We collect data on the size distribution of US businesses for 100 years, and use these data to estimate the concentration of production (e.g., asset share or sales share of top businesses). The data show that concentration has increased persistently over the past century. Rising concentration was stronger in manufacturing and mining before the 1970s, and stronger in services, retail, and wholesale after the 1970s. The results are robust to different measurement methods and consistent across different historical sources. Our findings suggest that large firms have become more important in the US economy for a long period of time. (JEL D22, E24, L11, L25, N12)
{"title":"100 Years of Rising Corporate Concentration","authors":"Spencer Y. Kwon, Yueran Ma, Kaspar Zimmermann","doi":"10.1257/aer.20220621","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20220621","url":null,"abstract":"We collect data on the size distribution of US businesses for 100 years, and use these data to estimate the concentration of production (e.g., asset share or sales share of top businesses). The data show that concentration has increased persistently over the past century. Rising concentration was stronger in manufacturing and mining before the 1970s, and stronger in services, retail, and wholesale after the 1970s. The results are robust to different measurement methods and consistent across different historical sources. Our findings suggest that large firms have become more important in the US economy for a long period of time. (JEL D22, E24, L11, L25, N12)","PeriodicalId":505466,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"35 7","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141716886","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We study personalized pricing in a general oligopoly model. The impact of personalized pricing relative to uniform pricing hinges on the degree of market coverage. If market conditions are such that coverage is high (e.g., the production cost is low or the number of firms is high), personalized pricing harms firms and benefits consumers, whereas the opposite is true if coverage is low. When only some firms have data to personalize prices, consumers can be worse off compared to when either all or no firms personalize prices. (JEL D21, D43, D82)
{"title":"Personalized Pricing and Competition","authors":"Andrew Rhodes, Jidong Zhou","doi":"10.1257/aer.20221524","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20221524","url":null,"abstract":"We study personalized pricing in a general oligopoly model. The impact of personalized pricing relative to uniform pricing hinges on the degree of market coverage. If market conditions are such that coverage is high (e.g., the production cost is low or the number of firms is high), personalized pricing harms firms and benefits consumers, whereas the opposite is true if coverage is low. When only some firms have data to personalize prices, consumers can be worse off compared to when either all or no firms personalize prices. (JEL D21, D43, D82)","PeriodicalId":505466,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"11 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141694435","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We study robust welfare comparisons of learning biases (misspecified Bayesian and some forms of non-Bayesian updating). Given a true signal distribution, we deem one bias more harmful than another if it yields lower objective expected payoffs in all decision problems. We characterize this ranking in static and dynamic settings. While the static characterization compares posteriors signal by signal, the dynamic characterization employs an “efficiency index” measuring how fast beliefs converge. We quantify and compare the severity of several well-documented biases. We also highlight disagreements between the static and dynamic rankings, and that some “large” biases dynamically outperform other “vanishingly small” biases. (JEL D60, D82, D83, D91)
{"title":"Welfare Comparisons for Biased Learning","authors":"Mira Frick, Ryota Iijima, Y. Ishii","doi":"10.1257/aer.20210410","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20210410","url":null,"abstract":"We study robust welfare comparisons of learning biases (misspecified Bayesian and some forms of non-Bayesian updating). Given a true signal distribution, we deem one bias more harmful than another if it yields lower objective expected payoffs in all decision problems. We characterize this ranking in static and dynamic settings. While the static characterization compares posteriors signal by signal, the dynamic characterization employs an “efficiency index” measuring how fast beliefs converge. We quantify and compare the severity of several well-documented biases. We also highlight disagreements between the static and dynamic rankings, and that some “large” biases dynamically outperform other “vanishingly small” biases. (JEL D60, D82, D83, D91)","PeriodicalId":505466,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"58 37","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141231748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We evaluate a pedagogical intervention aimed at improving learning in elementary school children by fostering their curiosity. We test the effectiveness of the pedagogy using achievement scores and a novel measure of curiosity. The latter involves creating a sense of information deprivation and quantifying the urge to acquire information and retention ability. The intervention increases curiosity, knowledge retention, and science test scores, with the effects persisting into middle school years. It also leads to more information sharing and peer learning in the classroom. The evidence can help design better pedagogical tools to increase pupil engagement and the quality of learning. (JEL D83, I21, I26, J13, O15)
