Journal of Economic Surveys最新文献

We review the literature in economics and related fields on the relationship between the COVID-19 pandemic and conflict behavior. Our survey covers the effects of the pandemic on individual-level conflict, group-level conflict, and the impact of existing conflict on the spread of the pandemic. We found an increase in intimate partner violence and a spillover between work-family conflict and domestic violence. Additionally, there was a spike in anti-East-Asian hate crimes. While the group-level conflict counts initially dropped, those eventually returned to pre-pandemic levels. The deteriorating economy and food insecurity associated with the pandemic were major drivers of conflict in developing countries, but appropriate state stimulus reduced such conflicts. The existing history of conflict had a heterogeneous effect on the spread of the pandemic in different societies. We conclude by highlighting future research avenues.

This paper reports a meta-analysis of the relationship between unemployment and health. Our meta-dataset consisted of 327 study results taken from 65 articles published in peer-reviewed journals between 1990 and 2021. We found that publication bias is important, but only for those study results obtained by means of difference-in-differences or instrumental variables estimators. On average, the effect of unemployment on health is negative, but quite small in terms of partial correlation coefficients. We investigated whether the findings were heterogeneous across several research dimensions. We found that unemployment has the strongest impact on the psychological domains of health and long-term unemployment spells are more detrimental than short-term ones. Furthermore, women are less affected, studies dealing with endogeneity issues find smaller effects and the health penalty is increasing with unemployment rate.

This paper reviews the literature providing quantitative and empirical results on capital taxation. In doing this, we differentiate between individual and corporate taxes, respectively. From existing literature, it emerges that capital income taxes for individuals increase with the degree of heterogeneity within the population, market competition, and the economy's maturity, being negative (i.e., subsidy) in the presence of monopolistic competition or developing countries, no higher than 15% in Mirrleesian economies and as high as 45% when coupled with incomplete insurance markets and labor income taxes in competitive-closed economies. Excessively high wealth tax rates for redistributive purposes, however, are prevented by the larger tax elasticity of rich (−1.15) with respect to poor (−0.09) individuals. Negative tax elasticities concerning employment (from −0.5 to −0.2), innovation (from −2.8 to −1.3), and investments (−4.7) suggest low corporate taxes, whose magnitude should be negatively related to the degree of the economy's openness, given also the possibility for firms to relocate abroad. Finally, although still inconclusive, the main conclusions concerning dividend taxes suggest that tax rates increase with the firm's size and, thus, be set at low levels for start-ups.

We provide the first quantitative synthesis of the literature on how financial markets react to the disclosure of financial crimes committed by listed firms. While consensus expects negative returns, the exact size of the effect is far from clear. We survey 111 studies published over three decades, from which we collect 480 estimates from event studies. Then, we perform a thorough meta-analysis based on the most recent available techniques. We show that the negative abnormal returns found in the literature seem to be exaggerated by more than three times. Hence, the “punishment” effect, including a reputational penalty, suffers from a serious publication bias. After controlling for this bias, negative abnormal returns suggest the existence of an informational effect. We also document that accounting frauds, crimes committed in common-law countries such as the United States, and allegations are particularly severely sanctioned by financial markets, while the information channels and types of procedures do not influence market reactions.

With the growing use of digital technologies, data have become core to many organizations’ decisions, with its value widely acknowledged across public and private sectors. Yet few comprehensive empirical approaches to establishing the value of data exist, and there is no consensus about which methods should be applied to specific data types or purposes. This paper examines a range of data valuation methodologies proposed in the existing literature. We propose a typology linking methods to different data types and purposes.

What drives recessions and expansions? Since it was introduced in 2007, there have been hundreds of business cycle accounting (BCA) exercises, a procedure aimed at identifying classes of models that hold quantitative promise to explain economic fluctuations. This paper contributes with a software—a graphical user interface that allows practitioners to perform BCA exercises with minimal effort—and exemplifies the procedure by studying the U.S. recessions in 1973 and 1990 and reflecting upon the critiques BCA has been subject to. We look into the many equivalence theorems that the literature has produced and that allow BCA practitioners to identify the theories that are quantitatively relevant for the economic period under study. The methodological extensions that have been brought forth since BCA's original inception are addressed as well as conclusions regarding the relative contribution of each wedge: GDP and investment are usually driven by an efficiency wedge, hours worked are closely related to the labor wedge and, in an open economy extension, the investment wedge helps to explain country risk spreads on international bonds. Finally, larger changes in interest rates and currency crises are usually associated with the investment and/or the labor wedge.

Do more intelligent investors take better economic decisions than less intelligent ones? Is risk attitude, in particular risk/loss aversion, linked to cognitive ability? Does an investor's cognitive ability impact his/her patience? Is financial performance positively linked to investor's intelligence? These research questions have become highly relevant with the development of behavioral economics and behavioral finance, following the recognition that humans are not homo economicus. This paper reviews the several strands of literature devoted to answering the above questions. We first discuss the barely debated definitions and measures of intelligence/cognitive ability used in psychology, economics, and finance. We then review the results related to the (controversial) link between risk aversion and cognitive ability. We observe that the literature provides clear results for patience; individuals with a higher level of cognitive ability being more patient on average. Finally, we review the contributions linking (successfully or not) portfolio choice and financial performance to cognitive ability.

This special issue consists of nine surveys that delve into the recent development in the literature on inequality, examining its perception, sources, implications, and potential solutions. The review synthesizes key aspects, from the conceptualization of inequality perception to its profound consequences such as deteriorated social cohesion, unethical behaviors, and even violent conflicts. The papers underscore the complexity of individuals' preferences for redistribution, influenced by myriad factors like procedural fairness, societal norms, and ethnicity composition. They also explore the potential for interventions, such as wage transparency reforms, to tackle inequality. This synthesis underscores the persistent challenge posed by inequality, while also pointing towards unexplored avenues for future research, thus advancing our understanding of the socio-economic implications of inequality.

Over the last two decades, the causal relationship between climate change and migration has gained increasing prominence in international research and policy. Despite recent advances in conceptual frameworks and applied techniques, the empirical evidence does not provide clear-cut conclusions, mainly due to the intrinsic complexity of the phenomenon of interest, the irreducible heterogeneity of the transmission mechanisms, some common misconceptions, and, in particular, the paucity of adequate data. In this work, we present the first data-oriented review of the nexus between climate change and migration. Then, we discuss open issues and assess the main data gaps that currently prevent more robust quantifications. Finally, using a prominent survey collection produced by the World Bank as a case study, we highlight opportunities for exploiting and enhancing the potential of existing multi-topic and multi-purpose household survey datasets.