American Economic Review

2023年第11期

Vol. 113, Issue 11，November 2023

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——更多動態(tài)，請持續(xù)關注gzh：理想主義的百年孤獨

? ? ? ? ? A Sufficient Statistics Approach for Macro Policy by?Régis?Barnichon?and?Geert?Mesters The evaluation of macroeconomic policy decisions has traditionally relied on the formulation of a specific economic model. In this work, we show that two statistics are sufficient to detect, often even correct, nonoptimal policies, i.e., policies that do not minimize the loss function. The two sufficient statistics are (i) forecasts for the policy objectives conditional on the policy choice and (ii) the impulse responses of the policy objectives to policy shocks. Both statistics can be estimated without relying on a specific structural economic model. We illustrate the method by studying US monetary policy decisions. ? Beyond Teachers: Estimating Individual School Counselors' Effects on Educational Attainment by?Christine?Mulhern Counselors are a common school resource for students navigating complicated and consequential education choices. I estimate counselors' causal effects using quasi-random assignment policies in Massachusetts. Counselors vary substantially in their effectiveness at increasing high school graduation and college attendance, selectivity, and persistence. Counselor effects on educational attainment are similar in magnitude to teacher effects, but they flow through improved information and assistance more than cognitive or noncognitive skill development. Counselor effectiveness is most important for low-income and low-achieving students, so improving access to effective counseling may be a promising way to increase educational attainment and close socioeconomic gaps in education. ? The Impact of Regulation on Innovation by?Philippe?Aghion,?Antonin?Bergeaud?and?John?Van Reenen We present a framework that can be used to assess the equilibrium impact of regulation on endogenous innovation with heterogeneous firms. We implement this model using French firm-level panel data, where there is a sharp increase in the burden of labor regulations on companies with 50 or more employees. Consistent with the model's qualitative predictions, we find a fall in the fraction of innovating firms just to the left of the regulatory threshold. Furthermore, we find a reduction in the innovation response of firms to demand shocks just below the threshold. Regulation reduces aggregate innovation by 5.7 percent. ? Selection on Welfare Gains: Experimental Evidence from Electricity Plan Choice by?Koichiro?Ito,?Takanori?Ida?and?Makoto?Tanaka We study a problem in which policymakers need to screen self-selected individuals by unobserved heterogeneity in social welfare gains from a policy intervention. In our framework, the marginal treatment effects and marginal treatment responses arise as key statistics to characterize social welfare. We apply this framework to a randomized field experiment on electricity plan choice. Consumers were offered welfare-improving dynamic pricing with randomly assigned take-up incentives. We find that price-elastic consumers—who generate larger welfare gains—are more likely to self-select. Our counterfactual simulations quantify the optimal take-up incentives that exploit observed and unobserved heterogeneity in selection and welfare gains. ? ? Unpacking P-hacking and Publication Bias by?Abel?Brodeur,?Scott?Carrell,?David?Figlio?and?Lester?Lusher We use unique data from journal submissions to identify and unpack publication bias and p-hacking. We find initial submissions display significant bunching, suggesting the distribution among published statistics cannot be fully attributed to a publication bias in peer review. Desk-rejected manuscripts display greater heaping than those sent for review; i.e., marginally significant results are more likely to be desk rejected. Reviewer recommendations, in contrast, are positively associated with statistical significance. Overall, the peer review process has little effect on the distribution of test statistics. Lastly, we track rejected papers and present evidence that the prevalence of publication biases is perhaps not as prominent as feared. ? ? Is There a VA Advantage? Evidence from Dually Eligible Veterans by?David C.?Chan,?David?Card?and?Lowell?Taylor We study public versus private provision of health care for veterans aged 65 and older who may receive care provided by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and in private hospitals financed by Medicare. Utilizing the ambulance design of Doyle et al. (2015), we find that the VA reduces 28-day mortality by 46 percent (4.5 percentage points) and that these survival gains are persistent. The VA also reduces 28-day spending by 21 percent and delivers strikingly different reported services relative to private hospitals. We find suggestive evidence of complementarities between continuity of care, health IT, and integrated care. ? ? Measuring Upward Mobility by?Debraj?Ray???Garance?Genicot We conceptualize and measure upward mobility over income or wealth. At the core of our exercise is the Growth Progressivity Axiom: transfers of instantaneous growth rates from relatively rich to poor individuals increases upward mobility. This axiom, along with mild auxiliary restrictions, identifies an "upward mobility kernel" with a single free parameter, in which mobility is linear in individual growth rates, with geometrically declining weights on baseline incomes. We extend this kernel to trajectories over intervals. The analysis delivers an upward mobility index that does not rely on panel data. That significantly expands our analytical scope to data-poor settings. ? ? Who Controls the Agenda Controls the Legislature by?S.Nageeb?Ali,?B.Douglas?Bernheim,?AlexanderW.?Bloedel?and?Silvia?Console Battilana We model legislative decision-making with an agenda setter who can propose policies sequentially, tailoring each proposal to the status quo that prevails after prior votes. Voters are sophisticated, and the agenda setter cannot commit to future proposals. Nevertheless, the agenda setter obtains her favorite outcome in every equilibrium regardless of the initial default policy. Central to our results is a new condition on preferences, manipulability, that holds in rich policy spaces, including spatial settings and distribution problems. Our findings therefore establish that, despite the sophistication of voters and the absence of commitment power, the agenda setter is effectively a dictator.