Research in Economics最新文献

Motivated by the weak response of the inflation rate to the tight labor market, the Federal Reserve (Fed) Bank stepped away from its longstanding preemptive policy to fight inflation as the economy approached full employment. This paper aims to reevaluate the relationships of four measures of inflation with the unemployment rate. We accomplish this task by allowing the Phillips curve (PC) slope to vary over time and depend on the magnitude of the unemployment gap. Assessed by both PC convex specification assessment and the Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) estimation method, we confirm the convexity of the PC when the unemployment gap is negative. In addition, we show that the slope of the PC more than doubled when we allow the coefficient on the economic slack to vary over time. Thus, our study shows that PC is still a relevant tool for guiding monetary policy.

This is the first paper I am aware of to integrate litigants’ investment in pretrial case preparation with the fact that judges experience small costs to processing extra information conveyed by litigants. While a full-scale battle involving high case preparation by both parties would have obtained if litigants were confident that judges would review the extra evidence, costly judicial attention results either in an equilibrium where no one incurs case preparation expenses, or (if parties are relatively malicious, and judicial technology is efficient) in just one litigant, but not both, incurring such expenses. The latter possibility can create incentives for a signaling race. While costly judicial attention lowers case preparation expenses and generally makes litigants better off relative to the full attention case, it can also lead to fewer cases being immediately settled.

During the COVID-19 pandemic governments and individuals alike faced incentives to limit the spread of the disease. Our objective is to assess the extent to which government mandates and private actions influenced time allocated to specific activities and the social interactions of individuals. Information on how individuals spent their time before and during the early stages of the pandemic come from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), which identifies time use for a 24-hour period and includes each individual's activities, locations and companions. We combine the time diary data with data on state-level restrictions from the Kaiser Family Foundation and state-level COVID-19 infection and death rates from Johns Hopkins University. Our findings suggest that private actions in response to reported death rates are comparable to the effects of state-level public mandates on the outcome variables of time alone and time at home. In evaluating effects based on sex and age, we find that young males experienced the largest disruption in time use, significantly changing both their location and their companions. We also find important age profile differences between males and females.

COVID-19 has caused substantial disruptions to the airline industry. This paper analyzes the impact of the pandemic on price dispersion in airfares. The sample includes ticket information from the DB1B database between 2018Q1 and 2021Q4. The fixed-effect panel instrument variable (IV) estimation finds evidence of decreased price dispersion during COVID-19. These results are robust to alternative measures of dispersion and subsamples. Furthermore, the subsample analyes reveal that, as the infection rate rises, the dispersion decreases more in markets where competition is more intense. Specifically, dispersion is lower on routes with the presence of low-cost carriers (LCCs) than those exclusively served by legacy carriers and on short-haul routes ($\le$500 miles) than long-haul routes ($>$500 miles). My analysis adds to the literature by exploiting the impact of changes in market conditions (i.e., demand shocks triggered by the COVID-19 recession) on price and price dispersion using the latest data.

This paper studies economic resilience as the ability of an economic system to respond to adverse shocks. We propose several measures of resilience based on a quantile function representing income dynamics. Applied to the evolution of per capita income, we evaluate the speed and nature of economic adjustments to adverse shocks across countries over the last two centuries. We find evidence of important income effects: low-income countries adjust to adverse shocks better in the short run; but high-income countries adjust better in the longer run. We show that the long run effects dominate: in terms of discounted present value, high-income countries have been able to reduce the effects of adverse shocks on expected future income better than low-income countries. Finally, we find that, over the last 50 years, most of the changes in resilience across countries can be attributed to income effects.

This study investigates the impact of the COVID pandemic on healthcare utilization, spending, and health measures among the U.S. population during the first year of the pandemic. We utilize data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey and employ propensity score matching techniques to analyze the variation in healthcare outcomes due to the pandemic.

Our findings indicate that the pandemic significantly reduced mental health status, the intensity of office, outpatient, and emergency room visits, and a corresponding decline in healthcare spending. On the other hand, we find improvement in health-related quality of life for most individuals, except for blacks, individuals with a high school degree or less, the uninsured, and the low-income population. The findings highlight disparities during the pandemic and the need for increased efforts to promote health equity.

