Tihitina Andarge, Dalia Ghanem, David A Keiser, Gabriel E Lade
Many laws and economic actions depend on thresholds. As a consequence, threshold manipulation is a common concern in a variety of settings. Existing methods for detecting and quantifying threshold manipulation assume a continuous counterfactual distribution absent manipulation. This assumption is violated in the presence of rounding, which is prevalent in many applications and distinct from manipulation. This paper develops methods for testing and quantifying threshold manipulation when rounding is a prominent feature of the data. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach in an empirical application examining threshold manipulation in lead monitoring under the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act.
{"title":"Quantifying Threshold Manipulation in the Presence of Rounding: The Case of Lead Monitoring in U.S. Drinking Water.","authors":"Tihitina Andarge, Dalia Ghanem, David A Keiser, Gabriel E Lade","doi":"10.1257/aeri.20240258","DOIUrl":"10.1257/aeri.20240258","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Many laws and economic actions depend on thresholds. As a consequence, threshold manipulation is a common concern in a variety of settings. Existing methods for detecting and quantifying threshold manipulation assume a continuous counterfactual distribution absent manipulation. This assumption is violated in the presence of rounding, which is prevalent in many applications and distinct from manipulation. This paper develops methods for testing and quantifying threshold manipulation when rounding is a prominent feature of the data. We demonstrate the usefulness of our approach in an empirical application examining threshold manipulation in lead monitoring under the U.S. Safe Drinking Water Act.</p>","PeriodicalId":29954,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review-Insights","volume":"7 3","pages":"285-305"},"PeriodicalIF":6.7,"publicationDate":"2025-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12530110/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145330124","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We develop new quasi-experimental tools to understand algorithmic discrimination and build non-discriminatory algorithms when the outcome of interest is only selectively observed. We first show that algorithmic discrimination arises when the available algorithmic inputs are systematically different for individuals with the same objective potential outcomes. We then show how algorithmic discrimination can be eliminated by measuring and purging these conditional input disparities. Leveraging the quasi-random assignment of bail judges in New York City, we find that our new algorithms not only eliminate algorithmic discrimination but also generate more accurate predictions by correcting for the selective observability of misconduct outcomes.
{"title":"Building Nondiscriminatory Algorithms in Selected Data.","authors":"David Arnold, Will Dobbie, Peter Hull","doi":"10.1257/aeri.20240249","DOIUrl":"10.1257/aeri.20240249","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We develop new quasi-experimental tools to understand algorithmic discrimination and build non-discriminatory algorithms when the outcome of interest is only selectively observed. We first show that algorithmic discrimination arises when the available algorithmic inputs are systematically different for individuals with the same objective potential outcomes. We then show how algorithmic discrimination can be eliminated by measuring and purging these conditional input disparities. Leveraging the quasi-random assignment of bail judges in New York City, we find that our new algorithms not only eliminate algorithmic discrimination but also generate more accurate predictions by correcting for the selective observability of misconduct outcomes.</p>","PeriodicalId":29954,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review-Insights","volume":"7 2","pages":"231-249"},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12180558/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144477082","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Alberto Ciancio, Fabrice Kämpfen, Hans-Peter Kohler, Rebecca Thornton
When there is no treatment available for a life-threatening disease, providing personal health information could lead to despair or fatalistic behaviors resulting in negative health outcomes. We document this possibility utilizing an experiment in Malawi that randomized incentives to learn HIV testing results in a context where anti-retroviral treatment was not yet available. Six years after the experiment, among HIV+s, those who learned their status were 23 percentage points less likely to survive than those who did not, with effects persisting after 15 years. Receiving an HIV+ diagnosis resulted in riskier health behaviors, greater anxiety, and higher discount rates.
