Online intermediaries greatly expand consumer information, but also raise sellers’ marginal costs by charging high commissions. To prevent disintermediation, some platforms adopted price parity and anti-steering provisions, which restrict sellers’ ability to use alternative sales channels. Whether to uphold, reform, or ban these provisions has been at the center of the policy debate, but, so far, little consensus has emerged. As an alternative, this paper studies how to cap platforms’ commissions. The utilitarian cap reflects the Pigouvian precept according to which the platform should charge net fees no greater than the informational externality it exerts on other market participants.
{"title":"Regulating Platform Fees Under Price Parity","authors":"Renato Gomes, Andrea Mantovani","doi":"10.1093/jeea/jvae014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvae014","url":null,"abstract":"Online intermediaries greatly expand consumer information, but also raise sellers’ marginal costs by charging high commissions. To prevent disintermediation, some platforms adopted price parity and anti-steering provisions, which restrict sellers’ ability to use alternative sales channels. Whether to uphold, reform, or ban these provisions has been at the center of the policy debate, but, so far, little consensus has emerged. As an alternative, this paper studies how to cap platforms’ commissions. The utilitarian cap reflects the Pigouvian precept according to which the platform should charge net fees no greater than the informational externality it exerts on other market participants.","PeriodicalId":48297,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the European Economic Association","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140153512","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We compare men and women who are displaced from similar jobs by applying an event study design combined with propensity score matching and reweighting to administrative data from Germany. After a mass layoff, women’ s earnings losses are about 35% higher than men’ s, with the gap persisting five years after displacement. This is partly explained by women taking up more part-time employment, but even women’ s full-time wage losses are almost 50% higher than men’ s. Parenthood magnifies the gender gap sharply. Finally, displaced women spend less time on job search and apply for lower-paid jobs, highlighting the importance of labor supply decisions.
{"title":"The Gender Gap in Earnings Losses After Job Displacement","authors":"Hannah Illing, Johannes Schmieder, Simon Trenkle","doi":"10.1093/jeea/jvae019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvae019","url":null,"abstract":"We compare men and women who are displaced from similar jobs by applying an event study design combined with propensity score matching and reweighting to administrative data from Germany. After a mass layoff, women’ s earnings losses are about 35% higher than men’ s, with the gap persisting five years after displacement. This is partly explained by women taking up more part-time employment, but even women’ s full-time wage losses are almost 50% higher than men’ s. Parenthood magnifies the gender gap sharply. Finally, displaced women spend less time on job search and apply for lower-paid jobs, highlighting the importance of labor supply decisions.","PeriodicalId":48297,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the European Economic Association","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140153709","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We show that the Brazilian trade liberalization in the early 1990s led to a permanent relative decline in the vote share of left-wing presidential candidates in the regions more affected by the tariff cuts. This happened even though the shock, implemented by a right-wing party, induced a contraction in manufacturing and formal employment in the more affected regions, and despite the left’s identification with protectionist policies. To rationalize this response, we consider a new institutional channel for the political effects of trade shocks: the weakening of labor unions. We provide support for this mechanism in two steps. First, we show that union presence—proxied by the number of workers directly employed by unions, by union density, and by the number of union establishments—declined in regions that became more exposed to foreign competition. Second, we show that the negative effect of tariff reductions on the votes for the left was driven exclusively by political parties with historical links to unions. Furthermore, the impact of the trade liberalization on the vote share of these parties was significant only in regions that had unions operating before the reform. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that tariff cuts reduced the vote share of the left partly through the weakening of labor unions. This institutional channel is fundamentally different from the individual-level responses, motivated by economic or identity concerns, that have been considered in the literature.
