Abstract Global warming is a worldwide and protracted phenomenon with heterogeneous local economic effects. We propose a dynamic economic assessment model of the world economy with high spatial resolution to assess its consequences. Our model features several forms of adaptation to local temperature changes, including costly trade and migration, local technological innovations, and local natality rates. We quantify the model at a 1∘×1∘ resolution and estimate damage functions that determine the impact of temperature changes on a region’s fundamental productivity and amenities conditional on local temperatures. Welfare losses from global warming are very heterogeneous across locations, with 20% losses in parts of Africa and Latin America but also gains in some northern latitudes. Overall, spatial inequality increases. Uncertainty about average welfare effects is significant but much smaller for relative losses across space. Migration and innovation are shown to be important adaptation mechanisms. We use the model to study the impact of carbon taxes, abatement technologies, and clean energy subsidies. Carbon taxes delay consumption of fossil fuels and help flatten the temperature curve but are much more effective when an abatement technology is forthcoming.
{"title":"The Economic Geography of Global Warming","authors":"José-Luis Cruz, Esteban Rossi-Hansberg","doi":"10.1093/restud/rdad042","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdad042","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Global warming is a worldwide and protracted phenomenon with heterogeneous local economic effects. We propose a dynamic economic assessment model of the world economy with high spatial resolution to assess its consequences. Our model features several forms of adaptation to local temperature changes, including costly trade and migration, local technological innovations, and local natality rates. We quantify the model at a 1∘×1∘ resolution and estimate damage functions that determine the impact of temperature changes on a region’s fundamental productivity and amenities conditional on local temperatures. Welfare losses from global warming are very heterogeneous across locations, with 20% losses in parts of Africa and Latin America but also gains in some northern latitudes. Overall, spatial inequality increases. Uncertainty about average welfare effects is significant but much smaller for relative losses across space. Migration and innovation are shown to be important adaptation mechanisms. We use the model to study the impact of carbon taxes, abatement technologies, and clean energy subsidies. Carbon taxes delay consumption of fossil fuels and help flatten the temperature curve but are much more effective when an abatement technology is forthcoming.","PeriodicalId":48449,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Studies","volume":"31 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135955209","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Bill Dupor, Marios Karabarbounis, Marianna Kudlyak, M Saif Mehkari
Abstract We use regional variation in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009–12) to analyse the effect of government spending on consumer spending. Our consumption data come from household-level retail purchases in the Nielsen scanner data and auto purchases from Equifax credit balances. We estimate that a $1 increase in county-level government spending increases local non-durable consumer spending by $0.29 and local auto spending by $0.09. We translate the regional consumption responses to an aggregate fiscal multiplier using a multi-region, new Keynesian model with heterogeneous agents, incomplete markets, and trade linkages. Our model is consistent with the estimated positive local multiplier, a result that distinguishes our incomplete markets model from models with complete markets. At the zero lower bound, the aggregate consumption multiplier is twice as large as the local multiplier because trade linkages propagate the effect of government spending across regions.
{"title":"Regional Consumption Responses and the Aggregate Fiscal Multiplier","authors":"Bill Dupor, Marios Karabarbounis, Marianna Kudlyak, M Saif Mehkari","doi":"10.1093/restud/rdad007","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdad007","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We use regional variation in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (2009–12) to analyse the effect of government spending on consumer spending. Our consumption data come from household-level retail purchases in the Nielsen scanner data and auto purchases from Equifax credit balances. We estimate that a $1 increase in county-level government spending increases local non-durable consumer spending by $0.29 and local auto spending by $0.09. We translate the regional consumption responses to an aggregate fiscal multiplier using a multi-region, new Keynesian model with heterogeneous agents, incomplete markets, and trade linkages. Our model is consistent with the estimated positive local multiplier, a result that distinguishes our incomplete markets model from models with complete markets. At the zero lower bound, the aggregate consumption multiplier is twice as large as the local multiplier because trade linkages propagate the effect of government spending across regions.","PeriodicalId":48449,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Studies","volume":"55 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136185931","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract We develop a model of inter-temporal and intra-temporal price discrimination by monopoly airlines to study the ability of different discriminatory pricing mechanisms to increase efficiency and the associated distributional implications. To estimate the model, we use unique data from international airline markets with flight-level variation in prices across time, cabins, and markets and information on passengers’ reasons for travel and time of purchase. The current pricing practice yields approximately 77% of the first-best welfare. The source of this inefficiency arises primarily from private information about passenger valuations, not dynamic uncertainty about demand. We also find that if airlines could discriminate between business and leisure passengers, total welfare would improve at the expense of business passenger surplus. Also, replacing the current pricing that involves screening passengers across cabin classes with offering a single cabin class has minimal effect on total welfare.
