Abstract Unemployment rates differ widely across local labor markets. I offer new empirical evidence that high local unemployment emerges because of elevated local job-losing rates. Local employers, rather than local workers or location-specific factors, account for most of the spatial gaps in job stability. I propose a theory in which spatial differences in job loss emerge in equilibrium because of systematic differences between employers across local labor markets. The spatial sorting decisions of employers in turn shape heterogeneity across locations. Labor market frictions induce productive employers to overvalue locating close to each other. The optimal policy incentivizes them to relocate toward areas with high job-losing rates, providing a rationale for commonly used place-based policies. I estimate the model using French administrative data. The estimated model accounts for over three-quarters of the cross-sectional dispersion in unemployment rates and for the respective contributions of job-losing and job-finding rates. Inefficient location choices by employers amplify spatial unemployment differentials fivefold. Both real-world and optimal place-based policies can yield sizable local and aggregate welfare gains.
{"title":"The Geography of Unemployment","authors":"Adrien Bilal","doi":"10.1093/qje/qjad010","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad010","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Unemployment rates differ widely across local labor markets. I offer new empirical evidence that high local unemployment emerges because of elevated local job-losing rates. Local employers, rather than local workers or location-specific factors, account for most of the spatial gaps in job stability. I propose a theory in which spatial differences in job loss emerge in equilibrium because of systematic differences between employers across local labor markets. The spatial sorting decisions of employers in turn shape heterogeneity across locations. Labor market frictions induce productive employers to overvalue locating close to each other. The optimal policy incentivizes them to relocate toward areas with high job-losing rates, providing a rationale for commonly used place-based policies. I estimate the model using French administrative data. The estimated model accounts for over three-quarters of the cross-sectional dispersion in unemployment rates and for the respective contributions of job-losing and job-finding rates. Inefficient location choices by employers amplify spatial unemployment differentials fivefold. Both real-world and optimal place-based policies can yield sizable local and aggregate welfare gains.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136151912","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}
Mark R Jacobsen, James M Sallee, Joseph S Shapiro, Arthur A Van Benthem
Abstract The world has 1.4 billion passenger vehicles. How should governments regulate their air pollution emissions? A Pigouvian tax is technologically infeasible. Most countries instead rely on exhaust standards that limit air pollution emissions per mile for new vehicles. We assess the effectiveness and efficiency of these standards, which are the centerpiece of U.S. Clean Air Act regulation of transportation, and counterfactual policies. We show that the air pollution emissions per mile of new U.S. vehicles has fallen spectacularly, by over 99%, since standards began in 1967. Several research designs with a half century of data suggest that exhaust standards have caused most of this decline. Yet exhaust standards are not cost-effective in part because they fail to encourage scrap of older vehicles, which account for the majority of emissions. To study counterfactual policies, we develop an analytical and a quantitative model of the vehicle fleet. Analysis of these models suggests that tighter exhaust standards increase social welfare and increasing registration fees on dirty vehicles yields even larger gains by accelerating scrap, although both reforms have complex effects on inequality.
{"title":"Regulating Untaxable Externalities: Are Vehicle Air Pollution Standards Effective and Efficient?","authors":"Mark R Jacobsen, James M Sallee, Joseph S Shapiro, Arthur A Van Benthem","doi":"10.1093/qje/qjad016","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad016","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract The world has 1.4 billion passenger vehicles. How should governments regulate their air pollution emissions? A Pigouvian tax is technologically infeasible. Most countries instead rely on exhaust standards that limit air pollution emissions per mile for new vehicles. We assess the effectiveness and efficiency of these standards, which are the centerpiece of U.S. Clean Air Act regulation of transportation, and counterfactual policies. We show that the air pollution emissions per mile of new U.S. vehicles has fallen spectacularly, by over 99%, since standards began in 1967. Several research designs with a half century of data suggest that exhaust standards have caused most of this decline. Yet exhaust standards are not cost-effective in part because they fail to encourage scrap of older vehicles, which account for the majority of emissions. To study counterfactual policies, we develop an analytical and a quantitative model of the vehicle fleet. Analysis of these models suggests that tighter exhaust standards increase social welfare and increasing registration fees on dirty vehicles yields even larger gains by accelerating scrap, although both reforms have complex effects on inequality.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135295063","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 article studies the macroeconomic implications of imperfect risk sharing implied by a class of New Keynesian models with heterogeneous agents. The models in this class can be equivalently represented as a representative-agent economy with wedges. These wedges are functions of households’ consumption shares and relative wages, and they identify the key cross-sectional moments that govern the impact of households’ heterogeneity on aggregate variables. We measure the wedges using U.S. household-level data and combine them with a representative-agent economy to perform counterfactuals. We find that deviations from perfect risk sharing implied by this class of models account for only 7% of output volatility on average but can have sizable output effects when nominal interest rates reach their lower bound.