This study evaluates the impact of the social security contribution rate, late retirement age, and employment rate on pension replacement rate by using an overlapping generation (OLG) model that provides insightful measures on the endogenous pension replacement of retired employees in China. We conducted empirical analysis, Bootstrap & Sobel Test (BST) for mediating effect and used fixed and mediated effects models on panel data of 31 Chinese provinces to achieve specific employment promotion and pension replacement rates. The late employment rate is positively significant and correlated with the social security contribution rate (SSCR), which shows the late retirement age can significantly reduce SSCR. The optimal combination identified in the late retirement age that decreasing SSCR. The above results indicate that the intermediary effect is significant. Simultaneously, SSCR does play an intermediary role in the relationship between the late retirement age and the employment rate. The late retirement age affects the employment rate through the social security contribution rate; thus, the late retirement age reduces a corporate social security contribution rate and labor cost and then prompts the enterprise to increase employment demand. Furthermore, BST mediating effects show that the SSCR significantly affects the late retirement age and employment rate. We conclude effective policy reforms can alleviate the late retirement age dilemma because a decline in the social security contribution rate causes a 1 % reduction in the social security contribution rate causing the 0.41055 percent late retirement age yearly.

Additional retake opportunities generally increase the probability of eventually passing a given threshold at given competence, and decrease preparation for exams. Preparation work performed before the first attempt may increase only for very weak students, and may decline so much as to decrease the total pass probability only for very strong students. If additional preparation is possible before retaking a failed exam, it is optimal for students to make early attempts without much preparation. Some will be lucky enough to pass, and others will make many attempts after gradually improving preparation. Hence, plentiful retake opportunities reduce the reliability of exam results as an indicator of competence, and increase the cost of taking and administering exams for students and teachers.

The sensitivity of Foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows to the level of a region’s vulnerability to climate risks somewhat substantiates the argument that return potentials fundamentally determine FDI location decisions. This makes climate change vulnerability a great challenge to sustainable economic development efforts across the globe, particularly in developing regions. Hence, panel data of 35 sub-Saharan African (SSA) countries between 2006 and 2020 were employed to examine the effect of climate change vulnerability and preparedness on FDI, as well as the exploration of the interaction effect of both climate change indicators on the latter. With the use of Fixed Effects (FE) and Dynamic Two– Step System Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimation, findings indicate that FDI inflows could be adversely impacted by climate vulnerability. This strengthens the understanding that as SSA countries become more vulnerable to climate change, inward FDI in the region may be lowered. However, climate preparedness found not to have a negative impact on FDI. Results are consistent with the view that when countries embrace strong innovation support and improved regulatory standards, responsible international investments could be promoted. In addition, the empirical evidence obtained from the interaction of climate vulnerability and readiness reveals that climate preparedness matters in climate vulnerability-FDI nexus, suggesting the increasing relevance of effective climate governance and innovative characteristics of economies in stimulating FDI attraction. It is, therefore, suggested that to mitigate the adverse effect of climate vulnerability on FDI inflows, SSA should actively take measures that would strengthen its economic, governance and social environment.

The paper sets up a model which reconciles the energy efficiency gap and the decline of the rebound effect with households’ income. It is shown that the two phenomena can be explained in a framework with a utility-maximizing household that enjoys an income-independent endowment of energy services. Energy service endowment is a barrier against the adoption of the most energy-efficient appliances and leads to the so-called energy efficiency gap. Low-income households only use endowments and do not use energy-consuming appliances (cars, wall insulation, etc.). Higr-income households buy an appliance whose energy efficiency depends on the household’s income. Only households with income above a threshold buy the most efficient appliance. For households that replace their appliance with a more efficient one, there will be a rebound effect (the realized energy saving is less than the presumed one). It is shown that the rebound effect is higher at lower income levels because income and substitution effects from a decline in energy service prices are stronger. These stronger effects come from the endowment of energy services. The numerical example shows that the model can reproduce the patterns for the rebound effects of household income groups and their expenditure shares. It is also shown that other causes of the energy efficiency gap, such as credit constraints, do not lead to higher rebound effects at lower income levels.