Accepted Papers

The Review of Economic Studies is one of the most highly respected academic journals in the field of economics. It is known for publishing leading research in all areas of economics, from microeconomics to macroeconomics. The journal is published by the Oxford University Press.

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Complexity and Satisficing: Theory with Evidence from Chess

Yuval Salant and Jörg L. Spenkuch

We develop a satisficing model of choice in which the available alternatives differ in their inherent complexity. We assume—and experimentally validate—that complexity leads to errors in the perception of alternatives’ values. The model yields sharp predictions about the effect of complexity on choice probabilities, some of which qualitatively contrast with those of maximization-based choice models.

Extreme Categories and Overreaction to News

Spencer Kwon and Johnny Tang

What characteristics of news generate over-or-underreaction? We study the asset-pricing consequences of diagnostic expectations, a model of belief formation based on the representativeness heuristic, in a setting where news events are drawn from categories with extreme distributions of fundamentals. Our model predicts greater over-reaction to news belonging to categories with more extreme outliers, or tail events. We test our theory on a comprehensive database of corporate news that includes news from 24 different categories, including earnings announcements, product launches, M&A, business expansions, and client-related news.

Racial Discrimination and the Social Contract: Evidence from U.S. Army Enlistment during WWII

Nancy Qian and Marco Tabellini

This paper documents that the Pearl Harbor attack triggered a sharp increase in volunteer enlistment rates of American men, the magnitude of the increase was smaller for Black men than for white men and the Black-white gap was larger in counties with higher levels of racial discrimination. The results suggest that political exclusion and discrimination can undermine support for the government during critical times such as war.

Cascades and Fluctuations in an Economy with an Endogenous Production Network

Mathieu Taschereau-Dumouchel

This paper studies the efficient allocation in an economy in which firms are connected through input-output linkages and must pay a fixed cost to produce. When economic conditions are poor, some firms might decide not to operate, thereby severing the links with their neighbors and changing the structure of the production network. Since producers benefit from having access to additional suppliers, nearby firms tend to operate, or not, together. As a result, the production network features clusters of operating firms, and the exit of a producer can create a cascade of firm shutdowns.

The Economics and Econometrics of Gene – Environment Interplay

Pietro Biroli, Titus Galama, Stephanie von Hinke, Hans van Kippersluis, Cornelius A. Rietveld, and Kevin Thom

We discuss how to estimate the interplay between genes (nature) and environments (nurture), with an empirical illustration of the moderating effect of school-starting age on one’s genetic predisposition towards educational attainment. We argue that gene–environment (G × E) studies can be instrumental for (i) assessing treatment effect heterogeneity, (ii) testing theoretical predictions, and (iii) uncovering mechanisms, thereby improving understanding of how (policy) interventions affect population subgroups.

A Q-theory of Banks

Juliane Begenau, Saki Bigio, Jeremy Majerovitz, and Matias Vieyra

Bank capital requirements are based on book values, which are slow to reflect losses. In this paper, we develop a dynamic model of banks to study the interaction of regulation and delayed accounting. Our model explains four stylized facts: book and market values diverge during crises, the market-to-book ratio predicts future profitability, book leverage constraints rarely bind strictly even as market leverage fans out during crises, and banks delever gradually after net-worth shocks.

Pareto Improvements in the Contest for College Admissions

Kala Krishna, Sergey Lychagin, Wojciech Olszewski, Ron Siegel, and Chloe Tergiman

Many countries base college admissions on a centrally-administered test. Students invest a great deal of resources to improve their performance on the test, and there is growing concern about the high costs associated with these activities. We consider modifying the test by introducing performance-disclosure policies that pool intervals of performance rankings. Pooling affects the equilibrium allocation of students to colleges, which hurts some students and benefits others, but also affects students’ effort.

How Important Is Health Inequality for Lifetime Earnings Inequality?

Roozbeh Hosseini, Karen Kopecky, and Kai Zhao

Using a dynamic panel approach, we provide empirical evidence that negative health shocks significantly reduce earnings. The effect is primarily driven by the participation margin and is concentrated among the less educated and those in poor health. Next, we develop a life cycle model of labor supply featuring risky and heterogeneous frailty profiles that affect individuals’ productivity, likelihood of access to social insurance, disutility from work, mortality, and medical expenses.

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A new paper by @THEdanjlewis & Mertens makes the Stock-Yogo test for weak instruments with multiple HAC robust endogenous regressors, propose tests for bias in a single coefficients, and extend to test general rank deficiency in the first stage

https://www.restud.com/a-robust-test-for-weak-instruments-for-2sls-with-multiple-endogenous-regressors/

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New paper by @pilossopher, @davide_melc & Lewis estimates the distribution of spending responses to stimulus payments. MPCs are heterogeneous, with observables explaining 8% of the variation, highlighting the crucial role of latent heterogeneity

https://www.restud.com/latent-heterogeneity-in-the-marginal-propensity-to-consume/
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New paper, "Firm Quality Dynamics and the Slippery Slope of Credit Intervention" by @wenhaoli111 & Li shows that direct government and central bank lending can distort firm quality and fuel future interventions.

https://www.restud.com/firm-quality-dynamics-and-the-slippery-slope-of-credit-intervention/

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"We show how opportunity costs, a core economic concept, can explain seemingly non-rational behaviour (like cyclical choices) within a preference-maximising framework."

New paper by @PaolaManzini, @MarcoMa75263273 & @ulkulev

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https://www.restud.com/choice-and-opportunity-costs/

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