{"title":"Price Discrimination in International Airline Markets","authors":"Gaurab Aryal, Charles Murry, Jonathan W. Williams","doi":"10.1093/restud/rdad037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdad037","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We develop a model of inter-temporal and intra-temporal price discrimination by monopoly airlines to study the ability of different discriminatory pricing mechanisms to increase efficiency and the associated distributional implications. To estimate the model, we use unique data from international airline markets with flight-level variation in prices across time, cabins, and markets and information on passengers’ reasons for travel and time of purchase. The current pricing practice yields approximately 77% of the first-best welfare. The source of this inefficiency arises primarily from private information about passenger valuations, not dynamic uncertainty about demand. We also find that if airlines could discriminate between business and leisure passengers, total welfare would improve at the expense of business passenger surplus. Also, replacing the current pricing that involves screening passengers across cabin classes with offering a single cabin class has minimal effect on total welfare.","PeriodicalId":48449,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Studies","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136151853","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Uncertainty rises in recessions and falls in booms. But what is the causal relationship? We construct cross-country panel data on stock market returns to proxy for first- and second-moment shocks and instrument these with natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and political shocks. Our IV regression results reveal a robust negative short-term impact of second moments (uncertainty) on growth. Employing multiple vector autoregression estimation approaches, relying on a range of identifying assumptions, also reveals a negative impact of uncertainty on growth. Finally, we show that these results are reproducible in a conventional micro–macro business cycle model with time-varying uncertainty.
{"title":"Using Disasters to Estimate the Impact of Uncertainty","authors":"Scott R Baker, Nicholas Bloom, Stephen J Terry","doi":"10.1093/restud/rdad036","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdad036","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Uncertainty rises in recessions and falls in booms. But what is the causal relationship? We construct cross-country panel data on stock market returns to proxy for first- and second-moment shocks and instrument these with natural disasters, terrorist attacks, and political shocks. Our IV regression results reveal a robust negative short-term impact of second moments (uncertainty) on growth. Employing multiple vector autoregression estimation approaches, relying on a range of identifying assumptions, also reveals a negative impact of uncertainty on growth. Finally, we show that these results are reproducible in a conventional micro–macro business cycle model with time-varying uncertainty.","PeriodicalId":48449,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Studies","volume":"168 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136151840","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Philipp Ager, James J Feigenbaum, Casper Worm Hansen, Huiren Tan
Abstract Fears of immigrants as a threat to public health have a long and sordid history. At the turn of the 20th century, when immigrants made up one-third of the population in crowded American cities, contemporaries blamed high urban mortality rates on the newest arrivals. We evaluate how the implementation of country-specific immigration quotas in the 1920s affected urban health. Cities with larger quota-induced reductions in immigration experienced a persistent decline in mortality rates, driven by a reduction in deaths from infectious diseases. The unfavourable living conditions immigrants endured explains the majority of the effect as quotas reduced residential crowding and mortality declines were largest in cities where immigrants resided in more crowded conditions and where public health resources were stretched thinnest.
