TY - JOUR TI - Tourism Sector and Environmental Quality: Evidence from Top 20 Tourist Destinations T2 - Strategies in Sustainable Tourism, Economic Growth and Clean Energy DA - 2020/// PY - 2020/// DO - 10.1007/978-3-030-59675-0_3 UR - https://publons.com/publon/50906264/ ER - TY - CHAP TI - Conducting cost-benefit analyses using scanner and label data AU - Muth, Mary K. AU - Okrent, Abigail M. AU - Zhen, Chen AU - Karns, Shawn A. T2 - Using Scanner Data for Food Policy Research AB - Scanner and label data have numerous applications for estimating the costs and benefits of policies and regulations affecting food and beverage products. When estimating costs, the number of barcodes, formulas, servings, manufacturers, or other units of analysis can be calculated using scanner data. When estimating benefits, the volume of sales can be used as a proxy for consumption in modeling the potential improvements in health associated with food choices. In this chapter, we describe the different ways that store scanner data and household scanner data, with or without linking to label data, can be used as the basis for cost-benefit analyses. We then provide an overview of a labeling cost model and a reformulation cost model that were constructed using 2012 Nielsen Scantrack store scanner data. PY - 2020/// DO - 10.1016/B978-0-12-814507-4.00008-0 SP - 203-229 PB - Academic Press SN - 9780128145074 ER - TY - CHAP TI - Estimating food demand systems using scanner data AU - Muth, Mary K. AU - Okrent, Abigail M. AU - Zhen, Chen AU - Karns, Shawn A. T2 - Using Scanner Data for Food Policy Research AB - Demand system estimates are useful tools to examine the effects of policy-induced changes in prices (i.e., taxes and subsidies), income, changes in food labels, and advertising on food purchasing patterns. This chapter illustrates techniques, opportunities, and challenges of estimating a food demand system using a combination of retail and household scanner data. It includes a general overview of estimating demand systems and an application of estimating a demand system for salty snacks using household purchase and retail sales information recorded in the IRI Academic Datasets. PY - 2020/// DO - 10.1016/B978-0-12-814507-4.00006-7 SP - 141-175 PB - Academic Press SN - 9780128145074 ER - TY - CHAP TI - Insights from past food research using scanner data AU - Muth, Mary K. AU - Okrent, Abigail M. AU - Zhen, Chen AU - Karns, Shawn A. T2 - Using Scanner Data for Food Policy Research AB - Numerous studies have used store and household scanner data to investigate food policy issues. Some studies have focused on assessing the statistical properties of scanner data to provide a better understanding of the data. Topics of focus related to food policy include food pricing, food access, food assistance, market competition, health and nutrition claims, nutritional content, diet quality, and food safety. This chapter provides an overview of novel and interesting ways scanner data have been used to address food policy issues in the literature. PY - 2020/// DO - 10.1016/B978-0-12-814507-4.00005-5 SP - 59–140 PB - Academic Press SN - 9780128145074 ER - TY - CHAP TI - Methodological approaches for using scanner data AU - Muth, Mary K. AU - Okrent, Abigail M. AU - Zhen, Chen AU - Karns, Shawn A. T2 - Using Scanner Data for Food Policy Research AB - Methodological issues that arise when working with scanner data vary depending on whether researchers are using data reported at the store level or household level or are using product-level data aggregated to geographic areas, marketing channels, or demographic categories. Complications arise particularly with underreporting at the store or household level, unreported types of products, and types of variables provided in analysis datasets. To account for common limitations or to prepare data in an appropriate form to address a research question, researchers may need to create their own aggregated data, adjust quantities or prices to make the data more representative or complete, construct appropriate time-series price indices, and determine whether to weight the data. PY - 2020/// DO - 10.1016/B978-0-12-814507-4.00004-3 SP - 41-57 PB - Academic Press SN - 9780128145074 ER - TY - CHAP TI - What is scanner data and why is it useful for food policy research? AU - Muth, Mary K. AU - Okrent, Abigail