Concerned about the low academic ability of public school teachers, in the 1990s and 2000s, some states increased licensing stringency to weed out low-quality candidates, while others decreased restrictions to attract high-quality candidates. We offer a theoretical model justifying both reactions. Using data from 1991–2007 on licensing requirements and teacher quality—as measured by the selectivity of teachers’ undergraduate institutions—we find that stricter licensing requirements, especially those emphasizing academic coursework, increase the left tail of the quality distribution for secondary school teachers without significantly decreasing quality for high-minority or high-poverty districts.
{"title":"The Effect of Occupational Licensing Stringency on the Teacher Quality Distribution","authors":"B. Larsen, Z. Ju, Adam J. Kapor, Chuan Yu","doi":"10.3386/w28158","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/w28158","url":null,"abstract":"Concerned about the low academic ability of public school teachers, in the 1990s and 2000s, some states increased licensing stringency to weed out low-quality candidates, while others decreased restrictions to attract high-quality candidates. We offer a theoretical model justifying both reactions. Using data from 1991–2007 on licensing requirements and teacher quality—as measured by the selectivity of teachers’ undergraduate institutions—we find that stricter licensing requirements, especially those emphasizing academic coursework, increase the left tail of the quality distribution for secondary school teachers without significantly decreasing quality for high-minority or high-poverty districts.","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"41 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81758298","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Portfolio performance measures using holdings data are panel regressions. The returns of a fund’s stocks are regressed on its lagged portfolio weights. Stock fixed effects isolate average performance from time-series predictive ability. Control variables condition for fund performance on the characteristics of the stocks held. The long-term performance of average holdings drives some of the classical measures, while predictive ability drives others. A “buy-and-hold drift,” where portfolio weights increase over time in the higher alpha stocks, affects performance measures. Investor flows respond to average performance net of the buy-and-hold drift. (JEL G11, G14, G23, G29). Received September 3, 2020; editorial decision January 25, 2021 by Thierry Foucault. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.
{"title":"A Panel Regression Approach to Holdings-Based Fund Performance Measures","authors":"W. Ferson, Junbo Wang","doi":"10.3386/w28238","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/w28238","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Portfolio performance measures using holdings data are panel regressions. The returns of a fund’s stocks are regressed on its lagged portfolio weights. Stock fixed effects isolate average performance from time-series predictive ability. Control variables condition for fund performance on the characteristics of the stocks held. The long-term performance of average holdings drives some of the classical measures, while predictive ability drives others. A “buy-and-hold drift,” where portfolio weights increase over time in the higher alpha stocks, affects performance measures. Investor flows respond to average performance net of the buy-and-hold drift. (JEL G11, G14, G23, G29).\u0000 Received September 3, 2020; editorial decision January 25, 2021 by Thierry Foucault. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"83212963","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper studies the determinants of TFPR, a revenue based measure of total factor productivity. Recent business cycle models are built upon the countercyclical dispersion of TFPR. But, the distribution of TFPR is endogenous, dependent upon other exogenous shocks and the endogenous determination of prices. This paper studies the determination the distribution of TFPR is an overlapping generations model with monopolistic competition and state dependent pricing. Changes in the mean and the dispersion of a quantity based measure of total factor productivity, TFPQ, and monetary shocks are analyzed as exogenous variations that influence the distribution of TFPR. None of these shocks alone can generate countercyclical dispersion in TFPR and match observed countercyclical dispersion in price changes and countercyclical movements in the frequency of price changes. Large enough shocks to the dispersion in TFPQ along with an appropriately responsive monetary policy can match these facts. But the required monetary feedback does not reproduce the positive correlation between money innovations and the dispersion in TFPR seen in the data. In this framework, uncertainty per se plays a very limited role.
Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.
