Research in Economics最新文献

Under the threat of a rapid expanding virus like the 2020 COVID-19, policy-makers need to decide relatively fast whether and under which conditions to invest in a vaccine, and eventually adopt other protective measures like social distancing or lockdowns, or to wait for natural herd immunity. Taking into account that vaccines take time to be fully developed and effective, this paper considers a unified framework at the crossroad between economics and epidemiology to study optimal public spending in medical research to obtain a vaccine against an infectious disease evolving according to a SIR dynamics. We prove that developed economies always invest in the search of a vaccine. The more individuals care about consumption, the more they actually reduce their current consumption and the more they invest in the vaccine research program to recover their consumption potential at the earliest. Our model would only recommend economies with very poor technology to restrain from investment and wait for herd immunity.

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War, multiple European countries abolished compulsive military service to opt for a professional military. These reforms may have positive or negative effects on young men's educational attainment. On one hand, these individuals may have more time to pursue their education without the interruption caused by compulsive military service. On the other, if young men were using their education as a way to delay or prevent compulsive military service, then they may pursue less education in the absence of such an incentive. In this study, we ask how the 2001 reform to abolish compulsive military service in Spain affected educational attainment of young men. Using a difference-in-differences approach along time and gender, we find that there was a significant increase in university education and a significant decrease in secondary education after the reform. Next, we use a triple difference model along time, gender and a binary variable indicating whether both of the young man's parents were low educated in order to analyze the potential heterogenous effects of the reform depending on the education level of an individual. We find that an average young man born after 1982 was 7.6% more likely to obtain university education and 9.7% less likely to obtain secondary education after the reform. Finally, we control for time, year, and province of birth fixed effects to mitigate omitted variable bias. Our results remain similar except that the positive effect of the reform on university education becomes marginally significant.

Upgradation of export product quality and product diversification are two crucial determinants of the economic growth of developing countries. Both depend heavily on the endowment and quality of the skilled labor. However, one of the challenges developing countries face is the emigration of skilled labor. In this paper, we intend to explore the effect of skilled labor emigration on the export product quality, the number of varieties produced (extensive margin), and the amount of production (intensive margin). To do so, we provide a theoretical framework followed by empirical evidence. Results suggest that export product quality deteriorates with an outflow of skilled labor. Moreover, the number of varieties produced by the domestically specialized manufacturing or domestic service sectors falls but the total amount of production increases. This product diversification at the domestic level has a similar impact on export diversification when we have skilled emigration. The theoretical results have been examined empirically in this paper.

This paper surveys the nascent literature on the causes and consequences of official diplomatic visits that are undertaken by country's leaders, heads of states, chiefs of the executive, foreign ministers, and international notable figures and prominent personnel. The paper discusses the need for such a literature survey, the nature and sources of data used in the pertinent studies, and the determinants and factors behind official diplomatic visits. The paper also covers the political, economic, social, and cultural consequences of official visits. The paper concludes with some recommendations for future research.

This study investigates the critical role of fiscal uncertainty in driving economic growth in South Korea and explores the potential implications for the nation's long-standing low fertility challenge. Utilizing country-year data and advanced measures disaggregating economic policy uncertainty into dimensions like fiscal, monetary, and trade uncertainty, the analysis reveals a strong negative association between fiscal uncertainty and GDP growth rates over the past three decades. Periods of heightened fiscal volatility, characterized by unpredictable government spending, tax policies, and overall economic instability, consistently preceded declines in economic growth. Moreover, the findings indicate that fiscal uncertainty moderates the relationship between economic expansion and fertility rates. While GDP growth generally improves conditions favorable for childbearing by raising living standards, the positive impact on fertility diminishes as fiscal uncertainty increases. Strikingly, at sufficiently high levels of uncertainty, economic growth fails to boost fertility rates, underscoring the crucial role of fiscal stability in reaping the full benefits of growth. These insights highlight the importance of reducing fiscal uncertainty through strategies like implementing tax and spending "calendarization" systems and adopting long-term policy planning horizons. By promoting fiscal predictability and fostering an environment conducive to sustained economic expansion, policymakers can indirectly create conditions that support higher fertility rates by alleviating household aversion to uncertainty. While focused on economic factors, this research acknowledges the multifaceted nature of fertility decisions and calls for a holistic policy approach combined with further causal investigations using micro-level data and experimental designs. Ultimately, prioritizing fiscal stability and addressing fiscal uncertainty present a critical pathway towards stimulating economic growth and potentially revitalizing fertility rates in South Korea and similar developed nations confronting demographic challenges.