{"title":"Nurturing Childhood Curiosity to Enhance Learning: Evidence from a Randomized Pedagogical Intervention","authors":"Sule Alan, Ipek Mumcu","doi":"10.1257/aer.20230084","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20230084","url":null,"abstract":"We evaluate a pedagogical intervention aimed at improving learning in elementary school children by fostering their curiosity. We test the effectiveness of the pedagogy using achievement scores and a novel measure of curiosity. The latter involves creating a sense of information deprivation and quantifying the urge to acquire information and retention ability. The intervention increases curiosity, knowledge retention, and science test scores, with the effects persisting into middle school years. It also leads to more information sharing and peer learning in the classroom. The evidence can help design better pedagogical tools to increase pupil engagement and the quality of learning. (JEL D83, I21, I26, J13, O15)","PeriodicalId":505466,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"6 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140353332","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jan B. Engelmann, Maël Lebreton, Nahuel Salem-Garcia, Peter Schwardmann, Joel J. van der Weele
Across five experiments (N = 1,714), we test whether people engage in wishful thinking to alleviate anxiety about adverse future outcomes. Participants perform pattern recognition tasks in which some patterns may result in an electric shock or a monetary loss. Diagnostic of wishful thinking, participants are less likely to correctly identify patterns that are associated with a shock or loss. Wishful thinking is more pronounced under more ambiguous signals and only reduced by higher accuracy incentives when participants’ cognitive effort reduces ambiguity. Wishful thinking disappears in the domain of monetary gains, indicating that negative emotions are important drivers of the phenomenon. (JEL C91, D12, D83, D91)
{"title":"Anticipatory Anxiety and Wishful Thinking","authors":"Jan B. Engelmann, Maël Lebreton, Nahuel Salem-Garcia, Peter Schwardmann, Joel J. van der Weele","doi":"10.1257/aer.20191068","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20191068","url":null,"abstract":"Across five experiments (N = 1,714), we test whether people engage in wishful thinking to alleviate anxiety about adverse future outcomes. Participants perform pattern recognition tasks in which some patterns may result in an electric shock or a monetary loss. Diagnostic of wishful thinking, participants are less likely to correctly identify patterns that are associated with a shock or loss. Wishful thinking is more pronounced under more ambiguous signals and only reduced by higher accuracy incentives when participants’ cognitive effort reduces ambiguity. Wishful thinking disappears in the domain of monetary gains, indicating that negative emotions are important drivers of the phenomenon. (JEL C91, D12, D83, D91)","PeriodicalId":505466,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"87 21","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140355909","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Anton Cheremukhin, M. Golosov, S. Guriev, Aleh Tsyvinski
We quantify the effects of the political development cycle—the fluctuations between the Left (Maoist) and the Right (pragmatist) development policies—on growth and structural transformation of China in 1953–1978. The left policies prioritized structural transformation toward nonagricultural production and consumption at the expense of agricultural development. The right policies prioritized agricultural consumption through slower structural transformation. The imperfect implementation of these policies led to large welfare costs of the political development cycle in a distorted economy undergoing a structural change. (JEL D72, N15, N45, N55, O21, P21, P24)
{"title":"The Political Development Cycle: The Right and the Left in People’s Republic of China from 1953","authors":"Anton Cheremukhin, M. Golosov, S. Guriev, Aleh Tsyvinski","doi":"10.1257/aer.20220249","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20220249","url":null,"abstract":"We quantify the effects of the political development cycle—the fluctuations between the Left (Maoist) and the Right (pragmatist) development policies—on growth and structural transformation of China in 1953–1978. The left policies prioritized structural transformation toward nonagricultural production and consumption at the expense of agricultural development. The right policies prioritized agricultural consumption through slower structural transformation. The imperfect implementation of these policies led to large welfare costs of the political development cycle in a distorted economy undergoing a structural change. (JEL D72, N15, N45, N55, O21, P21, P24)","PeriodicalId":505466,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"62 18","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140356478","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We study unanticipated tariffs in a setting with firm-to-firm supply relationships. Firms conduct costly searches and negotiate with potential suppliers that pass a reservation level of match productivity. Global supply chains form in anticipation of free trade. Then, the home government surprises with an input tariff. This can lead to renegotiation with initial suppliers or search for replacements. Calibrating the model’s parameters to match initial import shares and the estimated responses to the US tariffs imposed on China, we find an overall welfare loss of 0.12 percent of GDP, with substantial contributions from changes in input sourcing and search costs. (JEL D72, F13, F14, L14, O19, P33)
