TY - JOUR AU - Atal, Juan Pablo AU - Cuesta, José Ignacio AU - González, Felipe AU - Otero, Cristóbal TI - The Economics of the Public Option: Evidence from Local Pharmaceutical Markets JF - AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW J2 - AM ECON REV VL - 114 PY - 2024 IS - 3 SP - 615 EP - 644 PG - 30 SN - 0002-8282 DO - 10.1257/aer.20211547 UR - https://m2.mtmt.hu/api/publication/34758384 ID - 34758384 AB - We study the effects of competition by state-owned firms, leveraging the decentralized entry of public pharmacies to local markets in Chile. Public pharmacies sell the same drugs at a third of private pharmacy prices, because of stronger upstream bargaining and market power in the private sector, but are of lower quality. Public pharmacies induced market segmentation and price increases in the private sector, which benefited the switchers to the public option but harmed the stayers. The countrywide entry of public pharmacies would reduce yearly consumer drug expenditure by 1.6 percent. (JEL D22, I18, L32, L65, O14) LA - English DB - MTMT ER - TY - JOUR AU - Best, Michael Carlos AU - Hjort, Jonas AU - Szakonyi, David TI - Individuals and Organizations as Sources of State Effectiveness JF - AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW J2 - AM ECON REV VL - 113 PY - 2023 IS - 8 SP - 2121 EP - 2167 PG - 47 SN - 0002-8282 DO - 10.1257/aer.20191598 UR - https://m2.mtmt.hu/api/publication/34086017 ID - 34086017 AB - Bureaucrats implement policy. How important are they for a state’s productivity? And do the trade-offs between policies depend on their effectiveness? Using data on 16 million public purchases in Russia, we show that 39 percent of the variation in prices paid for narrowly defined items is due to the individual bureaucrats and organizations who manage procurement. Low-price buyers also display higher spending quality. Theory suggests that such differences in effectiveness can be pivotal for policy design. To illustrate, we show that a common one—bid preferences for domestic suppliers—substantially improves procurement performance, but only when implemented by ineffective bureaucrats. (JEL D73, H57, H83, L14, P26) LA - English DB - MTMT ER - TY - JOUR AU - Cullen, Zoe AU - Perez-Truglia, Ricardo TI - The Old Boys' Club: Schmoozing and the Gender Gap JF - AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW J2 - AM ECON REV VL - 113 PY - 2023 IS - 7 SP - 1703 EP - 1740 PG - 38 SN - 0002-8282 DO - 10.1257/aer.20210863 UR - https://m2.mtmt.hu/api/publication/34316003 ID - 34316003 AB - Offices are social places. Employees and managers take breaks together and talk about family and hobbies. In this study, we show that employees' social interactions with their managers can be advantageous for their careers, and that this phenomenon contrib-utes to the gender pay gap. We use administrative and survey data from a large financial institution and exploit quasi-random varia-tion induced by the rotation of managers. We provide evidence that when employees have more face-to-face interactions with their managers, they are promoted at a higher rate. This mechanism could explain a third of the gender gap in promotions at this firm. (JEL G21, J16, J31, J71, M12, M51, Z13) LA - English DB - MTMT ER - TY - JOUR AU - Caunedo, Julieta AU - Jaume, David AU - Keller, Elisa TI - Occupational Exposure to Capital-Embodied Technical Change JF - AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW J2 - AM ECON REV VL - 113 PY - 2023 IS - 6 SP - 1642 EP - 1685 PG - 44 SN - 0002-8282 DO - 10.1257/aer.20211478 UR - https://m2.mtmt.hu/api/publication/34021483 ID - 34021483 AB - We study differences in exposure to factor-biased technical change among occupations by providing the first measures of capital-embodied technical change (CETC) and of the elasticity of substitution between capital and labor at the occupational level. We document sizable occupational heterogeneity in both measures, but quantitatively, it is the heterogeneity in factor substitutability that fuels workers’ exposure to CETC. In a general equilibrium model of worker sorting across occupations, CETC accounts for almost all of the observed labor reallocation in the US between 1984 and 2015. Absent occupational heterogeneity in factor substitutability, CETC accounts for only 17 percent of it (JEL I26, J16, J24, J31, O33) LA - English DB - MTMT ER - TY - JOUR AU - Barwick, Panle Jia AU - Liu, Yanyan AU - Patacchini, Eleonora AU - Wu, Qi TI - Information, Mobile Communication, and Referral Effectst JF - AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW J2 - AM ECON REV VL - 113 PY - 2023 IS - 5 SP - 1170 EP - 1207 PG - 38 SN - 0002-8282 DO - 10.1257/aer.20200187 UR - https://m2.mtmt.hu/api/publication/34344388 ID - 34344388 AB - This paper uses the universe of cellphone records from a Chinese telecommunication provider for a northern Chinese city to examine the role of information exchange in urban labor markets. We provide the first direct evidence of increased communication among referral pairs around job changes. Information provided by social contacts mitigates information asymmetry and improves labor market perfor-mance. (JEL D82, J62, O18, P23, P25, R23, Z13) LA - English DB - MTMT ER - TY - JOUR AU - Schmieder, Johannes F. AU - von Wachter, Till AU - Heining, Joerg TI - The Costs of Job Displacement over the Business