Relational Contracting, Negotiation, and External Enforcement

By Joel Watson, David A. Miller, and Trond E. Olsen

American Economic Review, July 2020

We study relational contracting and renegotiation in environments with external enforcement of long-term contractual arrangements. A long-term contract governs the stage games that the contracting parties will play in the future (depending on verifiable...

Acquiring Information through Peers

By Bernard Herskovic and João Ramos

American Economic Review, July 2020

We develop an endogenous network formation model, in which agents form connections to acquire information. Our model features complementarity in actions as agents care not only about accuracy of their decision-making but also about the actions of other ag...

Home Values and Firm Behavior

By Saleem Bahaj, Angus Foulis, and Gabor Pinter

American Economic Review, July 2020

The homes of firm owners are an important source of finance for ongoing businesses. We use UK microdata to show that a £1 increase in the value of the homes of a firm's directors increases the firm's investment by £0.03. This effect is concentrated amon...

Best Practices for Economists

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The gender gap in economics

[Research Highlight]

August 30, 2017

Swarthmore’s Amanda Bayer discusses sexism in the profession and what to do about it.

Seeking equity outside academia

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Is the economics profession’s pay gap different when working for the government?

Regulation by Shaming: Deterrence Effects of Publicizing Violations of Workplace Safety and Health Laws

By Matthew S. Johnson

American Economic Review, June 2020

Publicizing firms' socially undesirable actions may enhance firms' incentives to avoid such actions. In 2009, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) began issuing press releases about facilities that violated safety and health regulation...

Regulation by shaming

[Research Highlight]

June 18, 2020

Publicizing safety violations at one company has ripple effects that lead to improvements at other workplaces.

The tyranny of the top five

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Is there too much pressure to publish in the highest-ranked journals?

CSWEP Panel Event - July 7, 2020

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2020 Candidates for Office

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The Fall in Global Fertility: A Quantitative Model

By Tiloka de Silva and Silvana Tenreyro

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, July 2020

Over the past six decades, fertility rates have fallen dramatically in most middle- and low-income countries. To analyze these developments, we study a quantitative model of endogenous human capital and fertility choice, augmented to allow for social norm...

Promoting smaller families

[Research Highlight]

June 25, 2020

Fertility rates are declining in poor countries. Family planning campaigns are part of the reason why.

CSWEP Panel Events

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Valuing past performance

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How much do reference letters boost a job seeker's prospects for landing an interview?

Room to grow

[Research Highlight]

July 16, 2020

Are social insurance mandates holding back entrepreneurs?

Does Mandating Social Insurance Affect Entrepreneurial Activity?

By Youssef Benzarti, Jarkko Harju, and Tuomas Matikka

American Economic Review: Insights, June 2020

This paper estimates the effect of relaxing the social insurance mandate on entrepreneurial activity using rich administrative data from Finland. We find that relaxing the social insurance mandate leads entrepreneurs to reduce their contributions by 16 pe...

Managing the national debt

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What type of bonds should governments issue?

Fenced Out: The Impact of Border Construction on US-Mexico Migration

By Benjamin Feigenberg

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2020

This paper estimates the impact of the US-Mexico border fence on US-Mexico migration by exploiting variation in the timing and location of US government investment in fence construction. Using Mexican survey data and data I collected on fence construction...

Building barriers

[Research Highlight]

July 15, 2020

Benjamin Feigenberg discusses the effectiveness of border walls on deterring migration.