Contemporary Economic Policy最新文献

One mechanism by which teachers might affect student learning is through the grading standards they set for their classrooms. However, the effects of grading standards on student outcomes are understudied. Using administrative data that links individual students and teachers in Algebra I classrooms from 2006 to 2016, we examine the effects of teachers' grading standards on student learning and attendance. High teacher grading standards increase both contemporaneous student achievement in Algebra I and performance in subsequent math classes. Heterogeneity analyses find that these impacts are positive and similar in size for students of different backgrounds, aptitudes, and school contexts.

Using a two-way fixed effects difference-in-differences model, we investigate the effects of local recreational marijuana (RMJ) policy changes on college applications and find that the three largest state public schools reaped, on average, an almost 54% increase in applications. This increase does not appear to come solely from low-ability students as both first and third quartiles of admitted student composite SAT scores to the largest three public schools do not decrease. Rather, they both increase by almost 3.8% though these estimates are not statistically significant. Robust difference-in-difference and event study models support the signs and magnitudes of these gains and show they diminish over time.

This paper measures college applicants' response to the expansion of the Common Application, an online platform that reduces the time costs of additional applications to its member colleges. When a local college becomes a member institution, applicants are more likely to use the Common Application, submit more applications, send more ACT score reports, and are more likely to enroll in member colleges. Low-income applicants respond more strongly and are also more likely to enroll in private colleges instead of public colleges. The results are consistent with behavioral responses rather than sensitivity to time costs.

This research examines graduate student's views on the professional climate in economics using a comprehensive survey of students enrolled in economics Ph.D. programs in the United States. Topics discussed include stress and work/life balance, disciplinary climate in the profession, departmental climate, and the prevalence of sexual harassment. We find significant gender differences in views on all four topics—particularly in views on departmental climate and disciplinary climate in the profession. We analyze the results based on gender, rank of the institution, public versus private institutional status, and representation of women faculty in departments.

Innovation is crucial for technological progress and economic development. Using the value-added tax (VAT) reform in China as a policy shock, this study explores whether tax incentives are beneficial in promoting corporate innovation. We find that the VAT reform has a significant positive impact on corporate innovation, and the finding holds under a series of robustness checks. Mechanism analysis suggests that the VAT reform promotes firms' innovation activities mainly by alleviating financing constraints and amplifying research and development intensity. This study offers policy implications for using tax policies to stimulate corporate innovation.

We examine how financial development in the banking sector depends on the degree of capital account openness and the degree of bank concentration across countries. Using data on 136 countries, we find that the relationship of openness to credit market activity depends on the level of economic development. In high income countries, openness is only associated with higher credit market activity in concentrated banking systems. However, in developing countries, there is evidence that openness is associated with higher credit market activity regardless of concentration. Moreover, in contrast to previous work we examine how the impact of concentration depends on openness.

We examine the effect of COVID-19 policies on consumer spending using bankcard transactions from Norway. Exploiting variation in COVID-19 policies over time and across space in the four largest municipalities, we investigate the heterogeneity of policy effects in their number and type. First, we document that the number of restrictions is negatively correlated with spending and exhibits decreasing marginal effects. Second, restrictions do not affect all types of spending equally: restrictions tend to have larger impacts on the sector in which they are targeted. Finally, we find suggestive evidence from a difference-in-differences estimation that supports a causal interpretation of our results.

High-speed internet access is a core tenet of economic development strategies post-COVID. While expanding access is linked to many positive benefits, evidence associating broadband to job growth and business formation is more mixed. This study expands the literature along several dimensions, most notably exploring how business download speeds affect employment, business formation, and survival at a microscale. Using conventional and Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator instrumental variables strategies, with terrain features as instruments, we find consistent evidence that broadband speeds stimulate local development. However, our estimates are 60%–65% smaller than those from recent studies, suggesting that broadband may be less beneficial than previously assumed.

Plea bargaining dominates the U.S. criminal justice system and has garnered calls to reduce its prevalence. In 2013 Alaska's Attorney General acted banning a practice known as sentencing bargaining where the prosecutor negotiates with the defense over the length of the incarceration. I provide the first causal identification of this policy's impact on the plea bargaining rate. I show that the policy, by leaving open the charging discretion (in effect allowing charge bargaining), was ineffective at changing plea bargaining's prevalence across the state. Policymakers should look elsewhere for tools if they want to mitigate its rate.

Seattle's Democracy Vouchers program provides a unique form of public financing for political campaigns in which voters decide how to allocate public funding across candidates. This paper is the first to study the effects of public financing for political campaigns on political participation. I estimate that the Democracy Vouchers program increases voter turnout by 4.9 percentage points, suggesting that public financing programs can increase political participation. I also find that campaigns become more reliant on small contributions. For city council candidates, dollars from small contributions under $100 increase by 156% while dollars from large contributions over $250 decrease by 93%.