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Teacher-led innovations to improve education outcomes: Experimental evidence from Brazil J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-23 Caio Piza, Astrid Zwager, Matteo Ruzzante, Rafael Dantas, Andre Loureiro
We provide experimental evidence from an education program in Brazil that empowers public school teachers, through a combination of technical assistance and earmarked funding, to design and introduce locally adapted pedagogical innovations. While the study encompasses grades 5, 6, and 10, we find consistent and pronounced impacts on learning and school progression in 6th grade, a critical transition
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Leveling the playing field: Constraints on multinational profit shifting and the performance of national firms J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-23 P. Gauß, M. Kortenhaus, N. Riedel, M. Simmler
A flourishing literature quantifies the corporate tax revenue losses from multinational profit shifting to low-tax economies. Other consequences of international tax avoidance have received little attention. In this paper, we empirically assess the widespread perception that international tax avoidance impacts product market outcomes and can put national competitors of multinational firms at a competitive
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Local minimum wage laws, boundary discontinuity methods, and policy spillovers J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-22 Ekaterina Jardim, Mark C. Long, Robert Plotnick, Jacob Vigdor, Emma Wiles
We use geographically precise longitudinal employment data documenting worker job-to-job mobility to study policy spillovers in the context of three local minimum wage increases. Estimated spillover impacts on wages and hours are statistically significant, geographically diffuse, and sufficient to create concern regarding interpretation of results even using not-immediately-adjacent regions as controls
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Limbo or leverage? Asylum waiting and refugee integration J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-22 Olof Åslund, Mattias Engdahl, Olof Rosenqvist
We study labor market and health implications of asylum wait time, a policy margin with bearing on public finances. The analysis exploits a rapid and unexpected increase in pending applications, which extended processing times with several months for new asylum seekers to Sweden. Longer waiting slows down integration by delaying labor market entry and decreasing participation and performance in active
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The effects of recreational marijuana laws on drug use and crime J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-18 Joseph J. Sabia, Dhaval Dave, Fawaz Alotaibi, Daniel I. Rees
Recreational marijuana laws (RMLs), which legalize the sale and possession of small quantities of marijuana for recreational use, have been adopted by 24 states and the District of Columbia. Using a generalized difference-in-differences approach and data for the period 2000–2019 from a variety of sources (the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, the Uniform Crime Reports, the Treatment Episode Data
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Understanding and increasing policymakers’ sensitivity to program impact J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-17 Mattie Toma, Elizabeth Bell
Policymakers routinely make high-stakes funding decisions. Assessing the value of a program is difficult and may be affected by bounded rationality. We conducted experiments involving U.S. policymakers and the general public, in which participants were given the opportunity to assess the value of various policy programs. Our findings demonstrate that decision aids enhance the responsiveness of respondents
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Dynamic effects of tax audits and the role of intentions J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-16 Tobias Gabel Christiansen
Using a random audit program covering more than 17,000 tax returns, I study how tax audits affect the subsequent compliance behavior of self-employed with varying intentions to comply. Leveraging novel information provided by auditors on taxpayers’ perceived willingness to comply, I find that unintentional non-compliers, driven by inattention or misunderstandings of the tax rules, exhibit higher compliance
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Social preferences on networks J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-16 Sarah Rezaei, Stephanie Rosenkranz, Utz Weitzel, Bastian Westbrock
Social preferences are a powerful determinant of human behavior. We study their behavioral implications within the context of a network game. A key feature of our game is the existence of multiple equilibria that widely differ in terms of their payoff distributions. Determining which equilibrium is most plausible is thus a key concern. We show that introducing social preferences into the game can resolve
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Relaxing financial constraints with tax credits and migrating out of rural and distressed America J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-16 Jacob E. Bastian, Dan A. Black
There is a strong and growing interest in helping families move to areas with higher economic opportunity. We exploit variation in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to examine how increasing household income affects migration, with a focus on women from rural and economically distressed areas. We find that higher income increases migration out of rural and distressed areas—primarily among unmarried
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TRAP’d Teens: Impacts of abortion provider regulations on fertility & education J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-13 Kelly M. Jones, Mayra Pineda-Torres