{"title":"Tfpr: Dispersion and Cyclicality","authors":"Russell Cooper, Özgen Öztürk","doi":"10.3386/w28174","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/w28174","url":null,"abstract":"This paper studies the determinants of TFPR, a revenue based measure of total factor productivity. Recent business cycle models are built upon the countercyclical dispersion of TFPR. But, the distribution of TFPR is endogenous, dependent upon other exogenous shocks and the endogenous determination of prices. This paper studies the determination the distribution of TFPR is an overlapping generations model with monopolistic competition and state dependent pricing. Changes in the mean and the dispersion of a quantity based measure of total factor productivity, TFPQ, and monetary shocks are analyzed as exogenous variations that influence the distribution of TFPR. None of these shocks alone can generate countercyclical dispersion in TFPR and match observed countercyclical dispersion in price changes and countercyclical movements in the frequency of price changes. Large enough shocks to the dispersion in TFPQ along with an appropriately responsive monetary policy can match these facts. But the required monetary feedback does not reproduce the positive correlation between money innovations and the dispersion in TFPR seen in the data. In this framework, uncertainty per se plays a very limited role.<br><br>Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at <a href=\"http://www.nber.org/papers/w28174\" TARGET=\"_blank\">www.nber.org</a>.<br>","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"220 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89571787","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We construct recursive solutions for, and study the properties of the dynamic equilibrium of an economy with three types of agents: (i) household/investors who supply labor with a finite elasticity, consume a large variety of goods that are not perfect substitutes and trade government bonds; (ii) firms that produce those varieties of goods, receive productivity shocks and set prices in a Calvo manner; (iii) a government that collects an income-driven fiscal surplus and acts mechanically, buying and selling bonds in accordance with a Taylor policy rule based on expected inflation. In this setting we show that stock market returns are much less than one-for-one related to inflation over a one-year holding period, which means that stock securities have a strong nominal character. We also show that their nominal character diminishes as the length of the stock-holding period increases, in accordance with empirical evidence.
{"title":"A Theory of the Nominal Character of Stock Securities","authors":"B. Dumas, M. Savioz","doi":"10.3386/w28186","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/w28186","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 We construct recursive solutions for, and study the properties of the dynamic equilibrium of an economy with three types of agents: (i) household/investors who supply labor with a finite elasticity, consume a large variety of goods that are not perfect substitutes and trade government bonds; (ii) firms that produce those varieties of goods, receive productivity shocks and set prices in a Calvo manner; (iii) a government that collects an income-driven fiscal surplus and acts mechanically, buying and selling bonds in accordance with a Taylor policy rule based on expected inflation. In this setting we show that stock market returns are much less than one-for-one related to inflation over a one-year holding period, which means that stock securities have a strong nominal character. We also show that their nominal character diminishes as the length of the stock-holding period increases, in accordance with empirical evidence.","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"35 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78035985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper examines the impact of school shootings on the educational performance and long-term health consequences of students who survive them, highlighting the impact of indiscriminate, high-fatality incidents. Initially, we focus on test scores in the years following a shooting. We also examine whether exposure to a shooting affects chronic absenteeism, which may play a role in explaining any such effect, and school expenditures, which may counteract it. We analyze national, school-district level data and additional school-level data from Connecticut in this part of the analysis. In terms of effects on health status, we focus on its most extreme measure, mortality in the years following a shooting. In this part of the analysis, we analyze county-level data on mortality by cause. In all analyses, we treat the timing of these events as random, enabling us to identify causal effects. Our results indicate that indiscriminate, high-fatality school shootings, such as those that occurred at Sandy Hook and Columbine, have considerable adverse effects on students exposed to them. We cannot rule out substantive effects of other types of shootings with fewer or no fatalities.
