AbstractWe find that sin-good purchases are highly concentrated, with 10% of households paying more than 80% of taxes on alcohol and cigarettes. Total sin-tax burdens are poorly explained by demographics (including income) but are well explained by eig…
AbstractWe collect data on prices, travel costs, and farmer decisions to quantify market access for chemical fertilizer and its impact on agricultural productivity in 1,180 villages in Northern Tanzania. Villages at the bottom of the travel cost-adjust…
AbstractThis paper examines whether higher earnings for frontline workers affects the quality of employees’ output. I leverage increases in the statutory minimum wage, combined with worker, consumer, and firm outcomes in the nursing home sector. I find…
AbstractSelection forces often confound the effects of policy changes. In the immigration enforcement context, we tackle this challenge tracking arrested immigrants along the deportation pipeline, isolating local and federal efforts. 80% of counties ex…
AbstractThis paper examines the impact of retail e-commerce on pricing behavior and welfare. Using Japanese data, we find that e-commerce lowered relative inflation rates for goods sold intensively online. We use long time series and historical catalog…
AbstractWe develop a framework for measuring under- and overreaction in expectation formation. The basic insight is that under- and overreaction to new information is identified (up to sign) by the impulse response function of forecast errors. Our meas…
AbstractInstrumental variables (IVs) and control variables are frequently used to assist researchers in investigating endogenous treatment effects. When used together, their identities are typically assumed to be known. However, in many practical situa…
AbstractWe study how air pollution impacts the U.S. labor market by analyzing the effects of drifting wildfire smoke. We link satellite-based smoke plume data with labor market outcomes to estimate that an additional day of smoke exposure reduces quart…
AbstractThis paper studies the impacts of the 2018 U.S. tariff surges on export prices and adjustments of sales across different markets of Chinese exporters. The finding that U.S. tariffs did not affect the free-on-board price of Chinese exports is ro…
AbstractWe document two stylized facts in expectational survey data. First, professional forecasters overrevise their macroeconomic expectations. Second, such overrevisions mask evidence of both over- and underreactions to public signals. We show that …