Posts

New

Latent Heterogeneity in the Marginal Propensity to Consume

1 December 2025

Daniel Lewis, Davide Melcangi, and Laura Pilossoph

We estimate the unconditional distribution of the marginal propensity to consume (MPC) using clustering regression applied to the 2008 economic stimulus payments. By deviating from the standard approach of estimating MPC heterogeneity using interactions with observables, we can recover the full distribution of MPCs.

New

Firm Quality Dynamics and the Slippery Slope of Credit Intervention

24 November 2025

Wenhao Li and Ye Li

A salient trend in crisis intervention has emerged in recent decades: government and central banks have offered funding directly to nonfinancial firms, bypassing banks and other credit intermediaries. We analyze the long-term consequences of such policies by focusing on firm quality dynamics. In a laissez-faire economy, firms with high productivity are more likely to survive crises than those with low productivity.

New

Choice and Opportunity Costs

24 November 2025

Paola Manzini, Marco Mariotti, and Levent Ülkü

We define the (physical) opportunity cost of a choice x as the alternative that would be chosen if x were not available, and the opportunity cost of any unchosen alternative as x itself. The agent has preferences over pairs consisting of alternatives and their opportunity costs. Because costs affect choice and vice-versa, choice results from an intrapersonal equilibrium rather than from simple maximisation.

New

Markups Across Space and Time

16 November 2025

Eric Anderson, Sergio Rebelo, and Arlene Wong

In this paper, we provide direct evidence on the behavior of markups in the retail sector across space and time. Markups are measured using gross margins. We consider three levels of aggregation: the retail sector as a whole, the firm, and the product level.

New

Lifecycle Wages and Human Capital Investments: Selection and Missing Data

16 November 2025

Laurent Gobillon, Thierry Magnac, and Sébastien Roux

We derive wage equations with individual specific coefficients from a structural model of human capital investment over the life cycle. This model allows for interruptions in labour market participation and deals with missing data and attrition problems. We propose a new framework that deals with missingness at random and is based on factor decompositions that allow for flexible control of selection.

New

Diversification, Market Entry, and the Global Internet Backbone

2 November 2025

El Hadi Caoui and Andrew Steck

In many industries, buyers diversify their supplier base to manage supplier disruption risk. We investigate the importance of such diversification as a determinant of demand and supplier entry in the context of the internet backbone, the worldwide network of undersea fiber-optic cables that underpins the internet. We specify a model of international bandwidth demand and cable operators’ dynamic entry and supply choices. The model is estimated using novel data on cross-border data flows, prices, cable characteristics, and disruptions.

New

Demand Stimulus as Social Policy

2 November 2025

Alan J. Auerbach, Yuriy Gorodnichenko, and Daniel Murphy

We exploit a panel of city-level data with rich demographic information to estimate the distributional effects of Department of Defense spending and its effects on a range of social outcomes. The income and employment generated by defense spending accrue predominantly to households without a bachelor’s degree. These households as well as Black and Hispanic households tend to disproportionately benefit from this spending.

Taxes Depress Corporate Borrowing: Evidence from Private Firms

2 November 2025

Ivan T. Ivanov, Luke Pettit, and Toni M. Whited

We use variation in state corporate income tax rates to re-examine the relation between taxes and corporate leverage. Contrary to prior research, corporate leverage rises after tax cuts for small private firms. An estimated dynamic equilibrium model shows that tax cuts make capital more productive and spur the use of leverage. Tax cuts also produce more distant default thresholds and lower credit spreads.