effect of the Seguro Popular, a nationwide universal healthcare extension program, on human health in Mexico. I also intend to extend my impact analysis to socioeconomic outcomes, with interesting findings on criminality for now. Data constraints have limited the evaluation of universal healthcare programmes in low- and middle-income countries. Especially, the evaluation of the Seguro Popular was incomplete because the randomised control trial performed at the time only followed patients for ten months. It was unable to detect strong health effects, very possibly due to the short follow-up time. My preliminary results suggest that the programme led to an average mortality reduction of 7.4 percent on the 3rd and 4th years of implementation. Impacts might be even larger when accounting for a potential violation of SUTVA. Common trends are respected between treatment and control municipalities. Furthermore, access to healthcare has been hypothesised to enhance social cohesion and be effective against crime. The statistical evidence is however scarce. Deza, Maclean and Solomon (2020) found that access to mental health services reduces crime in the US. My preliminary estimates suggest an average reduction in crime rates by 11.5 percent during the first four years of implementation of the policy. Especially, I find statistically significant reductions in reported injuries, consistent with the idea that either violent assaults reduce, or their negative consequences are now dealt by a health provider instead of the police.

Discussant(s)
Cihan Artunc
,
Middlebury College
Emily Beam
,
University of Vermont
JEL Classifications
  • N0 - General
  • O1 - Economic Development