Following the 2022 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court, several U.S. states have severely restricted or eliminated access to abortion. To shed light on the potential economic impacts of this landmark ruling, we estimate the impact of abortion access on women’s educational attainment. We first codify the legal history of all targeted regulations of abortion providers (TRAP laws) ever implemented. We
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Understanding policing in the aftermath of gun violence: Examining investigatory stops and crime in Chicago J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-12 William LeRoy
I examine investigatory stops conducted by Chicago police officers following recent gun violence. I use a staggered difference-in-differences design to dynamically compare stops between neighboring police beats. In the immediate aftermath of gun violence, I find a rise in total stops that corresponds with a decline in index crime incidents and results in more seized weapons and/or contraband. Over
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The “Benefits” of being small: Loose fiscal policy in the European Monetary Union J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-11 Lamar Crombach, Frank Bohn, Jan-Egbert Sturm
Independent central banks typically counteract positive fiscal shocks that would otherwise increase the inflation rate above the target. In a theoretical model, we show that, in a monetary union, this mechanism implies weaker responses to national fiscal shocks because the overarching central bank must account for the fiscal policies of all members. The model highlights that the response is especially
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Retirement puzzles: New evidence from personal finances J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-10 Arna Olafsson, Michaela Pagel
Using comprehensive transaction-level panel data, we document that individuals repay their consumer debt and save more after they retire. These findings are puzzling because, in principle, people should save more before, rather than after, the expected decrease in income upon retirement. We discuss several potential explanations for our findings, including reductions in work-related expenses and increases
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Does granting refugee status to family-reunified women improve their integration? J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-09 Linea Hasager
In most countries, men are the principal asylum applicants, while women are admitted through family-reunification procedures. Family reunification implies that women’s residence permits are contingent on remaining married to their husbands. Using a staggered Difference-in-Differences (DID) Design, I document that granting asylum to family-reunified women improves their economic integration, increases
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Rethinking principal effects on student outcomes J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-09 Brendan Bartanen, Aliza N. Husain, David D. Liebowitz
School principals are viewed as critical actors to improve student outcomes, but there remain important methodological questions about how to measure principals’ effects. We propose a framework for measuring principals’ contributions to student outcomes and apply it empirically using data from Tennessee, New York City, and Oregon. As commonly implemented, value-added models misattribute to principals
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The demand for protection and the persistently high rates of gun violence among young black males J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-09 William N. Evans, Maciej H. Kotowski
We develop a theoretical model to explain the persistently high level of gun violence for black males ages 15–24 consistent with the empirical literature. A person may carry a gun for instrumental (i.e., criminal) reasons or for its perceived protective benefit. Discerning underlying motives is difficult. A shock to the instrumental benefit can move the equilibrium to one with a high gun prevalence
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Optimal taxation of risky entrepreneurial capital J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-09 Corina Boar, Matthew Knowles
We study optimal taxation in a model with endogenous financial frictions, risky investment and occupational choice, where the wealth distribution affects how efficiently capital is used. The planner chooses linear taxes on wealth, capital and labor income to maximize the steady state utility of a newborn agent. Most agents in the model are poor, leading to an equity motive for taxation. We calibrate
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Secure communities as immigration enforcement: How secure is the child care market? J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-04-04 Umair Ali, Jessica H. Brown, Chris M. Herbst
Immigrants comprise nearly 20% of the child care workforce in the U.S. This paper studies the impact of a major immigration enforcement policy, Secure Communities (SC), on the structure and functioning of the child care market. Relying on the staggered introduction of SC across counties between 2008 and 2014, we find that the program reduced children’s participation in center-based child care programs
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Firms as tax collectors J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-03-26 Pablo Garriga, Dario Tortarolo
We show that delegating tax collection duties to large firms can bolster tax capacity in weak-enforcement settings. We exploit two reforms in Argentina that dramatically and subsequently turnover tax withholding by firms. Combining firm-to-firm data with regression discontinuity and difference-in-differences methods centered on revenue eligibility thresholds, we find that: (i) appointing large firms
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A rising tide lifts all homes? Housing consumption trends for low-income households since the 1980s J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-03-23 Erik Hembre, J. Michael Collins, Samuel Wylde