{"title":"Surviving Bad News: Health Information Without Treatment Options.","authors":"Alberto Ciancio, Fabrice Kämpfen, Hans-Peter Kohler, Rebecca Thornton","doi":"10.1257/aeri.20240058","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20240058","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>When there is no treatment available for a life-threatening disease, providing personal health information could lead to despair or fatalistic behaviors resulting in negative health outcomes. We document this possibility utilizing an experiment in Malawi that randomized incentives to learn HIV testing results in a context where anti-retroviral treatment was not yet available. Six years after the experiment, among HIV+s, those who learned their status were 23 percentage points less likely to survive than those who did not, with effects persisting after 15 years. Receiving an HIV+ diagnosis resulted in riskier health behaviors, greater anxiety, and higher discount rates.</p>","PeriodicalId":29954,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review-Insights","volume":"7 1","pages":"1-18"},"PeriodicalIF":8.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12001749/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144062316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper examines connections between stochastic growth and decision problems. We use tools from the theory of large deviations to show that wishful thinking decision problems are equivalent to utility maximization problems, both of which are equivalent to growth maximization under idiosyncratic risk. Rational inattention problems are equivalent to growth-optimal portfolio problems, both of which are equivalent to growth maximization under aggregate risk. Stochastic growth generates extreme inequality, with nearly all wealth eventually held by those who happen to have faced empirical distributions that match the solution to the wishful thinking or rational inattention problem. (JEL D31, D81, D82, D83, G51, O41)
{"title":"Decision Theory and Stochastic Growth","authors":"A. Robson, L. Samuelson, Jakub Steiner","doi":"10.1257/aeri.20220456","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20220456","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines connections between stochastic growth and decision problems. We use tools from the theory of large deviations to show that wishful thinking decision problems are equivalent to utility maximization problems, both of which are equivalent to growth maximization under idiosyncratic risk. Rational inattention problems are equivalent to growth-optimal portfolio problems, both of which are equivalent to growth maximization under aggregate risk. Stochastic growth generates extreme inequality, with nearly all wealth eventually held by those who happen to have faced empirical distributions that match the solution to the wishful thinking or rational inattention problem. (JEL D31, D81, D82, D83, G51, O41)","PeriodicalId":29954,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review-Insights","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.5,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48186695","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
In standard macrofinance models, financial constraints mainly affect small or young firms but not large or old ones due to the self-financing mechanism, and the dispersion of marginal revenue product of capital (MRPK) of a firm cohort is less persistent than in the data. We extend a standard model by allowing firms to hire managers, and large firms hire disproportionately more managers, consistent with data. In our model, financial constraints and the dispersion of MRPK persist, and even large firms are likely to be constrained. The productivity loss from financial frictions is also substantially amplified. (JEL D24, D25, G32, L25, M10, O16, P31)
{"title":"Finance, Managerial Inputs, and Misallocation","authors":"Chaoran Chen, A. Habib, Xiaodong Zhu","doi":"10.1257/aeri.20220285","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20220285","url":null,"abstract":"In standard macrofinance models, financial constraints mainly affect small or young firms but not large or old ones due to the self-financing mechanism, and the dispersion of marginal revenue product of capital (MRPK) of a firm cohort is less persistent than in the data. We extend a standard model by allowing firms to hire managers, and large firms hire disproportionately more managers, consistent with data. In our model, financial constraints and the dispersion of MRPK persist, and even large firms are likely to be constrained. The productivity loss from financial frictions is also substantially amplified. (JEL D24, D25, G32, L25, M10, O16, P31)","PeriodicalId":29954,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review-Insights","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.5,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42774626","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Dan Goldhaber, Thomas J. Kane, A. McEachin, Emily Morton, Tyler M Patterson, D. Staiger
Using testing data from over two million students in nearly 10,000 schools in 49 states (plus the District of Columbia), we investigate the role of remote and hybrid instruction in widening gaps in achievement by race and school poverty. We find that remote instruction was a primary driver of the widening gaps. Math gaps did not widen in areas that remained in person (although reading gaps did). We estimate that high-poverty districts that went remote in 2020–2021 will need to spend nearly all of their federal aid on helping students recover from pandemic-related academic achievement losses. (JEL H75, I12, I21, I24, I32, J15)
{"title":"The Educational Consequences of Remote and Hybrid Instruction during the Pandemic","authors":"Dan Goldhaber, Thomas J. Kane, A. McEachin, Emily Morton, Tyler M Patterson, D. Staiger","doi":"10.1257/aeri.20220180","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20220180","url":null,"abstract":"Using testing data from over two million students in nearly 10,000 schools in 49 states (plus the District of Columbia), we investigate the role of remote and hybrid instruction in widening gaps in achievement by race and school poverty. We find that remote instruction was a primary driver of the widening gaps. Math gaps did not widen in areas that remained in person (although reading gaps did). We estimate that high-poverty districts that went remote in 2020–2021 will need to spend nearly all of their federal aid on helping students recover from pandemic-related academic achievement losses. (JEL H75, I12, I21, I24, I32, J15)","PeriodicalId":29954,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review-Insights","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.5,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43374245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Adrienne H Sabety, J. Gruber, J. Y. Bae, Rishi K. Sood
In 2016, New York City designed and implemented an intervention to reduce frictions in accessing safety net care: randomly making initial primary care appointments for 2,428 undocumented immigrants. We leverage a novel survey-administrative data linkage to show that the program increased self-reported access to primary care, leading to 23 percent fewer emergency department (ED) visits. High-risk individuals’ ED visits fell by 32 percent on average, driving the aggregate effect. Preventive care also increased among individuals visiting sponsored clinics. (JEL H75, I11, I12, I13, I14, I18, J15)