M. AU - Zhen, Chen AU - Karns, Shawn A. T2 - Using Scanner Data for Food Policy Research AB - Scanner data obtained from stores or household panels allow for much more detailed analyses of food purchase behavior than previously possible using aggregated data. The data are recorded at the scannable barcode level and can be linked to detailed information on characteristics of products, purchasers, and stores. The main commercial suppliers of store and household scanner data across the globe are Kantar, IRI, and Nielsen, but sometimes researchers obtain data directly from stores. The data are increasingly being used for a broad range of food policy research applications. When using the data, researchers should have an understanding of the data collection procedures used by the data vendors; the extent of coverage across geographies, stores, households, and products; and potential barriers or other practical considerations. PY - 2020/// DO - 10.1016/B978-0-12-814507-4.00001-8 SP - 1–12 PB - Academic Press SN - 9780128145074 ER - TY - CHAP TI - Label and nutrition data at the barcode level AU - Muth, Mary K. AU - Okrent, Abigail M. AU - Zhen, Chen AU - Karns, Shawn A. T2 - Using Scanner Data for Food Policy Research AB - For many types of food research and policy studies, access to information from product labels, particularly nutrient content and product claims, enables or substantially enhances analyses. Some scanner data companies provide label information linked to purchase or sales data at the barcode level. Other data vendors specialize only in providing label data, and researchers must acquire purchase or sales data from a separate source. Data vendors obtain label data directly from manufacturers or through some means of coding data from product labels in the marketplace. We provide a list of suggested considerations when researchers seek to acquire label data for conducting food policy research. PY - 2020/// DO - 10.1016/B978-0-12-814507-4.00003-1 SP - 31-39 PB - Academic Press SN - 9780128145074 ER - TY - CHAP TI - Measuring the food environment using scanner data AU - Muth, Mary K. AU - Okrent, Abigail M. AU - Zhen, Chen AU - Karns, Shawn A. T2 - Using Scanner Data for Food Policy Research AB - Household scanner data can be used to calculate measures of the healthfulness of the food environment. These measures can then be used to model the effects of the food environment on the nutritional quality of household food purchases. In this chapter, we demonstrate an approach to measuring the healthfulness of the food environment using scanner and dietary recall data. Using scanner data purchases and the estimated parameters from regression models with dietary recall data, we calculate household-level and retail chain-level approximate healthy eating indexes (aHEI). We then use these measures in reduced-form models of the nutritional quality of household food purchases while accounting for the endogeneity associated with household and store location choice. PY - 2020/// DO - 10.1016/B978-0-12-814507-4.00007-9 SP - 177–202 PB - Academic Press SN - 9780128145074 ER - TY - CHAP TI - Sources of scanner data across the globe AU - Muth, Mary K. AU - Okrent, Abigail M. AU - Zhen, Chen AU - Karns, Shawn A. T2 - Using Scanner Data for Food Policy Research AB - IRI, Kantar, and Nielsen are the main suppliers of commercially available household and store scanner data across the globe. In some cases, scanner data companies partner with each other to collect and sell data, but each offers different coverage of countries and types of datasets. In some cases, researchers have obtained direct access to scanner data from stores for use in conducting analyses and for running experiments within stores. IRI and Nielsen also provide a limited amount of data to academic researchers at a reduced cost. We provide a list of suggested considerations when researchers seek to purchase or otherwise acquire scanner data for use in conducting food policy research. PY - 2020/// DO - 10.1016/B978-0-12-814507-4.00002-X SP - 13-30 PB - Academic Press SN - 9780128145074 ER - TY - JOUR TI - The trade credit channel and monetary policy transmission: Empirical evidence from US panel data AU - Altunok, Fatih AU - Mitchell, Karlyn AU - Pearce, Douglas K. T2 - QUARTERLY REVIEW OF ECONOMICS AND FINANCE AB - We investigate the