This study analyzes patterns of housing consumption and expenditures among low-income households since 1985. For households in the bottom income quintile, real monthly housing expenditures have risen from $605 to $1,045. However, these increased expenditures partially reflect housing quantity improvements, including more square footage, more rooms, and larger lot sizes. The data also show a marked
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Fairness and limited information: Are people Bayesian meritocrats? J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-03-16 Alexander W. Cappelen, Thomas de Haan, Bertil Tungodden
This paper studies how limited information about the source of inequality affects inequality acceptance. We show theoretically that non-Bayesian belief updating can be as important as heterogeneity in fairness views for understanding disagreements about inequality: in a large class of economic environments, signal-neglecting meritocrats consider the egalitarian distribution to be fair, while base-rate
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Voters and the trade-off between policy stability and responsiveness J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Antoine Loeper, Wioletta Dziuda
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Heterogeneity in the pass-through from oil to gasoline prices: A new instrument for estimating the price elasticity of gasoline demand J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-03-12 Lutz Kilian, Xiaoqing Zhou
We propose a new instrument for estimating the price elasticity of gasoline demand that exploits systematic differences across U.S. states in the pass-through of oil price shocks to retail gasoline prices. We show that these differences are primarily driven by the cost of producing and distributing gasoline, which varies with states’ access to oil and gasoline transportation infrastructure, refinery
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The effect of required minimum distributions on intergenerational transfers J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-03-05 Jonathan M. Leganza
Tax policy may influence intergenerational transfers, especially the method and timing of gifts. In this paper, I study how tax rules that mandate the decumulation of retirement savings accounts impact transfers from parents to children. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study and a regression discontinuity design, I estimate the causal effects of aging into Required Minimum Distribution (RMD)
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Online tutoring works: Experimental evidence from a program with vulnerable children J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-03-04 Lucas Gortazar, Claudia Hupkau, Antonio Roldán-Monés
We provide evidence from a randomized controlled trial on the effectiveness of a novel, 100-percent online math tutoring program, targeted at secondary school students from highly disadvantaged neighborhoods. The intensive, eight-week-long program was delivered in groups of two students during after-school hours, mostly by qualified math teachers. The intervention significantly increased standardized
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Dynamic electoral competition with voter loss-aversion and imperfect recall J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-03-01 Ben Lockwood, Minh Le, James Rockey
This paper explores the implications of voter loss-aversion and imperfect recall for the dynamics of electoral competition in a simple Downsian model of repeated elections. The interplay between the median voter’s reference point and political parties’ choice of platforms generates a dynamic process of (de)polarization, following an initial shift in party ideology. This is consistent with the gradual
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Social mobility in Germany J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-02-24 Majed Dodin, Sebastian Findeisen, Lukas Henkel, Dominik Sachs, Paul Schüle
We characterize intergenerational mobility in Germany using census data on educational attainment and parental income for 526,000 children. Motivated by Germany’s tracking system in secondary education, our measure of opportunity is the A-Level degree, a requirement for access to university. A 10 percentile increase in parental income rank is associated with a 5.2 percentage point increase in the A-Level
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The impact of withdrawal penalties on retirement savings J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-02-23 Ellen Stuart, Victoria L. Bryant
Tax-benefited retirement accounts have features designed to encourage saving, including a penalty for withdrawing before age . Account holders also face a penalty for failing to take required minimum withdrawals after age 72. Using a bunching analysis, we estimate that these penalties cause over 17% of traditional IRA holders to change their withdrawal timing each year, shifting almost $60 billion
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National parks and economic development J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-02-22 Andrea Szabó, Gergely Ujhelyi
This paper studies the economic effects of the US National Park System, the largest national conservation entity in the world. We assemble a new dataset on the history of the system, and show that parks increase overall employment and income in the local economy. The data allows us to study several specific mechanisms. Economic effects appear to be driven by visitors, and they cannot be explained by
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A toolkit for setting and evaluating price floors J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-02-19 Carlos Eduardo Hernández, Santiago Cantillo-Cleves
Regulators often impose price floors to protect producers from suspected market power by intermediaries. We present a toolkit for predicting, estimating, and explaining the effect of price floors on output and the distribution of welfare. We apply this toolkit to the Colombian road freight sector, taking advantage of rate floors that intended to protect carriers from low freight rates paid by intermediaries