{"title":"When Tariffs Disrupt Global Supply Chains","authors":"Gene M. Grossman, E. Helpman, Stephen J. Redding","doi":"10.1257/aer.20211519","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20211519","url":null,"abstract":"We study unanticipated tariffs in a setting with firm-to-firm supply relationships. Firms conduct costly searches and negotiate with potential suppliers that pass a reservation level of match productivity. Global supply chains form in anticipation of free trade. Then, the home government surprises with an input tariff. This can lead to renegotiation with initial suppliers or search for replacements. Calibrating the model’s parameters to match initial import shares and the estimated responses to the US tariffs imposed on China, we find an overall welfare loss of 0.12 percent of GDP, with substantial contributions from changes in input sourcing and search costs. (JEL D72, F13, F14, L14, O19, P33)","PeriodicalId":505466,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"77 9","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140355806","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Nathaniel Baum-Snow, Nicolas Gendron-Carrier, Ronni Pavan
Using Canadian administrative data, this paper presents evidence of revenue and productivity spillovers across firms at fine spatial scales. Accounting for the endogenous sorting of firms across space, we estimate an average elasticity of firm revenue and productivity with respect to the average quality of other firms within 75 meters of 0.024. We find scant evidence that the average firm benefits from being surrounded by a greater amount of economic activity at this spatial scale. Sorting of higher-quality firms into more productive locations and higher average and aggregate quality peer groups is salient in the data. (JEL D22, D24, G32, L25, R11, R32)
{"title":"Local Productivity Spillovers","authors":"Nathaniel Baum-Snow, Nicolas Gendron-Carrier, Ronni Pavan","doi":"10.1257/aer.20211589","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20211589","url":null,"abstract":"Using Canadian administrative data, this paper presents evidence of revenue and productivity spillovers across firms at fine spatial scales. Accounting for the endogenous sorting of firms across space, we estimate an average elasticity of firm revenue and productivity with respect to the average quality of other firms within 75 meters of 0.024. We find scant evidence that the average firm benefits from being surrounded by a greater amount of economic activity at this spatial scale. Sorting of higher-quality firms into more productive locations and higher average and aggregate quality peer groups is salient in the data. (JEL D22, D24, G32, L25, R11, R32)","PeriodicalId":505466,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"10 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140356991","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Christina McGranaghan, Kirby Nielsen, T. O’Donoghue, Jason Somerville, Charles D. Sprenger
Without strong assumptions about how noise manifests in choices, we can infer little from existing empirical observations of the common ratio effect (CRE) about whether there exists an underlying common ratio preference (CRP). We propose to solve this inferential challenge using paired valuations, which yield valid inference under common assumptions. Using this approach in an online experiment with 900 participants, we find no evidence of a systematic CRP. To reconcile our findings with existing evidence, we present the same participants with paired choice tasks and demonstrate how noise can generate a CRE even for individuals without an associated CRP. (JEL C91, D81, D91)
{"title":"Distinguishing Common Ratio Preferences from Common Ratio Effects Using Paired Valuation Tasks","authors":"Christina McGranaghan, Kirby Nielsen, T. O’Donoghue, Jason Somerville, Charles D. Sprenger","doi":"10.1257/aer.20221535","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20221535","url":null,"abstract":"Without strong assumptions about how noise manifests in choices, we can infer little from existing empirical observations of the common ratio effect (CRE) about whether there exists an underlying common ratio preference (CRP). We propose to solve this inferential challenge using paired valuations, which yield valid inference under common assumptions. Using this approach in an online experiment with 900 participants, we find no evidence of a systematic CRP. To reconcile our findings with existing evidence, we present the same participants with paired choice tasks and demonstrate how noise can generate a CRE even for individuals without an associated CRP. (JEL C91, D81, D91)","PeriodicalId":505466,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"30 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139687724","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：