1. |
- Kohlhas, Alexandre N., et al.
(author)
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Asymmetric Attention
- 2021
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In: The American economic review. - : American Economic Association. - 0002-8312 .- 1935-1011 .- 0002-8282. ; 111:19, s. 2879-2925
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We document that the expectations of households, firms, and professional forecasters in standard surveys simultaneously extrapolate from recent events and underreact to new information. Existing models of expectation formation, whether behavioral or rational, cannot account for these observations. We develop a rational theory of extrapolation based on limited attention, which is consistent with this evidence. In particular, we show that limited, asymmetric attention to procyclical variables can explain the coexistence of extrapolation and underreactions. We illustrate these mechanisms in a microfounded macroeconomic model, which generates expectations consistent with the survey data, and show that asymmetric attention increases business cycle fluctuations.
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2. |
- Acemoglu, Daron, et al.
(author)
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The Environment and Directed Technical Change
- 2012
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In: The American Economic Review. - : American Economic Association. - 0002-8282 .- 1944-7981. ; 102:1, s. 131-166
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This paper introduces endogenous and directed technical change in a growth model with environmental constraints. The final good is produced from dirty and clean inputs. We show that: (i) when inputs are sufficiently substitutable, sustainable growth can be achieved with temporary taxes/subsidies that redirect innovation toward clean inputs; (ii) optimal policy involves both carbon taxes and research subsidies, avoiding excessive use of carbon taxes; (iii) delay in intervention is costly, as it later necessitates a longer transition phase with slow growth; and (iv) use of an exhaustible resource in dirty input production helps the switch to clean innovation under laissez-faire.
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3. |
- Adermon, Adrian, 1981-, et al.
(author)
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Dynastic Human Capital, Inequality, and Intergenerational Mobility
- 2021
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In: American Economic Review. - : American Economic Association. - 0002-8282 .- 1944-7981. ; 111:5, s. 1523-1548
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We estimate long-run intergenerational persistence in human capital using information on outcomes for the extended family: the dynasty. A dataset including the entire Swedish population, linking four generations, allows us to identify parents' siblings and cousins, their spouses, and spouses' siblings. Using various human capital measures, we show that traditional parent-child estimates underestimate long-run intergenerational persistence by at least one-third. By adding outcomes for more distant ancestors, we show that almost all of the persistence is captured by the parental generation. Data on adoptees show that at least one-third of -long-term persistence is attributed to environmental factors.
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4. |
- Aghion, Philippe, et al.
(author)
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Missing Growth from Creative Destruction
- 2019
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In: The American Economic Review. - : American Economic Association. - 0002-8282 .- 1944-7981. ; 109:8, s. 2795-2822
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- For exiting products, statistical agencies often impute inflation from surviving products. This understates growth if creatively-destroyed products improve more than surviving ones. If so, then the market share of surviving products should systematically shrink. Using entering and exiting establishments to proxy for creative destruction, we estimate missing growth in US Census data on non farm businesses from 1983 to 2013. We find missing growth (i) equaled about one-half a percentage point per year; (ii) arose mostly from hotels and restaurants rather than manufacturing; and (iii) did not accelerate much after 2005, and therefore does not explain the sharp slowdown in growth since then.
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6. |
- Alger, Ingela, et al.
(author)
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Kinship, incentives, and evolution
- 2010
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In: The American Economic Review. - : American Economic Association. - 0002-8282 .- 1944-7981. ; 100:4, s. 1725-1758
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We analyze how family ties affect incentives, with focus on the strategic interaction between two mutually altruistic siblings. The siblings exert effort to produce output under uncertainty, and they may transfer output to each other. With equally altruistic siblings, their equilibrium effort is nonmonotonic in the common degree of altruism, and it depends on the harshness of the environment. We define a notion of local evolutionary stability of degrees of sibling altruism and show that this degree is lower than the kinship-relatedness factor. Numerical simulations show how family ties vary with the environment, and how this affects economic outcomes.
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7. |
- Almås, Ingvild, et al.
(author)
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What Explains the Gender Gap in College Track Dropout? Experimental and Administrative Evidence
- 2016
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In: The American Economic Review. - : American Economic Association. - 0002-8282 .- 1944-7981. ; 106:5, s. 296-302
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We exploit a unique data set, combining rich experimental data with high-quality administrative data, to study dropout from the college track in Norway, and why boys are more likely to drop out. The paper provides three main findings. First, we show that family background and personal characteristics contribute to explain dropout. Second, we show that the gender difference in dropout rates appears both when the adolescents select into the college track and after they have started. Third, we show that different processes guide the choices of the boys and the girls of whether to drop out from the college track.
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9. |
- Bach, Laurent, et al.
(author)
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Rich Pickings? Risk, Return, and Skill in Household Wealth
- 2020
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In: American Economic Review. - : American Economic Association. - 0002-8282. ; 110:9, s. 2703-2747
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We investigate wealth returns on an administrative panel containing the disaggregated balance sheets of Swedish residents. The expected return on household net wealth is strongly persistent, determined primarily by systematic risk, and increasing in net worth, exceeding the risk-free rate by the size of the equity premium for households in the top 0.01 percent. Idiosyncratic risk is transitory but generates substantial long-term dispersion in returns in top brackets. Systematic and idiosyncratic risk both drive the cross-sectional distribution of the geometric average return over a generation. Furthermore, wealth returns explain most of the historical increase in top wealth shares.
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10. |
- Besley, Timothy, et al.
(author)
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Gender Quotas and the Crisis of the Mediocre Man : Theory and Evidence from Sweden
- 2017
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In: The American Economic Review. - : American Economic Association. - 0002-8282 .- 1944-7981. ; 107:8, s. 2204-2242
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Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- We develop a model where party leaders choose the competence of politicians on the ballot to trade off electoral success against their own survival. The predicted correlation between the competence of party leaders and followers is strongly supported in Swedish data. We use a novel approach, based on register data for the earnings of the whole population, to measure the competence of all politicians in 7 parties, 290 municipalities, and 10 elections (for the period 1982-2014). We ask how competence was affected by a zipper quota, requiring local parties to alternate men and women on the ballot, implemented by the Social Democratic Party in 1993. Far from being at odds with meritocracy, this quota raised the competence of male politicians where it raised female representation the most. We argue that resignation of mediocre male leaders was a key driver of this effect.
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