{"title":"Imperfect Risk Sharing and the Business Cycle","authors":"David Berger, Luigi Bocola, Alessandro Dovis","doi":"10.1093/qje/qjad013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad013","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article studies the macroeconomic implications of imperfect risk sharing implied by a class of New Keynesian models with heterogeneous agents. The models in this class can be equivalently represented as a representative-agent economy with wedges. These wedges are functions of households’ consumption shares and relative wages, and they identify the key cross-sectional moments that govern the impact of households’ heterogeneity on aggregate variables. We measure the wedges using U.S. household-level data and combine them with a representative-agent economy to perform counterfactuals. We find that deviations from perfect risk sharing implied by this class of models account for only 7% of output volatility on average but can have sizable output effects when nominal interest rates reach their lower bound.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135295071","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}
Samuel Bazzi, Andreas Ferrara, Martin Fiszbein, Thomas P. Pearson, Patrick A. Testa
Abstract This article shows how the migration of millions of Southern whites in the twentieth century shaped the cultural and political landscape across the United States. Racially and religiously conservative, Southern white migrants created new electoral possibilities for a broad-based coalition with economic conservatives. With their considerable geographic scope, these migrants hastened partisan realignment and helped catalyze and bolster a New Right movement with national influence over the long run. More than just augmenting the conservative voter base outside the South, they influenced non-Southerners by building evangelical churches, diffusing right-wing media, and mixing through intermarriage and residential integration. Tracking non-Southern households, we show that exposure to Southern white neighbors increased adoption of conservative religious norms. Overall, our findings suggest that this mass migration blurred the North–South cultural divide and reshaped the geography of conservatism in the United States.
{"title":"The Other Great Migration: Southern Whites and the New Right","authors":"Samuel Bazzi, Andreas Ferrara, Martin Fiszbein, Thomas P. Pearson, Patrick A. Testa","doi":"10.1093/qje/qjad014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad014","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract This article shows how the migration of millions of Southern whites in the twentieth century shaped the cultural and political landscape across the United States. Racially and religiously conservative, Southern white migrants created new electoral possibilities for a broad-based coalition with economic conservatives. With their considerable geographic scope, these migrants hastened partisan realignment and helped catalyze and bolster a New Right movement with national influence over the long run. More than just augmenting the conservative voter base outside the South, they influenced non-Southerners by building evangelical churches, diffusing right-wing media, and mixing through intermarriage and residential integration. Tracking non-Southern households, we show that exposure to Southern white neighbors increased adoption of conservative religious norms. Overall, our findings suggest that this mass migration blurred the North–South cultural divide and reshaped the geography of conservatism in the United States.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135295057","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}
Martin Beraja, Andrew Kao, David Y Yang, Noam Yuchtman
Abstract Recent scholarship has suggested that artificial intelligence (AI) technology and autocratic regimes may be mutually reinforcing. We test for a mutually reinforcing relationship in the context of facial-recognition AI in China. To do so, we gather comprehensive data on AI firms and government procurement contracts, as well as on social unrest across China since the early 2010s. We first show that autocrats benefit from AI: local unrest leads to greater government procurement of facial-recognition AI as a new technology of political control, and increased AI procurement indeed suppresses subsequent unrest. We show that AI innovation benefits from autocrats’ suppression of unrest: the contracted AI firms innovate more both for the government and commercial markets and are more likely to export their products; noncontracted AI firms do not experience detectable negative spillovers. Taken together, these results suggest the possibility of sustained AI innovation under the Chinese regime: AI innovation entrenches the regime, and the regime’s investment in AI for political control stimulates further frontier innovation.