{"title":"Exposure to a School Shooting and Subsequent Well-Being","authors":"P. Levine, Robin McKnight","doi":"10.3386/w28307","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/w28307","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the impact of school shootings on the educational performance and long-term health consequences of students who survive them, highlighting the impact of indiscriminate, high-fatality incidents. Initially, we focus on test scores in the years following a shooting. We also examine whether exposure to a shooting affects chronic absenteeism, which may play a role in explaining any such effect, and school expenditures, which may counteract it. We analyze national, school-district level data and additional school-level data from Connecticut in this part of the analysis. In terms of effects on health status, we focus on its most extreme measure, mortality in the years following a shooting. In this part of the analysis, we analyze county-level data on mortality by cause. In all analyses, we treat the timing of these events as random, enabling us to identify causal effects. Our results indicate that indiscriminate, high-fatality school shootings, such as those that occurred at Sandy Hook and Columbine, have considerable adverse effects on students exposed to them. We cannot rule out substantive effects of other types of shootings with fewer or no fatalities.","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"2 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88858195","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Numerous government policies have attempted to keep workers out of the workplace, on the assumption that this will lower transmission of COVID-19. We test that assumption, measuring the effect of aggregate workplace absence on US COVID deaths at the county level through August. Instrumenting with an index of how many local workers pre-pandemic can work from home, based on differences in county occupational mix, we find no effect of workplace absence until mid-May, then a sharply rising effect. By August, moving 10 percent of a county's workers from the workplace would lower deaths there by three quarters one month later.
{"title":"Effects of Reduced Workplace Presence on Covid-19 Deaths: An Instrumental-Variables Approach","authors":"J. McLaren, Su Wang","doi":"10.3386/w28275","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/w28275","url":null,"abstract":"Numerous government policies have attempted to keep workers out of the workplace, on the assumption that this will lower transmission of COVID-19. We test that assumption, measuring the effect of aggregate workplace absence on US COVID deaths at the county level through August. Instrumenting with an index of how many local workers pre-pandemic can work from home, based on differences in county occupational mix, we find no effect of workplace absence until mid-May, then a sharply rising effect. By August, moving 10 percent of a county's workers from the workplace would lower deaths there by three quarters one month later.","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"67 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88248600","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-12-01DOI: 10.1038/scientificamerican01121861-25b
Sandra E. Black, P. Devereux, Fanny Landaud, K. Salvanes
{"title":"Where Does Wealth Come from?","authors":"Sandra E. Black, P. Devereux, Fanny Landaud, K. Salvanes","doi":"10.1038/scientificamerican01121861-25b","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican01121861-25b","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"49 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"89328610","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In March 2020, the International Comparison Project published its latest results, for the calendar year 2017. This round presents common-unit or purchasing-power-parity data for 176 countries on Gross Domestic Product and its components. We review a number of important issues, what is new, what is not new, and what the new data can and cannot do. Of great importance is the lack of news, that the results are broadly in line with earlier results from 2011. We consider the relationship between national accounts measures and health, particularly in light of the COVID-19 epidemic which may reduce global inequality, even as it increases inequality within countries. We emphasize things that GDP cannot do, some familiar-like its silence on distribution-and some less familiar-including its increasing detachment from national material wellbeing in a globalized world where international transfers of capital and property rights can have enormous effects on GDP, such as the 26 percent increase in Ireland's GDP in 2015.
{"title":"GDP, Wellbeing, and Health: Thoughts on the 2017 Round of the International Comparison Program","authors":"Angus Deaton, P. Schreyer","doi":"10.3386/w28177","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/w28177","url":null,"abstract":"In March 2020, the International Comparison Project published its latest results, for the calendar year 2017. This round presents common-unit or purchasing-power-parity data for 176 countries on Gross Domestic Product and its components. We review a number of important issues, what is new, what is not new, and what the new data can and cannot do. Of great importance is the lack of news, that the results are broadly in line with earlier results from 2011. We consider the relationship between national accounts measures and health, particularly in light of the COVID-19 epidemic which may reduce global inequality, even as it increases inequality within countries. We emphasize things that GDP cannot do, some familiar-like its silence on distribution-and some less familiar-including its increasing detachment from national material wellbeing in a globalized world where international transfers of capital and property rights can have enormous effects on GDP, such as the 26 percent increase in Ireland's GDP in 2015.","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"108 1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"79417419","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Advance market commitments (AMCs) provide a mechanism to stimulate investment by suppliers of products to low-income countries. In an AMC, donors commit to a fund from which a specified subsidy is paid per unit purchased by low-income countries until the fund is exhausted, strengthening suppliers’ incentives to invest in research, development, and capacity. Last decade saw the launch of a $1.5 billion pilot AMC to distribute pneumococcal vaccine to the developing world; in the current pandemic, variations on AMCs are being used to fund COVID-19 vaccines. This paper undertakes the first formal analysis of AMCs. We construct a model in which an altruistic donor negotiates on behalf of a low-income country with a vaccine supplier after the supplier has sunk investments. We use this model to explain the logic of an AMC—as a solution to a hold-up problem—and to analyze alternative design features under various economic conditions (cost uncertainty, supplier competition). A key finding is that optimal AMC design differs markedly depending on where the product is in its development cycle. This paper was accepted by Joshua Gans, business strategy.