{"title":"Labor Unions and the Electoral Consequences of Trade Liberalization","authors":"Pedro Ogeda, Emanuel Ornelas, Rodrigo R Soares","doi":"10.1093/jeea/jvae020","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvae020","url":null,"abstract":"We show that the Brazilian trade liberalization in the early 1990s led to a permanent relative decline in the vote share of left-wing presidential candidates in the regions more affected by the tariff cuts. This happened even though the shock, implemented by a right-wing party, induced a contraction in manufacturing and formal employment in the more affected regions, and despite the left’s identification with protectionist policies. To rationalize this response, we consider a new institutional channel for the political effects of trade shocks: the weakening of labor unions. We provide support for this mechanism in two steps. First, we show that union presence—proxied by the number of workers directly employed by unions, by union density, and by the number of union establishments—declined in regions that became more exposed to foreign competition. Second, we show that the negative effect of tariff reductions on the votes for the left was driven exclusively by political parties with historical links to unions. Furthermore, the impact of the trade liberalization on the vote share of these parties was significant only in regions that had unions operating before the reform. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that tariff cuts reduced the vote share of the left partly through the weakening of labor unions. This institutional channel is fundamentally different from the individual-level responses, motivated by economic or identity concerns, that have been considered in the literature.","PeriodicalId":48297,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the European Economic Association","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-03-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140156662","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Correction To: Structural Reforms and Elections: Evidence from a World-Wide New Dataset","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/jeea/jvae017","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvae017","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":48297,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the European Economic Association","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-03-09","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140256538","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We conduct a field experiment in India comparing two ways of delegating selection of microcredit clients among smallholder farmers to local intermediaries: a private trader (TRAIL), versus a local-government appointee (GRAIL). Selected beneficiaries in both schemes were equally likely to take up and repay loans, and experienced similar increases in borrowing and farm output. However farm profits increased and unit costs of production decreased significantly only in TRAIL. While there is some evidence of superior selection by ability and landholding in TRAIL, the results are mainly driven by greater reduction of unit production costs for TRAIL treated farmers than GRAIL treated farmers of similar ability or landholding. We develop and test a model where the TRAIL agents’ role as middlemen in the agricultural supply chain enabled and motivated them to offer treated farmers business advice, which helped them lower unit costs.
{"title":"Decentralized Targeting of Agricultural Credit Programs: Private versus Political Intermediaries","authors":"Pushkar Maitra, Sandip Mitra, Dilip Mookherjee, Sujata Visaria","doi":"10.1093/jeea/jvae018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvae018","url":null,"abstract":"We conduct a field experiment in India comparing two ways of delegating selection of microcredit clients among smallholder farmers to local intermediaries: a private trader (TRAIL), versus a local-government appointee (GRAIL). Selected beneficiaries in both schemes were equally likely to take up and repay loans, and experienced similar increases in borrowing and farm output. However farm profits increased and unit costs of production decreased significantly only in TRAIL. While there is some evidence of superior selection by ability and landholding in TRAIL, the results are mainly driven by greater reduction of unit production costs for TRAIL treated farmers than GRAIL treated farmers of similar ability or landholding. We develop and test a model where the TRAIL agents’ role as middlemen in the agricultural supply chain enabled and motivated them to offer treated farmers business advice, which helped them lower unit costs.","PeriodicalId":48297,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the European Economic Association","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140097704","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper presents a model of consumption behavior that explains the presence of ‘wealthy hand-to-mouth’ consumers using a mechanism that differs from those analyzed previously. We show that a two-asset model with temptation preferences generates a demand for commitment and thus illiquidity, leading to hand-to-mouth behavior even when liquid assets deliver higher returns than illiquid assets. This preference for illiquidity has important implications for consumption behaviour and for fiscal stimulus policies. Our model matches the recent empirical evidence that MPCs remain high even for large income shocks, suggesting a larger response to targeted fiscal stimulus than previously believed.