{"title":"How the Other Half Died: Immigration and Mortality in U.S. Cities","authors":"Philipp Ager, James J Feigenbaum, Casper Worm Hansen, Huiren Tan","doi":"10.1093/restud/rdad035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdad035","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Fears of immigrants as a threat to public health have a long and sordid history. At the turn of the 20th century, when immigrants made up one-third of the population in crowded American cities, contemporaries blamed high urban mortality rates on the newest arrivals. We evaluate how the implementation of country-specific immigration quotas in the 1920s affected urban health. Cities with larger quota-induced reductions in immigration experienced a persistent decline in mortality rates, driven by a reduction in deaths from infectious diseases. The unfavourable living conditions immigrants endured explains the majority of the effect as quotas reduced residential crowding and mortality declines were largest in cities where immigrants resided in more crowded conditions and where public health resources were stretched thinnest.","PeriodicalId":48449,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Studies","volume":"63 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135295073","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract I develop a directed technical change model of economic growth and energy efficiency in order to study the impact of climate change mitigation policies on energy use. I show that the standard Cobb–Douglas production function used in the environmental macroeconomics literature overstates the reduction in cumulative energy use that can be achieved with a given path of energy taxes. I also show that, in the model, the government combines energy taxes with research and development (R&D) policy that favors output-increasing technology—rather than energy efficiency technology—to maximize welfare subject to a constraint on cumulative energy use. In addition, I study energy use dynamics following sudden improvements in energy efficiency. Exogenous shocks that increase energy efficiency also decrease the incentive for subsequent energy efficiency R&D and increase long-run energy use relative to a world without the original shock. Subsidies for energy efficiency R&D, however, permanently alter R&D incentives and decrease long-run energy use.
{"title":"Energy Efficiency and Directed Technical Change: Implications for Climate Change Mitigation","authors":"Gregory Casey","doi":"10.1093/restud/rdad001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdad001","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract I develop a directed technical change model of economic growth and energy efficiency in order to study the impact of climate change mitigation policies on energy use. I show that the standard Cobb–Douglas production function used in the environmental macroeconomics literature overstates the reduction in cumulative energy use that can be achieved with a given path of energy taxes. I also show that, in the model, the government combines energy taxes with research and development (R&D) policy that favors output-increasing technology—rather than energy efficiency technology—to maximize welfare subject to a constraint on cumulative energy use. In addition, I study energy use dynamics following sudden improvements in energy efficiency. Exogenous shocks that increase energy efficiency also decrease the incentive for subsequent energy efficiency R&D and increase long-run energy use relative to a world without the original shock. Subsidies for energy efficiency R&D, however, permanently alter R&D incentives and decrease long-run energy use.","PeriodicalId":48449,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Studies","volume":"11 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135553488","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract Borrowers obtain liquidity by issuing securities backed by the current period payoff and resale price of a long-lived collateral asset, and they are privately informed about the payoff distribution. Asset price can be self-fulfilling: a higher asset price lowers adverse selection and allows borrowers to raise greater funding, which makes the asset more valuable, leading to multiple equilibria. Optimal security design eliminates multiple equilibria, improves welfare, and can be implemented as a repo contract. Persistent adverse selection lowers debt funding, generates volatility in asset prices, and exacerbates credit crunches. The theory demonstrates the role of asset-backed securities on stability of market-based financial systems.
{"title":"Dynamic Asset-Backed Security Design","authors":"Emre Ozdenoren, Kathy Yuan, Shengxing Zhang","doi":"10.1093/restud/rdad022","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdad022","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Borrowers obtain liquidity by issuing securities backed by the current period payoff and resale price of a long-lived collateral asset, and they are privately informed about the payoff distribution. Asset price can be self-fulfilling: a higher asset price lowers adverse selection and allows borrowers to raise greater funding, which makes the asset more valuable, leading to multiple equilibria. Optimal security design eliminates multiple equilibria, improves welfare, and can be implemented as a repo contract. Persistent adverse selection lowers debt funding, generates volatility in asset prices, and exacerbates credit crunches. The theory demonstrates the role of asset-backed securities on stability of market-based financial systems.","PeriodicalId":48449,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Studies","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136051876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper incorporates diagnostic expectations into a general equilibrium macroeconomic model with a financial intermediary sector. Diagnostic expectations are a forward-looking model of extrapolative expectations that overreact to recent news. Frictions in financial intermediation produce nonlinear spikes in risk premia and slumps in investment during periods of financial distress. The interaction of sentiment with financial frictions generates a short-run amplification e↵ect followed by a long-run reversal effect, termed the feedback from behavioral frictions to financial frictions. The model features sentiment-driven financial crises characterized by low pre-crisis risk premia and neglected risk. The conflicting short-run and long-run effect of sentiment produces boom-bust investment cycles. The model also identifies a stabilizing role for diagnostic expectations. Under the baseline calibration, financial crises are less likely to occur when expectations are diagnostic than when they are rational.