{"title":"Reducing Frictions in Health Care Access: The ActionHealthNYC Experiment for Undocumented Immigrants","authors":"Adrienne H Sabety, J. Gruber, J. Y. Bae, Rishi K. Sood","doi":"10.1257/aeri.20220126","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20220126","url":null,"abstract":"In 2016, New York City designed and implemented an intervention to reduce frictions in accessing safety net care: randomly making initial primary care appointments for 2,428 undocumented immigrants. We leverage a novel survey-administrative data linkage to show that the program increased self-reported access to primary care, leading to 23 percent fewer emergency department (ED) visits. High-risk individuals’ ED visits fell by 32 percent on average, driving the aggregate effect. Preventive care also increased among individuals visiting sponsored clinics. (JEL H75, I11, I12, I13, I14, I18, J15)","PeriodicalId":29954,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review-Insights","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.5,"publicationDate":"2023-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44767321","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We propose a new method to estimate and isolate the localization of knowledge spillovers due to the physical presence of a person, using after-application but pre-grant deaths of differently located coinventors of the same patent. The approach estimates the differences in local citations between the deceased and still-living inventors at increasingly distant radii. Patents receive 26 percent fewer citations from within a radius of 20 miles around the deceased, relative to still-living coinventors. Differences attenuate with time and distance, are stronger when still-living coinventors live farther from the deceased, and hold for a subsample of possibly premature deaths. (JEL O31, O33, O34, R32)
{"title":"Isolating Personal Knowledge Spillovers: Coinventor Deaths and Spatial Citation Differentials","authors":"B. Balsmeier, L. Fleming, Sonja Lück","doi":"10.1257/aeri.20210275","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20210275","url":null,"abstract":"We propose a new method to estimate and isolate the localization of knowledge spillovers due to the physical presence of a person, using after-application but pre-grant deaths of differently located coinventors of the same patent. The approach estimates the differences in local citations between the deceased and still-living inventors at increasingly distant radii. Patents receive 26 percent fewer citations from within a radius of 20 miles around the deceased, relative to still-living coinventors. Differences attenuate with time and distance, are stronger when still-living coinventors live farther from the deceased, and hold for a subsample of possibly premature deaths. (JEL O31, O33, O34, R32)","PeriodicalId":29954,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review-Insights","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.5,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42824345","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nathan Barker, G. Bryan, Dean S. Karlan, A. Ofori-Atta, C. Udry
We study the impact of group-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT ) for individuals selected from the general population of poor households in rural Ghana (N = 7,227). Results from one to three months after the program show strong impacts on mental and perceived physical health, cognitive and socioemotional skills, and economic self-perceptions. These effects hold regardless of baseline mental distress. We argue that this is because CBT can improve well-being for a general population of poor individuals through two pathways: reducing vulnerability to deteriorating mental health and directly increasing cognitive capacity and socioemotional skills. (JEL D12, I12, I15, I31, I32, O12, O18)
{"title":"Cognitive Behavioral Therapy among Ghana's Rural Poor Is Effective Regardless of Baseline Mental Distress","authors":"Nathan Barker, G. Bryan, Dean S. Karlan, A. Ofori-Atta, C. Udry","doi":"10.1257/aeri.20210612","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20210612","url":null,"abstract":"We study the impact of group-based cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT ) for individuals selected from the general population of poor households in rural Ghana (N = 7,227). Results from one to three months after the program show strong impacts on mental and perceived physical health, cognitive and socioemotional skills, and economic self-perceptions. These effects hold regardless of baseline mental distress. We argue that this is because CBT can improve well-being for a general population of poor individuals through two pathways: reducing vulnerability to deteriorating mental health and directly increasing cognitive capacity and socioemotional skills. (JEL D12, I12, I15, I31, I32, O12, O18)","PeriodicalId":29954,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review-Insights","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46999575","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
A. Khachiyan, Anthony Thomas, Huye Zhou, G. Hanson, Alex Cloninger, Tajana Rosing, A. Khandelwal
We apply deep learning to daytime satellite imagery to predict changes in income and population at high spatial resolution in US data. For grid cells with lateral dimensions of 1.2 km and 2.4 km (where the average US county has dimension of 51.9 km), our model predictions achieve R2 values of 0.85 to 0.91 in levels, which far exceed the accuracy of existing models, and 0.32 to 0.46 in decadal changes, which have no counterpart in the literature and are 3–4 times larger than for commonly used nighttime lights. Our network has wide application for analyzing localized shocks. (JEL C45, R11, R23)
{"title":"Using Neural Networks to Predict Microspatial Economic Growth","authors":"A. Khachiyan, Anthony Thomas, Huye Zhou, G. Hanson, Alex Cloninger, Tajana Rosing, A. Khandelwal","doi":"10.1257/aeri.20210422","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aeri.20210422","url":null,"abstract":"We apply deep learning to daytime satellite imagery to predict changes in income and population at high spatial resolution in US data. For grid cells with lateral dimensions of 1.2 km and 2.4 km (where the average US county has dimension of 51.9 km), our model predictions achieve R2 values of 0.85 to 0.91 in levels, which far exceed the accuracy of existing models, and 0.32 to 0.46 in decadal changes, which have no counterpart in the literature and are 3–4 times larger than for commonly used nighttime lights. Our network has wide application for analyzing localized shocks. (JEL C45, R11, R23)","PeriodicalId":29954,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review-Insights","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":8.5,"publicationDate":"2022-12-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48493488","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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