US trade credit channel proposed by Meltzer (1960). We estimate reduced-form trade credit supply and demand models on quarterly firm-level data for most public corporations from 1988 to 2007. We use a novel method of distinguishing firms by access to funds using the indexes of Whited and Wu (2006) and Altman (1968). Tight monetary policy produced greater expansion of receivables than payables, expansion of receivables that varied by funds-access, and some expansion of payables by firms with poor access. Tight policy produced expansion of net trade credit by corporations which flowed to entities like private businesses, a major component of the channel. DA - 2020/11// PY - 2020/11// DO - 10.1016/j.qref.2020.03.001 VL - 78 SP - 226-250 SN - 1878-4259 UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85084150058&partnerID=MN8TOARS KW - Trade credit KW - Monetary policy KW - Corporate finance KW - Credit cycle KW - Credit rationing ER - TY - JOUR TI - How Are Employers Responding to an Aging Workforce? AU - Clark, Robert L. AU - Ritter, Beth M. T2 - GERONTOLOGIST AB - Abstract The American population is aging and changes in the population’s age structure are leading to an aging of the nation’s workforce. In addition, changes to age-specific participation rates are exacerbating the aging of the national labor force. An important challenge for firms and organizations is how does workforce aging affect labor costs, productivity, and the sustainability of the organization. This article examines employer responses to workforce aging, including changes to retirement policies, modification in working conditions, adoption of phased retirement plans, and reforming other employee benefits. DA - 2020/12// PY - 2020/12// DO - 10.1093/geront/gnaa031 VL - 60 IS - 8 SP - 1403-1410 SN - 1758-5341 KW - Work (after retirement, occupation) KW - Retirement KW - Demography ER - TY - JOUR TI - The Oil Price-Macroeconomic fundamentals nexus for emerging market economies: Evidence from a wavelet analysis AU - Tiwari, Aviral Kumar AU - Raheem, Ibrahim D. AU - Bozoklu, Seref AU - Hammoudeh, Shawkat T2 - International Journal of Finance and Economics AB - Abstract This study uses the (partial) cross wavelet analysis and the phase difference to decompose the time frequency effects of oil prices on major aggregate macroeconomic fundamentals (real effective exchange rate index, interest rate yield spread and stock market index) of emerging market economies, aiming to discern the direction of the lead–lag relationship between these variables at different time scales over the period December 1987 to April 2017. Our results suggest that there is a strong coherence between oil prices and the individual components of the macroeconomic fundamentals at higher frequencies (0–1 years) in those economies. The phase difference analysis shows that the variables move within the phase for the widths of higher frequency bands (1–2 and 2–4 years), but it is difficult to ascertain the leading/lagging variables. As a robustness check, the results of the conditional analysis extend the significance of the coherency to 1–2 years. However, the phase difference of the robustness check indicates that oil prices and the macroeconomic fundamentals only move within the phase at lower frequency band widths (4–8 and 8–16 years). The existence of the time‐varying comovement between the oil price and the aggregate macroeconomic fundamentals across heterogeneous time frequencies indicates that investors making decisions about their portfolio compositions and policy makers adjusting various economic stabilization schemes for greater stability should take account of varying frequency bands. DA - 2020/// PY - 2020/// DO - 10.1002/ijfe.2231 UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85089886206&partnerID=MN8TOARS KW - aggregate macroeconomic fundamentals KW - cross wavelets KW - oil price KW - wavelet analysis KW - wavelet coherency ER - TY - JOUR TI - Reassessing the environmental Kuznets curve: a summability approach for emerging market economies AU - Bozoklu, S. AU - Demir, A.O. AU - Ataer, S. T2 - Eurasian Economic Review AB - This study investigates the robustness and validity of the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis for Brazil, Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, Greece, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Peru, the