Cycle and Its Sources: Evidence from Germany JF - AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW J2 - AM ECON REV VL - 113 PY - 2023 IS - 5 SP - 1208 EP - 1254 PG - 47 SN - 0002-8282 DO - 10.1257/aer.20200252 UR - https://m2.mtmt.hu/api/publication/34311542 ID - 34311542 AB - We document the sources behind the costs of job loss over the busi-ness cycle using administrative data from Germany. Losses in annual earnings after displacement are large, persistent, and highly cycli-cal, nearly doubling in size during downturns. A large part of the long-term earnings losses and their cyclicality is driven by declines in wages. Key to these long-lasting wage declines and their cyclical-ity are changes in employer characteristics, as displaced workers switch to lower-paying firms. These losses increase with duration of nonemployment. Changes in characteristics of displaced workers or displacing firms, and other post-job loss career outcomes explain little of the cyclicality. (JEL E24, E32, J31, J63, J64, J65) LA - English DB - MTMT ER - TY - JOUR AU - Pomatto, Luciano AU - Strack, Philipp AU - Tamuz, Omer TI - The Cost of Information: The Case of Constant Marginal Costs JF - AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW J2 - AM ECON REV VL - 113 PY - 2023 IS - 5 SP - 1360 EP - 1393 PG - 34 SN - 0002-8282 DO - 10.1257/aer.20190185 UR - https://m2.mtmt.hu/api/publication/34285127 ID - 34285127 AB - We develop an axiomatic theory of information acquisition that cap-tures the idea of constant marginal costs in information production: the cost of generating two independent signals is the sum of their costs, and generating a signal with probability half costs half its original cost. Together with Blackwell monotonicity and a continuity condition, these axioms determine the cost of a signal up to a vector of param-eters. These parameters have a clear economic interpretation and determine the difficulty of distinguishing states. LA - English DB - MTMT ER - TY - JOUR AU - Carlino, Gerald AU - Drautzburg, Thorsten AU - Inman, Robert AU - Zarra, Nicholas TI - Partisanship and Fiscal Policy in Economic Unions: Evidence from US States JF - AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW J2 - AM ECON REV VL - 113 PY - 2023 IS - 3 SP - 701 EP - 737 PG - 37 SN - 0002-8282 DO - 10.1257/aer.20210147 UR - https://m2.mtmt.hu/api/publication/33720472 ID - 33720472 AB - Partisanship of state governors affects the efficacy of US federal fiscal policy. Using close election data, we find partisan differences in the marginal propensity to spend federal intergovernmental transfers: Republican governors spend less than Democratic governors. Correspondingly, Republican-led states have lower debt, (delayed) lower taxes, and initially lower economic activity. A New Keynesian model of partisan states in a monetary union implies sizable aggregate effects: The intergovernmental transfer impact multiplier rises by 0.58 if Republican governors spend like Democratic governors, but due to delayed tax cuts, the long-run multiplier is higher with more Republican governors, generating an intertemporal policy trade-off. (JEL D72, E12, E62, H71, H72, H74, H77) LA - English DB - MTMT ER - TY - JOUR AU - Gershkov, Alex AU - Moldovanu, Benny AU - Strack, Philipp AU - Zhang, Mengxi TI - Optimal Insurance: Dual Utility, Random Losses, and Adverse Selection JF - AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW J2 - AM ECON REV VL - 113 PY - 2023 IS - 10 SP - 2581 EP - 2614 PG - 34 SN - 0002-8282 DO - 10.1257/aer.20221247 UR - https://m2.mtmt.hu/api/publication/34599622 ID - 34599622 AB - We study a generalization of the classical monopoly insurance prob-lem under adverse selection (see Stiglitz 1977) where we allow for a random distribution of losses , possibly correlated with the agent's risk parameter that is private information. Our model explains pat-terns of observed customer behavior and predicts insurance con-tracts most often observed in practice: these consist of menus of several deductible-premium pairs or menus of insurance with cov-erage limits-premium pairs. A main departure from the classical insurance literature is obtained here by endowing the agents with risk-averse preferences that can be represented by a dual utility func-tional (Yaari 1987). (JEL D81, D82, D86, D91, G22) LA - English DB - MTMT ER - TY - JOUR AU - Masatlioglu, Yusufcan AU - Orhun, Yesim AU - Raymond, Collin TI - Intrinsic Information Preferences and Skewnesst JF - AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW J2 - AM ECON REV VL - 113 PY - 2023 IS - 10 SP - 2615 EP - 2644 PG - 30 SN - 0002-8282 DO - 10.1257/aer.20171474 UR - https://m2.mtmt.hu/api/publication/34599559 ID - 34599559 AB - We examine whether people have an intrinsic preference for nega-tively skewed or positively skewed information structures and how these preferences relate to intrinsic preferences for informativeness. The results from lab experiments show a strong intrinsic preference for positively skewed information and suggest that providing such information can improve information uptake. Evidence from field studies in decision-and ego-relevant contexts replicates these find-ings. We discuss our findings through the lens of existing theories and the potential trade-offs in information provision policies. (JEL C91, C93, D12, D82, D83) LA - English DB - MTMT ER -