{"title":"AI-tocracy","authors":"Martin Beraja, Andrew Kao, David Y Yang, Noam Yuchtman","doi":"10.1093/qje/qjad012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad012","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Recent scholarship has suggested that artificial intelligence (AI) technology and autocratic regimes may be mutually reinforcing. We test for a mutually reinforcing relationship in the context of facial-recognition AI in China. To do so, we gather comprehensive data on AI firms and government procurement contracts, as well as on social unrest across China since the early 2010s. We first show that autocrats benefit from AI: local unrest leads to greater government procurement of facial-recognition AI as a new technology of political control, and increased AI procurement indeed suppresses subsequent unrest. We show that AI innovation benefits from autocrats’ suppression of unrest: the contracted AI firms innovate more both for the government and commercial markets and are more likely to export their products; noncontracted AI firms do not experience detectable negative spillovers. Taken together, these results suggest the possibility of sustained AI innovation under the Chinese regime: AI innovation entrenches the regime, and the regime’s investment in AI for political control stimulates further frontier innovation.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135907235","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}
Hassan Afrouzi, Spencer Y Kwon, Augustin Landier, Yueran Ma, David Thesmar
Abstract We investigate biases in expectations across different settings through a large-scale randomized experiment where participants forecast stable stochastic processes. The experiment allows us to control forecasters’ information sets as well as the data-generating process, so we can cleanly measure biases in beliefs. We report three facts. First, forecasts display significant overreaction to the most recent observation. Second, overreaction is stronger for less persistent processes. Third, overreaction is also stronger for longer forecast horizons. We develop a tractable model of expectations formation with costly processing of past information, which closely fits the empirical facts. We also perform additional experiments to test the mechanism of the model.
{"title":"Overreaction in Expectations: Evidence and Theory","authors":"Hassan Afrouzi, Spencer Y Kwon, Augustin Landier, Yueran Ma, David Thesmar","doi":"10.1093/qje/qjad009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad009","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We investigate biases in expectations across different settings through a large-scale randomized experiment where participants forecast stable stochastic processes. The experiment allows us to control forecasters’ information sets as well as the data-generating process, so we can cleanly measure biases in beliefs. We report three facts. First, forecasts display significant overreaction to the most recent observation. Second, overreaction is stronger for less persistent processes. Third, overreaction is also stronger for longer forecast horizons. We develop a tractable model of expectations formation with costly processing of past information, which closely fits the empirical facts. We also perform additional experiments to test the mechanism of the model.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135001683","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}
Christina Korting, Carl Lieberman, Jordan Matsudaira, Zhuan Pei, Yi Shen
Abstract Despite the widespread use of graphs in empirical research, little is known about readers’ ability to process the statistical information they are meant to convey (“visual inference”). We study visual inference in the context of regression discontinuity (RD) designs by measuring how accurately readers identify discontinuities in graphs produced from data-generating processes calibrated on 11 published papers from leading economics journals. First, we assess the effects of different graphical representation methods on visual inference using randomized experiments. We find that bin widths and fit lines have the largest effects on whether participants correctly perceive the presence or absence of a discontinuity. Our experimental results allow us to make evidence-based recommendations to practitioners, and we suggest using small bins with no fit lines as a starting point to construct RD graphs. Second, we compare visual inference on graphs constructed using our preferred method with widely used econometric inference procedures. We find that visual inference achieves similar or lower type I error (false positive) rates and complements econometric inference.
