Contemporary Economic Policy最新文献

Since the first publication of the Fraser Institute's economic freedom index in 1996, hundreds of papers have been published using either the Economic Freedom of the World index or the Economic Freedom of North America index as an independent variable. These papers overwhelmingly find that economic freedom is associated with a variety of normatively good outcomes, with very few notable drawbacks. Most of these studies, however, examine how economic freedom impacts the average person in a population. Encouraged by Rosemarie Fike's examinations of economic freedom and gender disparity, scholars over the past few years have begun to examine whether economic freedom might have disproportionate impacts on women versus men. This special issue brings together several papers examining the various margins on which the institutions of economic freedom might differentially benefit or disadvantage women relative to men. The papers overwhelmingly support the idea that women benefit from market-friendly institutions and highlight numerous areas in which future research might be done.

We investigate the impact of women's political and economic freedom on success in women's international football. We hypothesize that as women achieve political and economic freedom, the country's women's national team experiences reduced on-pitch performance in the short run but over time greater economic and political freedom opens voluntary opportunities for women to pursue football at earlier ages which generates improved on-pitch performance in the longer run. The empirical evidence supports these two hypotheses suggesting that the overall benefits of increased political and economic freedom for women in international football are not immediate but are, nonetheless, concrete.

We examine the impact of a policy that reduces information about rental housing applicants on racial discrimination. We submitted fictitious email inquiries to publicly advertised rentals using names manipulated on perceived race and ethnicity before and after a policy that restricted the use of background checks, eviction history, income minimums, and credit history in rental housing applications in Minneapolis. After the policy was implemented, discrimination against African American and Somali American men increased. Triple difference analysis shows that discrimination increased in Minneapolis relative to St. Paul after the policy.

We examine how veteran-nonveteran wage gaps evolved over 1979–2017. Specifically, we estimate veteran wage differentials at each decile across the unconditional wage distribution to allow for heterogeneity in the size and direction of the wage gaps. Low-earning veterans have consistently earned a wage premium, though it has declined in magnitude. High-earning veterans earned a premium early on, albeit smaller (in percentage terms) than low-earning veterans; the premium disappeared by the 1990s, becoming a wage penalty in recent decades. Decompositions of the estimated gaps reveal that lower returns to education—which worsen over time—contribute to the observed wage gap dynamics.

In perfect credit markets, borrowing against future income could help households smooth consumption and invest in education, housing, or health. Investments in human capital, housing, or health could propel households to higher life-cycle earnings. Nevertheless, with lower earnings and little wealth accumulation, households most in need of financial resources are likely limited to higher cost loans or denied altogether access to credit markets. We propose allowing individuals to borrow against their future Social Security benefits by taking a lump-sum payment in exchange for reduced benefits during retirement. Examples illustrate possible loan amounts available to workers of different ages and earnings.

Economic freedom is linked with better economic and human development outcomes. However, benefits are not evenly spread, with notable gaps in legal systems and property rights, impacting gender equality in economic freedom. Addressing the distribution of economic freedom could enhance development. This study examines foreign education's role in reducing gender disparities in economic freedom. It finds that foreign-educated individuals influence reforms in their home countries based on gender rights experienced abroad. The extent of their influence depends on the destination country's gender disparity levels and their progress over time.

This paper examines the effect of the West Philadelphia Promise Zone initiative on violent crime rates in a high-crime area of West Philadelphia, where a series of educational, public-safety, and quality-of-life improvement grants were disbursed from 2014 onward. Synthetic difference-in-differences estimates suggest that this resulted in approximately four fewer violent crimes per thousand residents per year, primarily attributable to a reduction in simple assaults. A block-level synthetic control analysis, along with a traditional synthetic control analysis, corroborate this result. This is estimated to increase quality of life (through reduced crime victimization cost) by millions of dollars within the Promise Zone.

This study analyzes the impact of public housing on adjacent neighborhoods, focusing on their consumption levels and the population share of individuals aged 20–59 years. Using administrative data on public housing and credit card usage data with detailed geography, we examine the heterogeneous effects of two types of public housing: buy-to-rent and build-to-rent. Buy-to-rent housing exhibits no significant effects on neighborhoods within its 500-m radius. In contrast, build-to-rent housing reduces the consumption level by 1.9% and the share of the working-age population by 0.3 percentage points. The negative effects increase as the neighborhood's proximity to public housing increases.

Proposals to expand child care assistance have proliferated at the national and state levels. This paper uses a novel approach to estimate the benefits and costs of providing child care subsidies to families up to three times the federal poverty line while supplementing child care worker compensation — a recently-enacted reform in New York State. We estimate a net present value of $12.14 billion in yearly social benefits relative to a yearly fiscal cost of $1.61 billion. We also examine the time path of benefits and costs, impacts of alternative program designs, and the sensitivity of our main findings.