Bulletin of Economic Research最新文献

Medical expenses have been associated with a large proportion of consumer bankruptcies in the United States. The objective of this study is to examine the relationship between the Medicaid expansion implemented in the context of the Affordable Care Act and consumer bankruptcy, overall and by chapter filing. We used a longitudinal study design with a study period of 2008–2017. We tested three approaches: difference-in-differences, fixed effect panel linear regression, and triple difference. We constructed a panel dataset from 2008 to 2017 with states’ data using data from various sources on insurance, bankruptcy filings, and characteristics that may affect bankruptcy, such as income and ethnicity. The outcomes were the annual rates of consumer bankruptcies overall and by chapter at the state level. Between 2008 and 2017, the overall unadjusted bankruptcy filing rate fell from 0.36% to 0.24%. We found that the expansion was associated with a decrease in overall consumer bankruptcy varying between 0.035 and 0.039 percentage points and that the intensity of the effect was modulated by the intensity of the treatment. Results were consistent across models and suggest that the Medicaid expansion had a significant negative effect on overall bankruptcy filings and specifically on Chapter 7 filings.

Tax reforms are often motivated by their potential to improve tax revenue mobilization. However, their actual impacts are difficult to quantify. Using cross-country panel data over the period 2000–2021, this article evaluates the impact of the 2012 tax reforms on tax revenue performance in Togo. We follow the Synthetic Control Method (SCM) estimation procedures. After comparing the observed evolution of Togo's tax revenue output in the period 2013–2021 with that of synthetic Togo, our estimates show that an accumulated yearly average gain is about 3.09% of GDP. Hence, the article concludes that after 9 years of reform, the improvement in Togo's tax performance is remarkable. However, more tax-related and institutions-related reforms are crucial to make Togo's tax system more buoyant and sustainably improve tax revenue mobilization.

This study intends to estimate the rate of returns to education in Vietnam, the distributive effects of education on wages, and the wage penalty from the incidence of overeducation in the Vietnamese labor market during 2004–2016. This study employs a pseudo-panel approach to address omitted variables bias and the unconditional quantile regression to identify the heterogeneity of returns to education across the income distribution. Our main finding indicates that the estimated rate of returns to education in Vietnam is approximately 6.5%, showing a downward bias from previous estimates. The returns vary across wage distributions, where a lower rate of return is observed in lower quantiles and a higher rate among those individuals at the higher quantiles. The returns to education have declined since 2008, confirming the oversupply of highly educated workers in the Vietnamese labor market with an estimated wage penalty of 17%. Government assistance measures are needed to reduce the overeducation and the wage penalty issues in the Vietnamese labor market.

We examine the characteristics of housing markets under adaptive and heterogeneous expectations. Model agents have finite horizons, and their borrowings are constrained by the collateral value of housing stock. Our model shows that expectation-driven housing price dynamics constantly change the direction of movement. The steady-state process of housing prices follows an endogenous oscillation process, and the magnitude of the cycles can be amplified by external shocks. Our quantitative results imply that (i) short-term positive and long-term negative serial correlations in housing price changes are inherent, (ii) house prices and expected house price movements are positively correlated, and (iii) fluctuations in housing prices are not fully explained by fundamentals.

As on-field success is nowadays the main objective of European soccer clubs, good management needs to extract the highest sport success from the squad talent at hand. Because teams differ in their quality, performance needs to be compared with the best practice of comparable units. One remarkable source of heterogeneity across teams is the squad composition, which can produce gains from diversity together with communication costs. The paper studies the efficiency in sporting performance of soccer teams, paying attention to how the number of foreign players relates to productive inefficiency. Using data for 146 teams in the top 5 European leagues during 10 seasons, we estimate a double heteroskedastic True Random Effects Stochastic Frontier team production function. We find that (i) the number of passes, ball recoveries, and shots from the penalty area improve team efficiency, and (ii) a higher number of foreign players increase inefficiency. Our findings suggest that gains from squad diversity might be offset by communication costs.

We examine the decision of fans to attend the game or watch the exact televised match to address whether broadcast lowers revenue collected at the gate and worsens competitive balance. In most cases, broadcasts lower attendance and collection at the gate but do not necessarily worsen competitive balance. Weaker teams can benefit from broadcast revenue and catch up with their stronger counterpart. However, teams that make more money from broadcasts and a broad fan base can gain more advantages from broadcasts and worsen competitive balance.

We investigate how risk aversion affects the organizer's disclosing the actual number of bidders in an all-pay auction with an exogenous bid cap and stochastic entry. With an exogenous probability of participation, the organizer prefers fully concealing the number of participating bidders when bidders are risk neutral. However, this result does not hold with risk aversion. Specifically, whether the organizer prefers fully concealing or fully revealing information depends on the number of potential bidders, the probability of participation, and the size of bid caps. A special case of endogenous entry shows that the organizer's preference is similar to the risk-neutral case.

This study examines the effects of the market volatility index of the Chicago Board Options Exchange (VIX) and the immediate interest rate of the United States on the Dow Jones Islamic Market Index (DJIMI) using quantile-based techniques and wavelet coherence (WTC) analysis with monthly data for the period January 2010to May 2021. A quantile cointegration model indicated that the relationship between the VIX and the DJIMI can be valid in the long term since the estimated coefficients are negative and statistically significant across the quantiles 0.05 and 0.50, while a quantile autoregressive model revealed that large negative and positive changes in the VIX and the immediate interest rate of the United States do not have a significant impact on the DJIMI in the short term. Allowing the role of regime changes, it was found by the quantile regression model that an increase in the VIX lowers the performance in the DJIMI, supported by the WTC. It was also underlined that the DJIMI may not benefit from the positive financial conditions. According to the quantile regression models, the immediate interest rate of the US has asymmetrical effects, and the stabilizing effect of the increase/decrease is valid during bearish/bullish market conditions in the DJIMI.

The paper analyses whether the type of institution from which students graduate has an impact on their unemployment propensity. It uses official data on the Portuguese higher education system, for 2018, at the program/institution level, which provides information on graduate unemployment, as well as demographic and socioeconomic background information. A fractional probit model on graduates’ propensity for unemployment is estimated. Results suggest that polytechnic graduates face higher unemployment propensity than university graduates, maintaining inequalities present in students’ previous trajectories. Policies targeting socioeconomic segregation need to address not only access to higher education but also the transition to the labor market.