Philippines, Thailand, and Turkey. The hypothesis postulates the connection between pollution and income follows an inverted U-shaped path, which means that environmental degeneration rises with income during the beginning phases of economic growth; however, it declines after reaching a specified peak. For the empirical part of our study, we employed summability procedures designed to analyze the nonlinear long-term relationship for persistent processes. The yearly data consist of carbon dioxide emission and gross domestic product, both of which are expressed in per capita terms and cover the period from 1960 to 2014. The results illustrate the Environmental Kuznets Curve hypothesis holds for China, Colombia, India, South Korea, and the Philippines, which means that environmental problems wither away with economic growth and are resolved automatically without any need for policy action in these countries. DA - 2020/// PY - 2020/// DO - 10.1007/s40822-019-00127-z VL - 10 IS - 3 SP - 513-531 UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85081313573&partnerID=MN8TOARS KW - Balancedness KW - CO(2)emissions KW - Co-summability KW - Emerging markets KW - Environmental Kuznets curve KW - Nonlinear co-integration ER - TY - JOUR TI - Persistence in per capita energy consumption: A fractional integration approach with a Fourier function AU - Bozoklu, S. AU - Yilanci, V. AU - Gorus, M.S. T2 - Energy Economics AB - In this study, we investigate the degree of persistence for aggregate energy consumption per capita for 113 countries over the period 1960–2014 through a recently introduced fractional unit root test with a Fourier function to allow multiple smooth structural breaks. We also employ the ADF unit root test, the efficient Wald test for fractional unit-roots, and the Fourier ADF test to make a comparison and to enrich the study. The empirical results considering the fractional Fourier unit root test indicate two crucial points. First, shocks have only temporary effects on energy consumption per capita, and it will vanish slowly as a result of the long memory characteristic. Therefore even transitory shocks have persistence effects, which require permanent policies due to their nature. This inference is different from what would be erroneously suggested by the dichotomous approach for stationarity and nonstationarity that temporary shocks will have transitory effects. Second, the integration degree of energy consumption per capita may change due to the existence of a structural break; therefore, policymakers must be aware of the varying integration degree to design and implement the best policies. DA - 2020/// PY - 2020/// DO - 10.1016/j.eneco.2020.104926 VL - 91 UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85090199330&partnerID=MN8TOARS KW - Energy consumption KW - Fractional integration KW - Fourier function ER - TY - JOUR TI - Are BRICS countries pollution havens? Evidence from a bootstrap ARDL bounds testing approach with a Fourier function AU - Yilanci, V. AU - Bozoklu, S. AU - Gorus, M.S. T2 - Sustainable Cities and Society AB - The goal of this paper to determine whether the effect of foreign direct investment inflows on the environment is pollutive or pollution-reducing for BRICS countries―Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa―using annual data for the period 1982–2014. For that purpose, this study examines the long-run impact of FDI inflow and energy use on ecological footprint and its components―crop land, grazing land, forest land, fishing ground, built-up land, and carbon footprint―by introducing and utilizing the bootstrap autoregressive distributed lag model with a Fourier function (FARDL) for cointegration. The findings demonstrate that although the effect of FDI inflows on the footprints is mixed in Brazil and Russia, it is positive on environmental degradation regarding ecological footprint and carbon footprint in India. Furthermore, it is found that FDI inflows increase environmental quality in China for cropland and grazing land footprints and in South Africa for crop land, grazing land, fishing ground, and built-up footprints. Furthermore, the long-run effect of energy consumption is mostly pollutive for BRICS countries. DA - 2020/// PY - 2020/// DO - 10.1016/j.scs.2020.102035 VL - 55 UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85078057110&partnerID=MN8TOARS KW - BRICS KW - Ecological footprint KW - FDI inflow KW - Pollution halo hypothesis KW - Pollution haven hypothesis KW - Fourier KW - ARDL test ER - TY - JOUR TI - Inflation and professional forecast dynamics: An evaluation of stickiness, persistence, and volatility AU - Mertens, Elmar AU - Nason, James M. T2 - QUANTITATIVE ECONOMICS AB - This paper studies the joint dynamics of U.S. inflation and a term structure of average inflation predictions taken from the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF). We estimate these joint dynamics by combining an unobserved components (UC) model of inflation and a sticky‐information forecast mechanism. The UC model decomposes inflation into trend and gap components, and innovations to trend and gap inflation are affected by stochastic volatility. A novelty of our model is to allow for time‐variation in inflation‐gap persistence as well as in the frequency of forecast updating under sticky information. The model is estimated with sequential Monte Carlo methods that include a particle learning filter and a Rao–Blackwellized particle smoother. Based on data from 1968 Q 4 to 2018 Q 3, estimates show that (i) longer horizon average SPF inflation predictions inform estimates of trend inflation; (ii) inflation gap persistence is countercyclical before the Volcker disinflation and acyclical afterwards; (iii) by 1990 sticky‐information inflation forecast updating is less frequent than it was earlier in the sample; and (iv) the drop in the frequency of the sticky‐information forecast updating occurs at the same time persistent shocks become less important for explaining movements in inflation. Our findings support the view that stickiness in survey forecasts is not invariant to the inflation process. DA - 2020/11// PY - 2020/11// DO - 10.3982/QE980 VL - 11 IS - 4 SP - 1485-1520 SN - 1759-7331 KW - Inflation KW - sticky information KW - professional forecasts KW - unobserved components KW - stochastic volatility KW - time‐ KW - varying parameters KW - Bayesian KW - particle filter KW - C11 KW - C32 KW - E31 ER - TY - JOUR TI - (Il)legal Assignments in School Choice AU - Ehlers, Lars AU - Morrill, Thayer T2 - REVIEW OF ECONOMIC STUDIES AB - Abstract In public school choice, students with strict preferences are assigned to schools. Schools are endowed with priorities over students. Incorporating constraints from different applications, priorities are often modelled as choice functions over sets of students. It has been argued that the most desirable criterion for an assignment is stability; there should not exist any blocking pair: no student shall prefer some school to her assigned school and have higher priority than some student who got into that school or the school has an empty seat. We propose a blocking notion where in addition it must be possible to assign the student to her preferred school. We then define the following stability criterion for a set of assignments: a set of assignments is legal if and only if any assignment outside the set is blocked with some assignment in the set and no two assignments inside the set block each other. We show that under very basic conditions on priorities, there always exists a unique legal set of assignments, and that this set has a structure common to the set of stable assignments: (i) it is a lattice and (ii) it satisfies the rural hospitals theorem. The student-optimal legal assignment is efficient and provides a solution for the conflict between stability and efficiency. DA - 2020/7// PY - 2020/7// DO - 10.1093/restud/rdz041 VL - 87 IS - 4 SP - 1837-1875 SN - 1467-937X KW - School choice KW - Stability KW - Efficiency ER - TY - JOUR TI - On endowments and indivisibility: partial ownership in the Shapley-Scarf model AU - Harless, Patrick AU - Phan, William T2 - ECONOMIC THEORY AB - We introduce a parameterized measure of partial ownership, the $$\alpha $$ -endowment lower bound, appropriate to probabilistic allocation. Strikingly, among all convex combinations of efficient and group strategy-proof rules, only Gale’s Top Trading Cycles is sd efficient and meets a positive $$\alpha $$ -endowment lower bound (Theorem 2); for efficiency, partial ownership must in fact be complete. We also characterize the rules meeting each $$\alpha $$ -endowment lower