{"title":"Temptation and Commitment: A Model of Hand-to-Mouth Behavior","authors":"Orazio Attanasio, Agnes Kovacs, Patrick Moran","doi":"10.1093/jeea/jvae016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvae016","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents a model of consumption behavior that explains the presence of ‘wealthy hand-to-mouth’ consumers using a mechanism that differs from those analyzed previously. We show that a two-asset model with temptation preferences generates a demand for commitment and thus illiquidity, leading to hand-to-mouth behavior even when liquid assets deliver higher returns than illiquid assets. This preference for illiquidity has important implications for consumption behaviour and for fiscal stimulus policies. Our model matches the recent empirical evidence that MPCs remain high even for large income shocks, suggesting a larger response to targeted fiscal stimulus than previously believed.","PeriodicalId":48297,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the European Economic Association","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140018541","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Using a new survey of firms’ inflation expectations in France, we provide novel evidence about the measurement and formation of inflation expectations on the part of firms. First, French firms report inflation expectations with a smaller, but still positive, bias than households and display less disagreement. Second, we characterize the extent and manner in which the wording of questions matters for the measurement of firms’ inflation expectations. Third, we document whether and how the position of the respondent within the firm affects the provided responses. Fourth, because our survey measures firms’ expectations about aggregate and firm-level wage growth along with their inflation expectations, we can show that expectations about wages are even more condensed than firms’ inflation expectations and almost completely uncorrelated with them, indicating that firms perceive little link between price and wage inflation. Finally, an experimental treatment indicates that an exogenous change in firms’ inflation expectations has no effect on their aggregate wage expectations.
{"title":"Firms’ Inflation Expectations: New Evidence from France","authors":"Frédérique Savignac, Erwan Gautier, Yuriy Gorodnichenko, Olivier Coibion","doi":"10.1093/jeea/jvae015","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvae015","url":null,"abstract":"Using a new survey of firms’ inflation expectations in France, we provide novel evidence about the measurement and formation of inflation expectations on the part of firms. First, French firms report inflation expectations with a smaller, but still positive, bias than households and display less disagreement. Second, we characterize the extent and manner in which the wording of questions matters for the measurement of firms’ inflation expectations. Third, we document whether and how the position of the respondent within the firm affects the provided responses. Fourth, because our survey measures firms’ expectations about aggregate and firm-level wage growth along with their inflation expectations, we can show that expectations about wages are even more condensed than firms’ inflation expectations and almost completely uncorrelated with them, indicating that firms perceive little link between price and wage inflation. Finally, an experimental treatment indicates that an exogenous change in firms’ inflation expectations has no effect on their aggregate wage expectations.","PeriodicalId":48297,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the European Economic Association","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140035482","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper examines the extent to which personal biases affect political views, in the context of how antisemitism influences opinions about Israel. Two empirical analyses are conducted. The first one analyzes social media chatter about Jews and Israel in the UK, revealing a strong, positive relationship between negative chatter about both of them at the daily-location level. In order to establish causality, social media chatter about a “Jewish” football team in the English Premier League (Tottenham) is used as an instrument for negative expressions about Jewish people to explain negativity towards Israel. The second empirical analysis uses the 2016 wave of the German Social Survey, which reveals a strong and robust relationship between several commonly used measures of antisemitic beliefs and holding anti-Israel views. A causal interpretation of this finding is supported by an IV analysis motivated by Voigtländer and Voth (2015) who show that Nazi indoctrination during the WWII period had a lifelong impact on antisemitic views. In both analyses, the IV estimates are considerably larger than OLS coefficients.
{"title":"Policies or Prejudices? an Analysis of Antisemitic and Anti-Israel Views on Social Media and Social Surveys","authors":"Noam Binstok, Eric D Gould, Todd Kaplan","doi":"10.1093/jeea/jvae013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvae013","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the extent to which personal biases affect political views, in the context of how antisemitism influences opinions about Israel. Two empirical analyses are conducted. The first one analyzes social media chatter about Jews and Israel in the UK, revealing a strong, positive relationship between negative chatter about both of them at the daily-location level. In order to establish causality, social media chatter about a “Jewish” football team in the English Premier League (Tottenham) is used as an instrument for negative expressions about Jewish people to explain negativity towards Israel. The second empirical analysis uses the 2016 wave of the German Social Survey, which reveals a strong and robust relationship between several commonly used measures of antisemitic beliefs and holding anti-Israel views. A causal interpretation of this finding is supported by an IV analysis motivated by Voigtländer and Voth (2015) who show that Nazi indoctrination during the WWII period had a lifelong impact on antisemitic views. In both analyses, the IV estimates are considerably larger than OLS coefficients.","PeriodicalId":48297,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the European Economic Association","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139948107","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We study, both theoretically and experimentally, a communication game with and without seller competition and embed it in a psychological-game framework where players experience costs for lying, misleading others, and being disappointed. We derive the equilibrium predictions of this model, compare them to the setting without psychological payoffs, and test these predictions in a laboratory experiment, in which we induce both material and psychological payoffs. We find that the setting in which players have both material and psychological payoffs features more trade, trades goods of marginally better quality, and does so without welfare losses to either side of the market relative to the setting with material payoffs only. However, the introduction of competition counteracts this improvement and lowers welfare for both sides of the market. This happens due to a surge in dishonesty by sellers in the competitive setting and the buyers’ inability to detect this deception.
