Title: Asset-based microfinance for microenterprises: Evidence from Pakistan

http://simonrquinn.com/PaperHigherPurchase.pdf 

Abstract: We run a field experiment offering graduated microcredit clients the opportunity to finance a business asset worth four times their usual borrowing limit. We implement this using a hire-purchase contract; our control group is offered a zero-interest loan at the usual borrowing limit. We find large, significant and persistent effects: treated microenterprise owners run larger businesses with higher profits; consequently, household consumption increases, particularly on food and children’s education. A dynamic structural model with non-convex capital adjustment costs rationalises our results and allows counterfactual analysis; this highlights the potential for welfare improvements through large capital injections that are financially sustainable..

Title: Auctions with Frictions (joint with Asher Wolinsky)

Title: Unequal Global Convergence

Title: The Decline of U.S. Manufacturing Productivity Between 1941 and 1948

Title: Identification of Intertemporal Preferences From Choice Set Variation

Abstract: The paper provides conditions to identify the discount factor(s) and utility function in an infinite-horizon dynamic discrete choice model variation in choice sets over time. We show that if current choices or states are informative about the choice set the agent will face in the future, then the discount factor and utility are identified without any strong normalization. These identification results hold in both the exponential discounting model and, if the choice set provides a form of pre-commitment, the quasi-hyperbolic discounting model. Identifying the discount factor and utility allows us to identify the counterfactual policies which often are the objects of interest in dynamic discrete-choice analysis, but which are not generally identified. We conduct a data analyses to validate our approach.

Title: Urban-biased structural change (with Natalie Chen, Carlo Perroni and Horng Wong)

 Abstract: Over the past few decades, high-income countries have experienced a structural shift of economic activity from manufacturing towards services. Using rich administrative micro data from France, we document three stylized facts about structural change: (i) structural change has been urban-biased -- areas with higher population density have seen a faster shift into services than less densely populated locations; (ii) the urban bias is entirely driven by exporters; (iii) large manufacturing exporters locate in small cities, while large services exporters locate in large cities. Motivated by these findings, we build and estimate an open economy model of cities and exporters to quantify the role of agglomeration forces, falling trade costs, and sectoral productivity growth in shaping urban-biased structural change. We find that changing agglomeration benefits and falling international trade costs led manufacturing exporters to grow in small cities and services exporters in large cities, generating urban-biased structural change. Sorting by exporters and non-exporters into different locations plays a key role in understanding structural change -- if exporters and non-exporters had made the same location choices, there would be no urban bias in structural change.

Title - to be advised

Title: The Rise of China and the Global Production of Scientific Knowledge (with Tianrui Mu)

Title: Incentives and Efficiency in Constrained Allocation Mechanisms (joint with Joseph Root (Chicago)).

Please find the program and the registration form on our websiteLink opens in a new window.

Two 30 minutes talks:

Presentation 1 (Bruno Souza): Job amenities, compensating differentials, and wage rigidity: evidence from Brazil.

Presentation 2 (Cora Neumann): Property Rights and Fertility: Evidence from 19th and 20th Century United States.

Title to be advised.

Organised by Subhasish Dey

The Political Economic Determinants of Nuclear Power: Evidence from Chernobyl (by Alexey Makarin, Nancy Qian, Shaoda Wang)

This paper investigates the political-economic determinants of nuclear energy investment using the Chernobyl accident as a natural experiment. We document several facts. First, the accident sharply reduced worldwide growth in the number of operating nuclear reactors. Second, the reduction is driven by increased construction delays in democracies, leading to prolonged use of older and less safe plants. Third, the nuclear growth slowdown in democracies is more pronounced when large fossil fuel reserves are present. Fourth, the opening of a new nuclear power plant reduces air pollution in nearby cities. Finally, micro-level evidence from the UK Parliament and US Congress provides strong indication that political capture by energy groups played a role in reducing nuclear energy investment in democracies, which may have hindered efforts to improve nuclear safety and moderate climate change.

Title to be advised.

Title: Empirical Welfare Maximization with Constraints

The paper link is https://lsun20.github.io/EWM_constraints.pdf

Title: What is stopping you? The reasons behind falling employment-employment transitions in the UK 

Title to be advised.