bound (Theorem 1). For each bound, the family is a semilattice ordered by strength of ownership rights. It includes rules where agents’ partial ownership lower bounds are met exactly, rules conferring stronger ownership rights, and the full endowments of TTC. This illustrates the trade-off between sd efficiency and flexible choice of ownership rights. DA - 2020/9// PY - 2020/9// DO - 10.1007/s00199-019-01213-8 VL - 70 IS - 2 SP - 411-435 SN - 1432-0479 KW - Object reallocation KW - Top trading cycles KW - alpha-endowment ER - TY - JOUR TI - Measuring the slowly evolving trend in US inflation with professional forecasts AU - Nason, James M. AU - Smith, Gregor W. T2 - JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECONOMETRICS AB - Summary Much research studies US inflation history with a trend‐cycle model with unobserved components, where the trend may be viewed as the Fed's evolving inflation target or long‐horizon expected inflation. We provide a novel way to measure the slowly evolving trend and the cycle (or inflation gap), by combining inflation predictions from the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) with realized inflation. The SPF forecasts may be treated either as rational expectations (RE) or updating according to a sticky information (SI) law of motion. We estimate RE and SI state‐space models with stochastic volatility on samples of consumer price index and gross national product/gross domestic product deflator inflation and the associated SPF inflation predictions using a particle Metropolis–Markov chain Monte Carlo sampler. The trend converges to 2% and its volatility declines over time—two tendencies largely complete by the late 1990s. DA - 2020/7/14/ PY - 2020/7/14/ DO - 10.1002/jae.2784 SP - SN - 1099-1255 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Area-Selective Deposition: Fundamentals, Applications, and Future Outlook AU - Parsons, Gregory N. AU - Clark, Robert D. T2 - CHEMISTRY OF MATERIALS AB - This review provides an overview of area-selective thin film deposition (ASD) with a primary focus on vapor-phase thin film formation via chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and atomic layer deposition (ALD). Area-selective deposition has been successfully implemented in microelectronic processes, but most approaches to date rely on high-temperature reactions to achieve the desired substrate sensitivity. Continued size and performance scaling of microelectronics, as well as new materials, patterning methods, and device fabrication schemes are seeking solutions for new low-temperature (<400 °C) ASD methods for dielectrics, metals, and organic thin films. To provide an overview of the ASD field, this article critically reviews key challenges that must be overcome for ASD to be successful in microelectronics and other fields, including descriptions of current process application needs. We provide an overview of basic mechanisms in film nucleation during CVD and ALD and summarize current known ASD approaches for semiconductors, metals, dielectrics, and organic materials. For a few key materials, selectivity is quantitatively compared for different reaction precursors, giving important insight into needs for favorable reactant and reaction design. We summarize current limitations of ASD and future opportunities that could be achieved using advanced bottom-up atomic scale processes. DA - 2020/6/23/ PY - 2020/6/23/ DO - 10.1021/acs.chemmater.0c00722 VL - 32 IS - 12 SP - 4920-4953 SN - 1520-5002 ER - TY - JOUR TI - High school start times and student achievement: Looking beyond test scores AU - Lenard, Matthew AU - Morrill, Melinda Sandler AU - Westall, John T2 - ECONOMICS OF EDUCATION REVIEW AB - The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that U.S. secondary schools begin after 8:30 a.m. to better align with the circadian rhythms of adolescents. Yet due to economic and logistic considerations, the vast majority of high schools begin the school day considerably earlier. We leverage a quasi-natural experiment in which five comprehensive high schools in one of the nation’s largest school systems moved start times forty minutes earlier to better coordinate with earlier-start high schools. Here, disruption effects should exacerbate any harmful consequences. We report on the effect of earlier start times on a broad range of