{"title":"Visual Inference and Graphical Representation in Regression Discontinuity Designs","authors":"Christina Korting, Carl Lieberman, Jordan Matsudaira, Zhuan Pei, Yi Shen","doi":"10.1093/qje/qjad011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad011","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Despite the widespread use of graphs in empirical research, little is known about readers’ ability to process the statistical information they are meant to convey (“visual inference”). We study visual inference in the context of regression discontinuity (RD) designs by measuring how accurately readers identify discontinuities in graphs produced from data-generating processes calibrated on 11 published papers from leading economics journals. First, we assess the effects of different graphical representation methods on visual inference using randomized experiments. We find that bin widths and fit lines have the largest effects on whether participants correctly perceive the presence or absence of a discontinuity. Our experimental results allow us to make evidence-based recommendations to practitioners, and we suggest using small bins with no fit lines as a starting point to construct RD graphs. Second, we compare visual inference on graphs constructed using our preferred method with widely used econometric inference procedures. We find that visual inference achieves similar or lower type I error (false positive) rates and complements econometric inference.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135384237","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 use two-round survey data from 62 elections in 10 countries since 1952 to study the formation of vote choice, beliefs, and policy preferences and assess how televised debates contribute to this process. Our data include 253,000 observations. We compare the consistency between vote intention and vote choice of respondents surveyed at different points before, and then again after, the election, and show that 17% to 29% of voters make up their mind during the final two months of campaigns. Changes in vote choice are concomitant to shifts in issues voters find most important and in beliefs about candidates, and they generate sizable swings in vote shares. In contrast, policy preferences remain remarkably stable throughout the campaign. Finally, we use an event study to estimate the impact of TV debates, in which candidates themselves communicate with voters, and of shocks such as natural and technological disasters which, by contrast, occur independently from the campaign. We do not find any effect of either type of event on vote choice formation, suggesting that information received throughout the campaign from other sources such as the media, political activists, and other citizens is more impactful.
{"title":"How do Campaigns Shape Vote Choice? Multicountry Evidence from 62 Elections and 56 TV Debates","authors":"Caroline Le Pennec, Vincent Pons","doi":"10.1093/qje/qjad002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad002","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract We use two-round survey data from 62 elections in 10 countries since 1952 to study the formation of vote choice, beliefs, and policy preferences and assess how televised debates contribute to this process. Our data include 253,000 observations. We compare the consistency between vote intention and vote choice of respondents surveyed at different points before, and then again after, the election, and show that 17% to 29% of voters make up their mind during the final two months of campaigns. Changes in vote choice are concomitant to shifts in issues voters find most important and in beliefs about candidates, and they generate sizable swings in vote shares. In contrast, policy preferences remain remarkably stable throughout the campaign. Finally, we use an event study to estimate the impact of TV debates, in which candidates themselves communicate with voters, and of shocks such as natural and technological disasters which, by contrast, occur independently from the campaign. We do not find any effect of either type of event on vote choice formation, suggesting that information received throughout the campaign from other sources such as the media, political activists, and other citizens is more impactful.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135339823","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}
Journal Article Accepted manuscript Acknowledgment of Referees Get access Thomas Hugh Baranga Thomas Hugh Baranga E-mail: baranga@fas.harvard.edu Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, qjad008, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad008 Published: 21 February 2023
访问Thomas Hugh Baranga Thomas Hugh Baranga E-mail: baranga@fas.harvard.edu搜索作者的其他作品:Oxford Academic b谷歌Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, qjad008, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad008出版日期:2023年2月21日
{"title":"ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF REFEREES","authors":"","doi":"10.1093/qje/qjad008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad008","url":null,"abstract":"Journal Article Accepted manuscript Acknowledgment of Referees Get access Thomas Hugh Baranga Thomas Hugh Baranga E-mail: baranga@fas.harvard.edu Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Quarterly Journal of Economics, qjad008, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad008 Published: 21 February 2023","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136390178","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 Reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases may be almost impossible without a green transition—a substantial transformation of consumption and production patterns. To study such transitions, we propose a dynamic model, which differs from the common approach in economics in two ways. First, consumption patterns reflect not just changing prices and taxes, but changing values. Transitions of values and technologies create a dynamic complementarity that can help or hinder a green transition. Second, and unlike fictitious social planners, policy makers in democratic societies cannot commit to future policy paths, as they are subject to regular elections. We show that market failures and government failures can interact to prevent a welfare-increasing green transition from materializing or make an ongoing green transition too slow.
{"title":"The Political Economics of Green Transitions","authors":"Timothy Besley, Torsten Persson","doi":"10.1093/qje/qjad006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad006","url":null,"abstract":"Abstract Reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases may be almost impossible without a green transition—a substantial transformation of consumption and production patterns. To study such transitions, we propose a dynamic model, which differs from the common approach in economics in two ways. First, consumption patterns reflect not just changing prices and taxes, but changing values. Transitions of values and technologies create a dynamic complementarity that can help or hinder a green transition. Second, and unlike fictitious social planners, policy makers in democratic societies cannot commit to future policy paths, as they are subject to regular elections. We show that market failures and government failures can interact to prevent a welfare-increasing green transition from materializing or make an ongoing green transition too slow.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"136083689","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}