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Patents, News, and Business Cycles

Silvia Miranda-Agrippino, Sinem Hacioglu-Hoke, and Kristina Bluwstein

We exploit information in patent applications to construct an instrumental variable for the identification of technology news shocks that relaxes all the identifying assumptions traditionally used in the literature. The instrument recovers news shocks that have no effect on aggregate productivity in the short-run, but are a significant driver of its trend component. The shock prompts a broad-based expansion in anticipation of the future increase in TFP, with output, consumption, and investment all rising well before any material increase in TFP is recorded.

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What’s My Employee Worth? The Effects of Salary Benchmarking

Zoe B. Cullen, Shengwu Li, and Ricardo Perez-Truglia

Firms are allowed to use aggregate data on market salaries to set pay, a practice known as salary benchmarking. Using national payroll data, we study firms that gain access to a tool that reveals market benchmarks for each job title. Using a difference-in-differences design, we find that the benchmark information reduces salary dispersion by 25%. Thus, salary dispersion must stem partly from aggregate uncertainty about the salaries offered by other firms.

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Algorithmic Recommendations and Human Discretion

Victoria Angelova, Will Dobbie, and Crystal S. Yang

Human decision-makers frequently override the recommendations generated by predictive algorithms, but it is unclear whether these discretionary overrides add valuable private information or reintroduce human biases and mistakes. We develop new quasi-experimental tools to measure the impact of human discretion over an algorithm on the accuracy of decisions, even when the outcome of interest is only selectively observed, in the context of bail decisions.

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Supply Chain Disruption and Reorganization: Theory and Evidence From Ukraine’s War

Vasily Korovkin, Alexey Makarin, and Yuhei Miyauchi

How do localized conflicts disrupt supply chains and prompt firms to reorganize them? How do these forces affect firm-level and aggregate economic activity? Using firm-to-firm Ukrainian railway-shipment data before and during the 2014 Russia-Ukraine conflict, we document that firms with prior supplier and buyer exposure to the conflict areas substantially decreased their output. Simultaneously, firms reorganized their production linkages away from partners directly or indirectly exposed to the conflict shock.

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Temporal-Difference Estimation of Dynamic Discrete Choice Models

Karun Adusumilli and Dita Eckardt

We study the use of Temporal-Difference learning for estimating the structural parameters in dynamic discrete choice models. Our algorithms are based on the conditional choice probability approach but use functional approximations to estimate various terms in the pseudo-log-likelihood function. We suggest two approaches: The first—linear semi-gradient—provides approximations to the recursive terms using basis functions. The second—Approximate Value Iteration—builds a sequence of approximations to the recursive terms by solving non-parametric estimation problems.

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Normalizations and misspecification in skill formation models

Joachim Freyberger

An important class of structural models studies the determinants of skill formation and the optimal timing of interventions. In this paper, I provide new identification results for these models and investigate the effects of seemingly innocuous scale and location restrictions on parameters of interest. To do so, I first characterize the identified set of all parameters without these additional restrictions and show that important policy-relevant parameters are point identified under weaker assumptions than commonly used in the literature. The implications of imposing standard scale and location restrictions depend on how the model is specified, but they generally impact the interpretation of parameters and may affect counterfactuals.

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Contract Terms, Employment Shocks, and Default in Credit Cards

Sara G. Castellanos, Diego Jiménez-Hernández, Aprajit Mahajan, Eduardo Alcaraz Prous, and Enrique Seira

Regulatory concerns over a tension between expanding financial access and limiting default have led to significant restrictions on contract terms in a number of countries, despite limited evidence on their effectiveness. We use a large nation-wide RCT to examine new borrower responses to changes in interest rates and minimum payments for a credit card that accounted for 15% of all first-time formal loans in Mexico. Default rates were 19% over the 26 month experiment and a 30 pp decrease in interest rates decreased default by 2.5 pp with no effects on the newest borrowers.

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We are pleased to introduce Niels Gormsen (@NielsGormsen), Copenhagen Business School & University of Chicago, as a new member of the Editorial Board of REStud. His outstanding expertise will help us continue to publish pioneering economic research.
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Welcome aboard! Jose Vasquez (@jpvasq), London School of Economics, has joined the Editorial Board of The Review of Economic Studies. We are grateful to have his expertise supporting our mission.
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We are thrilled to announce that Ro’ee Levy (@RoeeLevyZ), Tel Aviv University School of Economics, is joining the Editorial Board of The Review of Economic Studies. We look forward to his valuable contributions to the journal’s future.
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Exciting news: Dávid Nagy, CREI, has joined the Editorial Board of The Review of Economic Studies. His deep knowledge will help guide the journal’s editorial process.
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