outcomes, including mandatory ACT test scores, absenteeism, on-time progress in high school, and college-going. While we fail to find evidence of harmful effects on test scores, we do see a rise in absenteeism and tardiness rates, as well as higher rates of dropping out of high school. These results suggest that the harmful effects of early start times may not be well captured by considering test scores alone. DA - 2020/6// PY - 2020/6// DO - 10.1016/j.econedurev.2020.101975 VL - 76 SP - SN - 1873-7382 KW - School start times KW - High school KW - ACT test KW - Non-cognitive skills KW - Absenteeism ER - TY - JOUR TI - Explicit vs. statistical targeting in affirmative action: Theory and evidence from Chicago's exam schools AU - Dur, Umut AU - Pathak, Parag A. AU - Sonmez, Tayfun T2 - JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY DA - 2020/5// PY - 2020/5// DO - 10.1016/j.jet.2020.1049960022 VL - 187 SP - SN - 1095-7235 KW - Integration KW - Diversity KW - Targeting KW - Precedence ER - TY - JOUR TI - Constrained stability in two-sided matching markets AU - Afacan, Mustafa Oguz AU - Dur, Umut Mert T2 - SOCIAL CHOICE AND WELFARE DA - 2020/10// PY - 2020/10// DO - 10.1007/s00355-020-01252-4 VL - 55 IS - 3 SP - 477-494 SN - 1432-217X ER - TY - JOUR TI - Risk aversion over price variability: experimental evidence AU - Zeytoon Nejad Moosavian, Seyyed Ali AU - Hammond, Robert AU - Goodwin, Barry K. T2 - APPLIED ECONOMICS LETTERS AB - Eliciting risk attitudes is of crucial importance in economics. We test whether the degree of risk aversion that an individual exhibits in the context of the direct utility function is equivalent t... DA - 2020/12/14/ PY - 2020/12/14/ DO - 10.1080/13504851.2020.1717426 VL - 27 IS - 21 SP - 1739-1745 SN - 1466-4291 KW - Risk aversion KW - laboratory experiment KW - direct utility function KW - experimental elicitations KW - duality ER - TY - JOUR TI - The Aging of the Baby Boomers: Demographics and Propagation of Tax Shocks AU - Ferraro, Domenico AU - Fiori, Giuseppe T2 - AMERICAN ECONOMIC JOURNAL-MACROECONOMICS AB - We study how the changing demographic composition of the US labor force has affected the response of the unemployment rate to marginal tax rate shocks. Using narratively identified tax changes as proxies for structural shocks, we establish that the responsiveness of the unemployment rates to tax changes varies significantly across age groups: the unemployment rate response of the young is nearly twice as large as that of the old. This heterogeneity is the channel through which shifts in the age composition of the labor force impact the response of the unemployment rate to tax cuts. We find that the aging of the baby boomers considerably reduces the effects of tax cuts on aggregate unemployment. (JEL E24, E62, H24, H31, J21) DA - 2020/4// PY - 2020/4// DO - 10.1257/mac.20160419 VL - 12 IS - 2 SP - 167-193 SN - 1945-7715 ER - TY - JOUR TI - Hours and employment over the business cycle: A structural analysis AU - Cacciatore, Matteo AU - Fiori, Giuseppe AU - Traum, Nora T2 - REVIEW OF ECONOMIC DYNAMICS AB - We conduct Bayesian inference on a quantitative business-cycle model with search-and-matching frictions and a neoclassical hours-supply decision. Likelihood maximization with both U.S. macroeconomic and labor data shows the model cannot jointly reproduce the comovement of the labor margins with themselves and with macro data. A parsimonious set of features reconciles the model with the data: non-separable preferences with parametrized wealth effects and costly hours adjustment. The model offers a structural explanation for the observed time-varying comovement between the labor margins, being either positive or negative, across post-war U.S. recessions and recoveries. Moreover, the estimated model shows adjustment in the intensive margin contributes up to half the dynamics of total hours in these episodes, as intensive-margin adjustments increase employment losses during recessions and delay employment recoveries. DA - 2020/1// PY - 2020/1// DO - 10.1016/j.red.2019.07.001 VL - 35 SP - 240-262 SN - 1096-6099 KW - Bayesian estimation KW - Business cycles KW - Employment KW - Hours ER - TY - JOUR TI - Obvious manipulations AU - Troyan, Peter AU - Morrill, Thayer T2 - JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC THEORY AB - A mechanism is