The standard overlapping generations model assumes the ability to borrow against bequests. If this assumption is not met, it may happen that not all generations smooth their consumption over time. We prove that by allowing for inter vivos transfers in this latter situation, all generations smooth consumption, i.e. the first best solution is restored. Next, using a combination of Dutch survey and administrative data, we provide empirical support for the model's implication that parents transfer wealth when their children need to borrow out of future resources. Our findings suggest an instrumental role for inter vivos transfers as a device that generations can resort to for smoothing their consumption over time.

We show that “equal tax and equal compensation” (T&C) is fair as justified by the two fairness principles. It differs from any Pigouvian tax with fixed lump-sum payments and can motivate every country to maximize world welfare. It benefits countries with current per capita emissions lower than the world average and would benefit every country when compared with a fair benchmark where emissions are duly penalized and compensated. Subsidizing emission reduction by poll tax is Pareto efficient and Pareto improving over status quo, but unfair. An imperfect T&C with a sub-optimal tax or pyramid taxes can still benefit the world.

We review, from a practical standpoint, the evolving literature on assessing external validity (EV) of estimated treatment effects. We review existing EV measures, and focus on methods that permit multiple datasets (Hotz et al., 2005). We outline criteria for practical usage, evaluate the existing approaches, and identify a gap in potential methods. Our practical considerations motivate a novel method utilizing the Group Lasso (Yuan and Lin, 2006) to estimate a tractable regression-based model of the conditional average treatment effect (CATE). This approach can perform better when settings have differing covariate distributions and allows for easily extrapolating the average treatment effect to new settings. We apply these measures to a set of identical field experiments upgrading slum dwellings in three different countries (Galiani et al., 2017).

This paper analyzes a decision-making process known as Choice by Elimination then Selection (ES), in which an individual narrows down available alternatives based on a preference order called the elimination relation and then selects the best element from the remaining alternative(s) based on a different preference order called the selection relation. The elimination and selection criteria need not rank alternatives in the same order. ES can be seen as a response to information overload, where shortlisting alternatives can facilitate more informed and beneficial choices. It can also be seen as a method to make a choice when moral or personal values are in the way of utility maximization. The paper uses an axiomatic approach to fully characterize the choices based on the ES method, showing that ES choices may not satisfy the Weak Axiom of Revealed Preference (WARP) and, thus, are not rationalizable under the standard classical framework. Four axioms are introduced to fully characterize the choice correspondence based on ES. The paper also discusses the uniqueness of the elimination and selection ordering relations. The ES method belongs to the class of models that analyze boundedly rational choice behavior, such as choice with frames, limited attention models, list rationalizable models, categorize then choose, and status quo bias.

A critical aspect of healthcare reforms in various countries revolves around the relationship between efficiency, quality, and competition. Exploring the spatial dimension of competition is essential to understand this connection thoroughly. In this study, we develop a theoretical model that examines hospitals' choices regarding quality and cost-containment efforts across different competitive environments characterized by varying spatial distributions of hospitals. We derive and fully characterize hospitals' reaction functions and Nash equilibria concerning quality and cost-containment efforts. Our findings reveal that while localized competition tends to reduce hospitals' efforts in cost containment, its impact on treatment quality can vary. This variation depends on factors such as the cost of delivering quality care, its benefits to patients, and hospitals' objectives, including their level of altruism. Our findings contribute to the ongoing debate on the role of local competition in healthcare. They offer insights into the conditions that could yield divergent outcomes, often advocated by conflicting perspectives. These conditions serve as a foundation for refining competition policy models in healthcare.