{"title":"Designing Advance Market Commitments for New Vaccines","authors":"M. Kremer, Jonathan Levin, Christopher M. Snyder","doi":"10.3386/w28168","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/w28168","url":null,"abstract":"Advance market commitments (AMCs) provide a mechanism to stimulate investment by suppliers of products to low-income countries. In an AMC, donors commit to a fund from which a specified subsidy is paid per unit purchased by low-income countries until the fund is exhausted, strengthening suppliers’ incentives to invest in research, development, and capacity. Last decade saw the launch of a $1.5 billion pilot AMC to distribute pneumococcal vaccine to the developing world; in the current pandemic, variations on AMCs are being used to fund COVID-19 vaccines. This paper undertakes the first formal analysis of AMCs. We construct a model in which an altruistic donor negotiates on behalf of a low-income country with a vaccine supplier after the supplier has sunk investments. We use this model to explain the logic of an AMC—as a solution to a hold-up problem—and to analyze alternative design features under various economic conditions (cost uncertainty, supplier competition). A key finding is that optimal AMC design differs markedly depending on where the product is in its development cycle. This paper was accepted by Joshua Gans, business strategy.","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76623634","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Clare Boone, Pablo Celhay, P. Gertler, Tadeja Gracner, Josefina Rodriguez
Missed clinic appointments present a significant burden to health care through disruption of care, inefficient use of staff time and wasted clinical resources. Short message service (SMS) appointment reminders show promise to improve clinics’ management through timely appointment cancellations and efficient re-scheduling, but evidence from large-scale interventions is missing. We study a nationwide SMS appointment reminder program in Chile for chronic disease patients at public primary care clinics. Using longitudinal clinic-level data we find that after two years the program increased clinics’ total number of visits per by 5.1% on average. The program did not change the number of visits by chronic patients eligible to receive the reminder, but it instead increased visits by other patients, ineligible to receive reminders in clinics that adopted the program by 7.4% on average. These results suggest that the appointment reminder systems increased clinics’ ability to care for more patients through timely cancellations and re-scheduling.Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.
{"title":"How Spillovers from Appointment Reminders Improve Health Clinic Efficiency","authors":"Clare Boone, Pablo Celhay, P. Gertler, Tadeja Gracner, Josefina Rodriguez","doi":"10.3386/w28166","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3386/w28166","url":null,"abstract":"Missed clinic appointments present a significant burden to health care through disruption of care, inefficient use of staff time and wasted clinical resources. Short message service (SMS) appointment reminders show promise to improve clinics’ management through timely appointment cancellations and efficient re-scheduling, but evidence from large-scale interventions is missing. We study a nationwide SMS appointment reminder program in Chile for chronic disease patients at public primary care clinics. Using longitudinal clinic-level data we find that after two years the program increased clinics’ total number of visits per by 5.1% on average. The program did not change the number of visits by chronic patients eligible to receive the reminder, but it instead increased visits by other patients, ineligible to receive reminders in clinics that adopted the program by 7.4% on average. These results suggest that the appointment reminder systems increased clinics’ ability to care for more patients through timely cancellations and re-scheduling.Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.","PeriodicalId":19091,"journal":{"name":"NBER Working Paper Series","volume":"29 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"78576661","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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