Title:  Substitutability Across Modes of Transport: Implications for International Trade

Abstract: In this work I study the effect of substitutability of modes of transport in international trade. Firstly, I document European composition of imports and exports flows by mode of transport. I identify two main patterns: (i) on average more than one mode is used on the same route and (ii) the share of value transported by each mode reacts to change in costs. To do so, I use Ukrainian-Russian airspace's closure as a proxy for the increase in transportation costs. I build a Ricardian model of trade with multiple modes of transport that can reproduce these patterns. The model generates a gravity equation in which modes-specific shocks are partially absorbed by changes in the share of value traded with each mode. Finally, I show how this model could be used to study the impact for international trade of a carbon tax on specific transportation sectors.

Title: The Unequal Economic Consequences of Carbon Pricing

Abstract: This paper studies how carbon pricing affects emissions, economic aggregates and inequality. Exploiting institutional features of the European carbon market and high-frequency data, I identify a carbon policy shock. I find that a tighter carbon pricing regime leads to a significant increase in energy prices, a persistent fall in emissions and an uptick in green innovation. This comes at the cost of a temporary fall in economic activity, which is not borne equally across society: poorer households lower their consumption significantly while richer households are less affected. Not only are the poor more exposed because of their higher energy share, they also experience a larger fall in their income. These indirect, general-equilibrium effects turn out to be quantitatively important. My results suggest that targeted fiscal policy can reduce the economic costs of carbon pricing without compromising emission reductions.

Title: Medical Technology and Life Expectancy: Evidence from the Antitoxin Treatment of Diphtheria

Abstract: In this paper, we explore the impact of the first effective medical treatment for an infectious disease---diphtheria antitoxin---on the historical health transition. In 1895, the Massachusetts State Board of Health began providing free supplies of the antitoxin for medical use throughout the state. This policy has later been recognized as a significant event in the public-health history of Massachusetts. We use cross-municipality variation in pre-antitoxin diphtheria mortality rates and the availability of free antitoxin since 1895 to create an instrumental variable for local adoption rates, as measured by the number of antitoxin bottles per capita. By analyzing approximately 1.6 million death certificates from 1880 to 1914, we find that a hypothetical 10-year delay in the development of antitoxin would have reduced life expectancy at birth by one year, primarily due to reductions in child mortality. Our results suggest that medicine played a significant role in the increase of life expectancy in the early 20th century. Finally, we provide evidence suggesting that antitoxin treatment during the first 9 years increased school attendance but did not affect adult labor-market outcomes.

Title: The Fragility of Sparsity" (with Ulrich Müller and Sebastian Roelsgaard) There is no paper yet, but the abstract is:

We argue, using three empirical applications, that linear regression estimators which rely on the assumption of sparsity are fragile in two ways. First, we document that different choices of the regressor matrix that don't impact long regression estimates, such as the choice of baseline category with categorical controls, move the post-double-selection estimates by one standard error or more. Second, we develop two tests of the sparsity assumption based on comparing sparsity-based estimators with long regression. Both tests tend to reject the sparsity assumption in all three applications. Unless the number of regressors is comparable to or exceeds the sample size, long regression yields more robust results at little efficiency cost.

Title to be advised.

Title: Wealth and Property Taxation in the United States.

Title: The Confederate Diaspora (with Andreas Ferrara, Martin Fiszbein, Thomas Pearson, and Patrick A. Testa)

Abstract: This paper shows how white migration out of the early postbellum South helped to diffuse and entrench Confederate culture across the United States at a critical juncture of westward expansion, national reconciliation, and nation building. These migrants laid the groundwork for Confederate memorialization and racial norms to become pervasive nationally in the early 20th century. Former Confederates, and especially those from slaveholding backgrounds, sorted into positions of power, exacerbated racial violence, and built exclusionary institutions. Migrants transmitted Confederate nostalgia to their children and to non-Southern white populations in their new communities. The legacy of the Confederate diaspora persists over the long run with implications for racial inequity in labor and housing markets as well as policing. Together, our findings shed new light on the role of migration in shaping the cultural and institutional foundations of racial animus across America.

The title is Moonshot: Public R&D and Growth