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The long-run impacts of adolescent drinking: Evidence from Zero Tolerance Laws J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-02-16 Tatiana Abboud, Andriana Bellou, Joshua Lewis
This paper provides the first long-run assessment of adolescent alcohol control policies on later-life health and labor market outcomes. Our analysis exploits cross-state variation in the rollout of “Zero Tolerance” (ZT) Laws, which set strict alcohol limits for drivers under age 21 and led to sharp reductions in youth binge drinking. We adopt a difference-in-differences approach that combines information
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Why are older men working more? The role of social security J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Zhixiu Yu
This paper investigates the role of Social Security reforms in explaining the increase in labor supply of older men across cohorts and evaluates the labor response by health status. I develop and estimate a rich dynamic life-cycle model of labor supply, savings, and Social Security application that captures the key structure of Social Security retirement benefits, disability insurance, and pension
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Early childhood human capital formation at scale J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-02-06 Johannes M. Bos, Abu S. Shonchoy, Saravana Ravindran, Akib Khan
Can governments leverage existing service-delivery platforms to scale early childhood development (ECD) interventions? We experimentally study a large-scale, low-cost home-visiting intervention – providing materials and counseling – integrated into Bangladesh’s national nutrition program without extra financial incentives for service providers (SPs). We find SPs partially substitute away from nutritional
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The limits of social recognition: Experimental evidence from blood donors J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-02-06 Lorenz Goette, Egon Tripodi
Does social recognition motivate prosocial individuals? We run large-scale experiments at Italy’s main blood donors association, evaluating social recognition through social media and peer groups against a simple ask to donate. Across several studies, we find that the simple ask is at least as effective as offering social recognition. In a survey experiment with blood donors we show that socially recognized
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Self-signaling in voting J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-02-01 Lydia Mechtenberg, Grischa Perino, Nicolas Treich, Jean-Robert Tyran, Stephanie W. Wang
This paper presents a two-wave survey experiment to examine the impact of self-image concerns on voting behavior. We elicit votes on a ballot initiative on animal welfare in Switzerland that spurred campaigns involving widely shared normative values. We send a message to voters about scientific evidence supporting the claim that “good-hearted people tend to be good to animals.” We interpret this message
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The (in)visible hand: Do workers discriminate against employers? J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-01-31 Philipp Doerrenberg, Denvil Duncan, Danyang Li
Although a large literature has studied discrimination in the labor market, there is little evidence on sex- and race-based discrimination of workers against (potential) employers. We implement a randomized experiment in an online labor market to contribute to this gap in the literature. In our experiment, workers make labor-supply decisions after we randomly expose them to signals about the race and
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The labor market impacts of America’s first paid maternity leave policy J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-01-30 Brenden Timpe
This paper provides new evidence on the effect of a national expansion of paid maternity leave on the labor-market outcomes of women in the United States. I develop an identification strategy that exploits the staggered expansion of paid leave through short-term disability insurance in the 1960s and 1970s. The policy expanded leave-taking among new mothers but also precipitated a decrease in hourly
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Inside the West Wing: Lobbying as a contest J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-01-28 Alastair Langtry
When a government makes many different policy decisions, lobbying can be viewed as a contest between the government and many different special interest groups. The government fights lobbying by interest groups with its own political capital. In this world, we find that a government wants to ‘sell protection’ – give favourable treatment in exchange for contributions – to certain interest groups. It
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The econometrics of happiness: Are we underestimating the returns to education and income? J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-01-18 C.P. Barrington-Leigh
This paper describes a fundamental and empirically conspicuous problem inherent to surveys of human feelings and opinions in which subjective responses are elicited on numerical scales. The paper also proposes a solution. The problem is a tendency by some individuals — particularly those with low levels of education — to simplify the response scale by considering only a subset of possible responses
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No-claim refunds and healthcare use J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-01-10 Daniel Avdic, Simon Decker, Martin Karlsson, Martin Salm
No-claim refunds are cost-control instruments which stipulate a payback agreement contingent on one or more claim-free years. We study how such no-claim refunds affect claiming behavior using claims data from a large German health insurer and a policy that increased the refund size for certain plans. We propose a method to decompose the effect on claims into behavioral and non-behavioral components