strategy-proof if agents can never profitably manipulate it, in any state of the world; however, not all non-strategy-proof mechanisms are equally easy to manipulate - some are more “obviously” manipulable than others. We propose a formal definition of an obvious manipulation in which agents compare worst cases to worst cases and best cases to best cases. We show that a profitable manipulation is obvious if and only if it can be identified as profitable by a cognitively limited agent who is unable to engage in contingent reasoning, as in Li (2017). Finally, we show that this system of categorization is both tractable and intuitively appealing by classifying common non-strategy-proof mechanisms as either obviously manipulable (OM) or not obviously manipulable (NOM). DA - 2020/1// PY - 2020/1// DO - 10.1016/j.jet.2019.104970 VL - 185 SP - SN - 1095-7235 KW - Obvious strategy-proofness KW - Incentives KW - Manipulability KW - Mechanism design ER - TY - JOUR TI - Inference in partially identified models with many moment inequalities using Lasso AU - Bugni, Federico A. AU - Caner, Mehmet AU - Kock, Anders Bredahl AU - Lahiri, Soumendra T2 - JOURNAL OF STATISTICAL PLANNING AND INFERENCE AB - This paper considers inference in a partially identified moment (in)equality model with many moment inequalities. We propose a novel two-step inference procedure that combines the methods proposed by Chernozhukov et al. (2018a) (Chernozhukov et al., 2018a, hereafter) with a first step moment inequality selection based on the Lasso. Our method controls asymptotic size uniformly, both in the underlying parameter and the data distribution. Also, the power of our method compares favorably with that of the corresponding two-step method in Chernozhukov et al. (2018a) for large parts of the parameter space, both in theory and in simulations. Finally, we show that our Lasso-based first step can be implemented by thresholding standardized sample averages, and so it is straightforward to implement. DA - 2020/5// PY - 2020/5// DO - 10.1016/j.jspi.2019.09.013 VL - 206 SP - 211-248 SN - 1873-1171 KW - Many moment inequalities KW - Self-normalizing sum KW - Multiplier bootstrap KW - Empirical bootstrap KW - Lasso KW - Inequality selection ER - TY - JOUR TI - Target Date Defaults in a Public Sector Retirement Saving Plan AU - Clark, Robert L. AU - Mitchell, Olivia S. T2 - SOUTHERN ECONOMIC JOURNAL AB - Little is known about whether employee retirement saving patterns change when public sector employers implement Target Date Funds (TDFs) as the default plan investment. We use administrative and survey data from a large government entity to track participation, contributions, and asset allocation impacts of TDF introduction. We show that those mapped into TDFs did not alter their holdings so that the reform resulted in higher equity shares, especially for women, younger workers, and low‐seniority employees. The least risk‐tolerant and financially literate employees held 12 percentage points more equity than previously. Moreover, defaulting public employees into TDF had a profoundly sticky effect on their subsequent investment behavior. DA - 2020/1// PY - 2020/1// DO - 10.1002/soej.12415 VL - 86 IS - 3 SP - 1133-1149 SN - 2325-8012 ER - TY - JOUR TI - HOW DID UNCONVENTIONAL MONETARY POLICY AFFECT ECONOMIC FORECASTS? AU - Mitchell, Karlyn AU - Pearce, Douglas K. T2 - CONTEMPORARY ECONOMIC POLICY AB - We study how unconventional monetary policy announcements affected professional forecasters' predictions of bond rates, gross domestic product growth and inflation using data from the monthly survey by the Wall Street Journal . We find that unconventional monetary policy (UMP) announcements moved predicted bond rates in the direction the Fed intended. UMP announcements had differential impacts on forecasters' predictions; they also tended to move growth and inflation predictions in directions opposite those the Fed intended due to Fed information effects. A policy implication of our study is that the Fed should communicate economic projections to the public separately from monetary policy announcements to mitigate Fed information effects. ( JEL E52, E58) DA - 2020/1// PY - 2020/1// DO - 10.1111/coep.12440 VL - 38 IS - 1 SP - 206-220 SN - 1465-7287 UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-85070491283&partnerID=MN8TOARS ER -