{"title":"Trust Me: Communication and Competition in a Psychological Game","authors":"Marina Agranov, Utteeyo Dasgupta, Andrew Schotter","doi":"10.1093/jeea/jvae012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvae012","url":null,"abstract":"We study, both theoretically and experimentally, a communication game with and without seller competition and embed it in a psychological-game framework where players experience costs for lying, misleading others, and being disappointed. We derive the equilibrium predictions of this model, compare them to the setting without psychological payoffs, and test these predictions in a laboratory experiment, in which we induce both material and psychological payoffs. We find that the setting in which players have both material and psychological payoffs features more trade, trades goods of marginally better quality, and does so without welfare losses to either side of the market relative to the setting with material payoffs only. However, the introduction of competition counteracts this improvement and lowers welfare for both sides of the market. This happens due to a surge in dishonesty by sellers in the competitive setting and the buyers’ inability to detect this deception.","PeriodicalId":48297,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the European Economic Association","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139948106","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
José Ramón Enríquez, Horacio Larreguy, John Marshall, Alberto Simpser
Social media’s capacity to quickly and inexpensively reach large audiences almost simultaneously has the potential to promote electoral accountability. Beyond increasing direct exposure to information, high saturation campaigns—which target substantial fractions of an electorate—may induce or amplify information diffusion, persuasion, or coordination between voters. Randomizing saturation across municipalities, we evaluate the electoral impact of non-partisan Facebook ads informing millions of Mexican citizens of municipal expenditure irregularities in 2018. The vote shares of incumbent parties that engaged in zero/negligible irregularities increased by 6-7 percentage points in directly-targeted electoral precincts. This direct effect, but also the indirect effect in untargeted precincts within treated municipalities, were significantly greater where ads targeted 80%—rather than 20%—of the municipal electorate. The amplifying effects of high saturation campaigns are driven by citizens within more socially-connected municipalities, rather than responses by politicians or media outlets. These findings demonstrate how mass media can ignite social interactions to promote political accountability.
{"title":"MASS POLITICAL INFORMATION ON SOCIAL MEDIA: FACEBOOK ADS, ELECTORATE SATURATION, AND ELECTORAL ACCOUNTABILITY IN MEXICO","authors":"José Ramón Enríquez, Horacio Larreguy, John Marshall, Alberto Simpser","doi":"10.1093/jeea/jvae011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvae011","url":null,"abstract":"Social media’s capacity to quickly and inexpensively reach large audiences almost simultaneously has the potential to promote electoral accountability. Beyond increasing direct exposure to information, high saturation campaigns—which target substantial fractions of an electorate—may induce or amplify information diffusion, persuasion, or coordination between voters. Randomizing saturation across municipalities, we evaluate the electoral impact of non-partisan Facebook ads informing millions of Mexican citizens of municipal expenditure irregularities in 2018. The vote shares of incumbent parties that engaged in zero/negligible irregularities increased by 6-7 percentage points in directly-targeted electoral precincts. This direct effect, but also the indirect effect in untargeted precincts within treated municipalities, were significantly greater where ads targeted 80%—rather than 20%—of the municipal electorate. The amplifying effects of high saturation campaigns are driven by citizens within more socially-connected municipalities, rather than responses by politicians or media outlets. These findings demonstrate how mass media can ignite social interactions to promote political accountability.","PeriodicalId":48297,"journal":{"name":"Journal of the European Economic Association","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2024-02-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139764546","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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