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Credit access and housing insecurity: Evidence from winter utility shutoff protections J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-01-09 Alison Lodermeier
Fifty-six percent of urban renters face some level of housing insecurity. I explore the role of credit access, or lack thereof, as a contributing factor. To do so, I study a temporary line of credit extended to households in the form of protection from heat shutoffs during the winter. These protections allow households to delay winter energy payments without risk of losing their heat. I adopt a triple
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Improving preschool provision and encouraging-demand: Evidence from a large-scale construction program J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-01-08 Jan Berkes, Adrien Bouguen, Deon Filmer, Tsuyoshi Fukao
We study the impact of a preschool construction program and of two demand-side interventions in Cambodia. Within this context where other preschools are available, impacts are likely to differ between children who would have been enrolled in a preexisting preschool and those who would have stayed at home, with larger expected gains for the latter. After one year, we measure positive intent-to-treat
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Disparate racial impacts of Shelby County v. Holder on voter turnout J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2024-01-03 Stephen B. Billings, Noah Braun, Daniel B. Jones, Ying Shi
In Shelby County v. Holder (2013), the Supreme Court struck down a core provision of the Voting Rights Act (VRA) that enabled federal electoral oversight in select jurisdictions. We study whether this decision disproportionately impacted ballot access for Black and Hispanic registered voters. We use a rich dataset on voter behavior for the universe of registered voters combined with Census block-level
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The effects of electronic monitoring on offenders and their families J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2023-12-29 Julien Grenet, Hans Grönqvist, Susan Niknami
Electronic monitoring (EM) has emerged as a popular tool for curbing the growth of large prison populations. Evidence on the causal effects of EM on criminal recidivism is, however, limited and it is unclear how this alternative to incarceration affects the labor supply of offenders and the outcomes of their family members. We study the countrywide expansion of EM in Sweden in 1997 wherein offenders
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Moving opportunities: The impact of mixed-income public housing regenerations on student achievement J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2023-12-28 Lorenzo Neri
I use mixed-income public housing regenerations in London as a natural experiment to identify how schools affect low-income students’ educational achievement when affluent households flow into their neighborhood. I compare student achievement in schools in the same neighborhood located at different distances from a regeneration before and after its completion. I employ a grandfathering instrument for
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Transitory income changes and consumption smoothing: Evidence from Mexico J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2023-12-26 Manuela Angelucci, Carlos Chiapa, Silvia Prina, Irvin Rojas
We test if 3534 beneficiaries of PROSPERA, Mexico’s cash transfer program, smooth food consumption before and after the date of the transfer receipt, and if consumption smoothing is costly. The transfer is an anticipated and transitory income shock and, thus, the PIH predicts that consumption should be smooth before and after its receipt. We find that food consumption does not change the days before
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Risky moms, risky kids? fertility and crime after the fall of the wall J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2023-12-21 Arnaud Chevalier, Olivier Marie
Following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the birth rate halved in East Germany. Using detailed state-cohort-level arrest-data, and a difference in differences strategy, we show that individuals born during this period of socio-economic turmoil were markedly more likely to be arrested than those conceived a few years earlier. This is the case for most crime types and both for boys and girls. Since
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Powers that be? Political alignment, government formation, and government stability J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2023-12-20 Felipe Carozzi, Davide Cipullo, Luca Repetto
We study how partisan alignment across levels of government affects coalition formation and government stability using a regression discontinuity design and a large dataset of Spanish municipal elections. We document a positive effect of alignment on both government formation and stability. Alignment increases the probability that the most-voted party appoints the mayor and decreases the probability
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Football, alcohol, and domestic abuse J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2023-12-21 Ria Ivandić, Tom Kirchmaier, Yasaman Saeidi, Neus Torres Blas
We study the role of alcohol and emotions in explaining the dynamics in domestic abuse following major football games. We match confidential and uniquely detailed individual call data from Greater Manchester with the timing of football matches over a period of eight years to estimate the effect on domestic abuse. We find that a football game changes the dynamics of abuse throughout the day. We first
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Income effects and labour supply: Evidence from a child benefits reform J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2023-12-20 Mathias Fjællegaard Jensen, Jack Blundell
In this paper, we exploit a unique and unexpected reform to the child benefit system in Denmark to assess the effects of child benefits on parental labour supply. A cap on child benefit payments in 2011 led to a non-negligible reduction in child benefits for larger families with young children while leaving child benefits for smaller families unchanged. The differential impact of this policy represents
