Accepted Papers

New

Coarse Bayesian Updating

13 February 2026

Alexander M. Jakobsen

Studies have shown that the standard law of belief updating—Bayes’ rule—is descriptively invalid in various settings. In this paper, I introduce and analyze a generalization of Bayes’ rule—Coarse Bayesian updating—accommodating much of the empirical evidence. I characterize the model axiomatically, show how it generates several well-known biases, and derive its main implications in static and dynamic settings.

New

Decision Theory for Treatment Choice Problems with Partial Identification

9 February 2026

José Luis Montiel Olea, Chen Qiu, and Jörg Stoye

We apply classical statistical decision theory to a large class of treatment choice problems with partial identification. We show that, in a general class of problems with Gaussian likelihood, all decision rules are admissible; it is maximin-welfare optimal to ignore all data; and, for severe enough partial identification, there are infinitely many minimax-regret optimal decision rules, all of which sometimes randomize the policy recommendation.

New

Narratives about the Macroeconomy

9 February 2026

Peter Andre, Ingar Haaland, Christopher Roth, Mirko Wiederholt, and Johannes Wohlfart

We study narratives about the macroeconomy—the stories people tell to explain macroeconomic phenomena—in the context of a historic surge in inflation. In our empirical analysis, we field surveys with more than 10,000 US households and 100 academic experts, measure economic narratives in open-ended questions, and represent them as Directed Acyclic Graphs.

New

Dynamic Regulation with Firm Linkages: Evidence from Texas

26 January 2026

Matthew Leisten and Nicholas Vreugdenhil

We evaluate the efficiency of dynamic linked environmental regulation. Linked regulation allows inspectors who uncover violations at one plant to increase future enforcement at other plants that share a common owner. When compliance costs are correlated, regulators can then target scarce enforcement resources towards bad actors without inspecting everyone.

New

Do The Effects of Nudges Persist? Theory and Evidence from 38 Natural Field Experiments

26 January 2026

Alec Brandon, Paul Ferraro, John A. List, Robert D. Metcalfe, Michael K. Price, and Florian Rundhammer

We formalize a research design to uncover the mechanisms underlying long-term reductions in energy consumption caused by a widely implemented nudge. We consider two channels: technology adoption and habit formation. Using data from 38 natural field experiments, we isolate the role of technology adoption by comparing treatment and control homes after the initial resident moves, which discontinues the treatment for a home.

New

Investing in influence: Investors, portfolio firms, and political giving

18 January 2026

Marianne Bertrand, Matilde Bombardini, Raymond Fisman, Francesco Trebbi, and Eyub Yegen

We examine how the rise of institutional ownership has influenced firms’ political activities. We find that, after the acquisition of a large stake, a firm’s political action committee giving mirrors more closely that of the acquiring investor. Consistent with a causal interpretation, this pattern is also observed for acquisitions driven by new index inclusions.

New

Organizational Change and Reference Dependent Preferences

18 January 2026

Klaus M. Schmidt and Jonas von Wangenheim

Reference-dependent preferences can explain several puzzling observations about organizational change. We introduce a dynamic model in which a firm bargains with loss-averse workers about organizational change and wages. We show that change is often stagnant or slow for many periods, followed by a sudden boost in productivity triggered by a crisis.

New

Inference Based on Time-Varying SVARs Identified with Sign Restrictions

16 January 2026

Jonas E. Arias, Juan F. Rubio Ramírez, Minchul Shin, and Daniel F. Waggoner

We propose an approach for Bayesian inference in time-varying structural vector autoregressions (SVARs) identified with sign restrictions. The linchpin of our approach is a class of rotation-invariant time-varying SVARs in which the prior and posterior densities of any sequence of structural parameters belonging to the class are invariant to orthogonal transformations of the sequence.

The Review of Economic Studies Follow

The official account of the Review of Economic Studies, one of the world's top economics journals.

New paper by Andre, Haaland, Roth, Wiederholt, and Wohlfart:

https://www.restud.com/narratives-about-the-macroeconomy/

#REStud #EconX

Reply on Twitter 2021514357759504495 Retweet on Twitter 2021514357759504495 11 Like on Twitter 2021514357759504495 60 Twitter 2021514357759504495

"How to make decisions that are robust to sampling noise but also to misspecification and related concerns? We analyze this problem as one of minimax regret decision making under partial identification."

New paper by Montiel Olea, Qiu & @JoergStoye:

https://www.restud.com/decision-theory-for-treatment-choice-problems-with-partial-identification/

Reply on Twitter 2021159255991001160 Retweet on Twitter 2021159255991001160 11 Like on Twitter 2021159255991001160 38 Twitter 2021159255991001160

How should regulators target their limit enforcement budgets? We quantify the benefits of linked regulation, where regulators dynamically target plants co-owned with other plants with poor compliance records.

New paper by @leistenecon & Vreugdenhil

https://www.restud.com/dynamic-regulation-with-firm-linkages-evidence-from-texas/

Reply on Twitter 2016452332456718336 Retweet on Twitter 2016452332456718336 2 Like on Twitter 2016452332456718336 23 Twitter 2016452332456718336

How do currencies become international?

Bahaj & Reis(@R2Rsquared) show that PBoC swap lines boosted RMB use abroad, revealing a policy lever to jumpstart a currency’s international status.

https://www.restud.com/jumpstarting-an-international-currency/

#REStud
#EconTwitter
#EconX

Reply on Twitter 2013580277319147657 Retweet on Twitter 2013580277319147657 16 Like on Twitter 2013580277319147657 66 Twitter 2013580277319147657