ATLANTIC ECONOMIC JOURNAL最新文献

The benefit-cost study of the Clean Air Act conducted by the EPA a decade ago found that the benefit from that act far exceeds its cost. However, 85% of that benefit came from the EPA's valuation of the lives saved by the act. This valuation was based on estimates of the statistical value of a life, the majority of which were made using a hedonic wage equation. The analysis presented here shows that such a valuation may not accurately capture willingness to pay for improved air quality. In fact, it is only capable of doing so in a very special case, when air quality does not affect the probability of developing non-fatal conditions.

The purpose of the present study is to determine if there is a relationship between red flag laws and mass shootings. Mass shootings may be averted if the potential shooter’s firearms are seized per a warrant emanating from a red flag statute. Using a fixed effects model and a propensity score matching model, it was found that red flag laws are not significantly related to the number of mass shooting victims (killed and injured). One potential reason for this result is the rarity of mass shootings and the infrequency with which red flag laws are used. Data used in the present study are for the period 1999 to 2020. Mass shootings data were obtained from the Mother Jones mass shooting database. The present study is the first study in the English language literature to examine the relationship between red flag laws and mass shootings.

The growing weight being placed on self-directed retirement accounts within the United States retirement income policy framework, and the time inconsistency challenge of individuals, particularly women, tending to under-invest in retirement savings accounts motivated the current work. Using data from the United States Federal Reserve Board’s Survey of Consumer Finances, for a period spanning from 1989 to 2019, 11 cross-sections of data, the paper investigated the role of gender in United States retirement risk-taking investment strategies of single (never married) individuals. The analysis documented increasing trends in the risk-taking of both single women and single men but recorded differences in the risk-taking profiles of the two groups, with single men taking more risk than single women in their retirement wealth building in most cross-sections, with the gender risk-taking gap dropping, nonetheless, algebraically in magnitude from 1989 to 2019.

The distributional outcomes of monetary policy have garnered increasing attention in recent years. While there has been significant progress on both the theoretical and methodological design of studies on advanced economies, research on China has been limited, partly because of its opaque and unique monetary policy framework. This paper investigates the distributional effects of monetary policy shocks in China from 2003 to 2021, as the central bank converges towards a standard interest-rate based regime. A novel policy shock series for China is constructed using the high-frequency external instrument identification method that addresses endogeneity concerns between macroeconomic factors and policy decisions. A structural vector autoregression system identified by short-run restrictions is then used to analyze the impulse responses of income measures and asset market returns to these shocks. Findings suggest that contractionary monetary policy shocks have a negative impact on inequality in China, by increasing the relative share of income at the top and decreasing the share at the bottom of the distribution. Adverse effects are stronger for lower income groups who derive most of their income from labor and business, and experience large and persistent negative effects from an unanticipated rate hike. Meanwhile, the impacts on top earners are neutral or modestly positive, since their income portfolios are diversified by property holdings. As such, this analysis supports the income composition channel theory in explaining the heterogeneity in household responses to monetary policy shocks.

The Doing Business indicators published by the World Bank serve as a proxy for assessing the quality of institutions and the business environment. In recent years, Doing Business scores or rankings have been used to evaluate choices affecting foreign direct investment decisions. The study purpose is to examine the extent to which the quality of institutions and the business environment, as reflected in the Doing Business indicators, is associated with higher foreign direct investment inflows in European Union countries. The paper uses data on member country performance based on selected indicators, the Corruption Perception Index, and data on work stoppages and strikes. The latter is used to capture the importance of the labour market environment and political stability. Panel data cover the period 2005–2020 for most European Union member countries. The results suggest that the quality of business and institutional environments is an important factor in attracting foreign direct investment inflows. These results vary considerably depending on the countries chosen and have important policy implications. Specifically, governments should put emphasis not only on the general functioning of the economy, but also on the improvement of institutional quality to attract foreign direct investment.