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Joint retirement of couples: Evidence from discontinuities in Denmark J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2023-12-19 Esteban García-Miralles, Jonathan M. Leganza
We study joint retirement and its underlying determinants. First, we use full-population data from Denmark and a discontinuity design to document joint retirement at the early pension eligibility age. For every 100 individuals who retire when they reach pension eligibility, around 8 of their spouses adjust their behavior to retire at the same time. Next, we investigate mechanisms. We begin by arguing
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Welfare effects of unemployment benefits when informality is high J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2023-12-14 Hannah Liepmann, Clemente Pignatti
We investigate the welfare effects of unemployment benefits (UBs) in the context of high informality, analyzing matched administrative and survey data with detailed information on consumption, transfers and informal and formal employment of UB recipients. Difference-in-differences analysis reveals a comparatively large consumption drop after the loss of a formal job, resulting from shifts towards lower-quality
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Financial repercussions of SNAP work requirements J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2023-12-06 Samuel Dodini, Jeff Larrimore, Anna Tranfaglia
This paper considers individual-level credit responses after the implementation of work requirements for SNAP benefits. It does so by exploiting county-level variation in the reintroduction of work requirements after the Great Recession. We find that new SNAP work requirements lead more people to seek out new credit and lead to an increase in credit account openings. New work requirements also result
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The effect of disability insurance receipt on mortality J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2023-11-29 Bernard Black, Eric French, Jeremy McCauley, Jae Song
This paper estimates the effect of Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income receipt on mortality for individuals on the margin of being allowed versus denied benefits. Exploiting the random assignment of administrative law judges to disability insurance cases, we find that benefit allowance increases 10-year mortality rates by 2.8 percentage points for marginal beneficiaries. However,
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Organized crime, violence and support for the state J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2023-11-25 Gian Maria Campedelli, Gianmarco Daniele, Andrea F.M. Martinangeli, Paolo Pinotti
Citizens’ support is crucial to effectively combat organized crime, a substantial threat to many countries. Contrary to prior studies identifying a negative correlation between crime and trust in the state, studying a representative sample of 5374 individuals in Italy we find that exposing the participants to journalistic images of organized crime-related violence increases trust towards institutions
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Complementarities in behavioral interventions: Evidence from a field experiment on resource conservation J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2023-11-23 Ximeng Fang, Lorenz Goette, Bettina Rockenbach, Matthias Sutter, Verena Tiefenbeck, Samuel Schoeb, Thorsten Staake
Behavioral policy often aims at influencing behavior by mitigating biases due to, e.g., imperfect information or inattention. We study how this is affected by the simultaneous presence of multiple biases arising from different sources, through a field experiment on resource conservation in an energy- and water-intensive everyday activity (showering). One intervention, shower energy reports, primarily
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Encouragement and distortionary effects of conditional cash transfers J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2023-11-15 Gharad Bryan, Shyamal Chowdhury, Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak, Melanie Morten, Joeri Smits
Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs aim to reduce poverty or advance social goals by encouraging desirable behavior that recipients under-invest in. An unintended consequence of conditionality may be the distortion of recipients’ behavior in ways that lower welfare. We first illustrate a range of potential distortions arising from CCT programs around the world. We then show that in the simple
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Academic mobility in U.S. public schools: Evidence from nearly 3 million students J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2023-11-10 Wes Austin, David Figlio, Dan Goldhaber, Eric A. Hanushek, Tara Kilbride, Cory Koedel, Jaeseok Sean Lee, Jin Lou, Umut Özek, Eric Parsons, Steven G. Rivkin, Tim R. Sass, Katharine O. Strunk
We use administrative panel data from seven states covering nearly 3 million students to document and explore variation in “academic mobility,” a term we use to describe the extent to which students’ ranks in the distribution of academic performance change during their public schooling careers. We find that student ranks are highly persistent during elementary and secondary education—that is, academic
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The market-level effects of charter schools on student outcomes: A national analysis of school districts J. Public Econ. (IF 8.262) Pub Date : 2023-11-03 Feng Chen, Douglas N. Harris
We study the total, market-level effects of charter schools, and their mechanisms, on a national level and across multiple outcomes. Using a generalized difference-in-differences method, we find that increasing the charter market share by 10 percentage points increases math and ELA elementary/middle test scores of the entire geographic district in which they locate by 0.01 standard deviations and increases