{"title":"A Macro-Finance Model with Sentiment","authors":"Peter Maxted","doi":"10.1093/restud/rdad023","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdad023","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper incorporates diagnostic expectations into a general equilibrium macroeconomic model with a financial intermediary sector. Diagnostic expectations are a forward-looking model of extrapolative expectations that overreact to recent news. Frictions in financial intermediation produce nonlinear spikes in risk premia and slumps in investment during periods of financial distress. The interaction of sentiment with financial frictions generates a short-run amplification e↵ect followed by a long-run reversal effect, termed the feedback from behavioral frictions to financial frictions. The model features sentiment-driven financial crises characterized by low pre-crisis risk premia and neglected risk. The conflicting short-run and long-run effect of sentiment produces boom-bust investment cycles. The model also identifies a stabilizing role for diagnostic expectations. Under the baseline calibration, financial crises are less likely to occur when expectations are diagnostic than when they are rational.","PeriodicalId":48449,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2023-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42076638","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Abstract This paper examines whether monetary policy pass-through to mortgage interest rates affects household fertility decisions. Our empirical strategy exploits variation in households’ eligibility for a rate adjustment, coupled with the large reductions in the monetary policy rate that occurred during the Great Recession in the U.K. and U.S. We estimate that each one percentage point drop in the policy rate increased birth rates amongst households eligible for a rate adjustment by 3%. Our results provide new evidence on the nature of monetary policy transmission to households and suggest a new mechanism via which mortgage contract structures can affect both aggregate demand and supply.
{"title":"Monetary Policy and Birth Rates: The Effect of Mortgage Rate Pass-Through on Fertility","authors":"Fergus Cumming, Lisa Dettling","doi":"10.1093/restud/rdad034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdad034","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This paper examines whether monetary policy pass-through to mortgage interest rates affects household fertility decisions. Our empirical strategy exploits variation in households’ eligibility for a rate adjustment, coupled with the large reductions in the monetary policy rate that occurred during the Great Recession in the U.K. and U.S. We estimate that each one percentage point drop in the policy rate increased birth rates amongst households eligible for a rate adjustment by 3%. Our results provide new evidence on the nature of monetary policy transmission to households and suggest a new mechanism via which mortgage contract structures can affect both aggregate demand and supply.","PeriodicalId":48449,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Studies","volume":"114 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135183928","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper is concerned with possible model misspecification in moment inequality models. Two issues are addressed. First, standard tests and confidence sets for the true parameter in the moment inequality literature are not robust to model misspecification in the sense that they exhibit spurious precision when the identified set is empty. This paper introduces tests and confidence sets that provide correct asymptotic inference for a pseudo-true parameter in such scenarios, and hence, do not suffer from spurious precision. Second, specification tests have relatively low power against a range of misspecified models. Thus, failure to reject the null of correct specification does not necessarily provide evidence of correct specification. That is, model specification tests are subject to the problem that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. This paper develops new diagnostics for model misspecification in moment inequality models that do not suffer from this problem.
{"title":"Misspecified Moment Inequality Models: Inference and Diagnostics","authors":"D. Andrews, S. Kwon","doi":"10.1093/restud/rdad033","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdad033","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This paper is concerned with possible model misspecification in moment inequality models. Two issues are addressed. First, standard tests and confidence sets for the true parameter in the moment inequality literature are not robust to model misspecification in the sense that they exhibit spurious precision when the identified set is empty. This paper introduces tests and confidence sets that provide correct asymptotic inference for a pseudo-true parameter in such scenarios, and hence, do not suffer from spurious precision.\u0000 Second, specification tests have relatively low power against a range of misspecified models. Thus, failure to reject the null of correct specification does not necessarily provide evidence of correct specification. That is, model specification tests are subject to the problem that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. This paper develops new diagnostics for model misspecification in moment inequality models that do not suffer from this problem.","PeriodicalId":48449,"journal":{"name":"Review of Economic Studies","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2023-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43231037","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}