cometadata/datacite-titles-descriptions-related-identifiers huggingface dataset:
DOI: 10.3886/e113139v1
title: Replication data for: On the Timing and Pricing of Dividends: Reply

description: Schulz (2016) replicates the findings of van Binsbergen, Brandt, and Koijen (2012)--henceforth, BBK--and agrees that the average pretax returns on short-term dividend strips are higher than those of the index, but argues that the after-tax returns are not. He thus provides a possible economic interpretation of the results in BBK: taxes. Schulz (2016) estimates the differential tax rates of dividends versus capital gains from ex-dividend day returns. We show that these estimated tax rates are suspect and imprecisely measured, peaking at over 100 percent in some periods. The results in BBK are robust to using tax rates from the literature (Sialm 2009). The arguments in Schulz (2016) thus crucially depend on implausibly large tax estimates. We further discuss two other financial market imperfections discussed in the literature and show that they are also unlikely to explain the results in BBK.
DOI: 10.3886/e113140
title: Replication data for: The Long-Run Effects of Disruptive Peers

description: A large and growing literature has documented the importance of peer effects in education. However, there is relatively little evidence on the long-run educational and labor market consequences of childhood peers. We examine this question by linking administrative data on elementary school students to subsequent test scores, college attendance and completion, and earnings. To distinguish the effect of peers from confounding factors, we exploit the population variation in the proportion of children from families linked to domestic violence, who have been shown to disrupt contemporaneous behavior and learning. Results show that exposure to a disruptive peer in classes of 25 during elementary school reduces earnings at age 24 to 28 by 3 percent. We estimate that differential exposure to children linked to domestic violence explains 5 percent of the rich-poor earnings gap in our data, and that each year of exposure to a disruptive peer reduces the present discounted value of classmates' future earnings by $80,000.
DOI: 10.3886/e113140v1
title: Replication data for: The Long-Run Effects of Disruptive Peers

description: A large and growing literature has documented the importance of peer effects in education. However, there is relatively little evidence on the long-run educational and labor market consequences of childhood peers. We examine this question by linking administrative data on elementary school students to subsequent test scores, college attendance and completion, and earnings. To distinguish the effect of peers from confounding factors, we exploit the population variation in the proportion of children from families linked to domestic violence, who have been shown to disrupt contemporaneous behavior and learning. Results show that exposure to a disruptive peer in classes of 25 during elementary school reduces earnings at age 24 to 28 by 3 percent. We estimate that differential exposure to children linked to domestic violence explains 5 percent of the rich-poor earnings gap in our data, and that each year of exposure to a disruptive peer reduces the present discounted value of classmates' future earnings by $80,000.
DOI: 10.3886/e113141v1
title: Replication data for: Team Incentives and Performance: Evidence from a Retail Chain

description: In a field experiment with a retail chain (1,300 employees, 193 shops), randomly selected sales teams received a bonus. The bonus increases both sales and number of customers dealt with by 3 percent. Each dollar spent on the bonus generates $3.80 in sales, and $2.10 in profit. Wages increase by 2.2 percent while inequality rises only moderately. The analysis suggests effort complementarities to be important, and the effectiveness of peer pressure in overcoming free-riding to be limited. After rolling out the bonus treatment, and control shops' performance converge, suggesting long-term stability of the treatment effect.
DOI: 10.3886/e113387
title: Replication data for: Trade Liberalization and the Skill Premium: A Local Labor Markets Approach

description: We develop a specific-factors model of regional economies that includes two types of workers, skilled and unskilled. The model delivers a simple equation relating trade-induced local shocks to changes in local skill premia. We apply the methodology to Brazil's early 1990s trade liberalization and find statistically significant but modest effects of liberalization on the evolution of the skill premium between 1991 and 2010. The methodology uses widely available household survey data and can easily be applied to other countries and liberalization episodes.
DOI: 10.3886/e113387v1
title: Replication data for: Trade Liberalization and the Skill Premium: A Local Labor Markets Approach

description: We develop a specific-factors model of regional economies that includes two types of workers, skilled and unskilled. The model delivers a simple equation relating trade-induced local shocks to changes in local skill premia. We apply the methodology to Brazil's early 1990s trade liberalization and find statistically significant but modest effects of liberalization on the evolution of the skill premium between 1991 and 2010. The methodology uses widely available household survey data and can easily be applied to other countries and liberalization episodes.
DOI: 10.3886/e113388
title: Replication data for: Heterogeneity in the Impact of Economic Cycles and the Great Recession: Effects within and across the Income Distribution

description: In this paper, we examine the effects of economic cycles on low- to moderate-income families. We use variation across states and over time to estimate the effects of cycles on the distribution of income, using fine gradations of the household income-to-poverty ratio. We also explore how the effects of cycles affect the risk of falling into poverty across demographic groups, focusing on age, race/ethnicity, and family type. We conclude by testing to see whether these relationships have changed in the Great Recession. We discuss the results in light of the changes in the social safety net in recent decades.
DOI: 10.3886/e113388v1
title: Replication data for: Heterogeneity in the Impact of Economic Cycles and the Great Recession: Effects within and across the Income Distribution

description: In this paper, we examine the effects of economic cycles on low- to moderate-income families. We use variation across states and over time to estimate the effects of cycles on the distribution of income, using fine gradations of the household income-to-poverty ratio. We also explore how the effects of cycles affect the risk of falling into poverty across demographic groups, focusing on age, race/ethnicity, and family type. We conclude by testing to see whether these relationships have changed in the Great Recession. We discuss the results in light of the changes in the social safety net in recent decades.
DOI: 10.3886/e113643
title: Replication data for: Beyond Statistics: The Economic Content of Risk Scores

description: "Big data" and statistical techniques to score potential transactions have transformed insurance and credit markets. In this paper, we observe that these widely-used statistical scores summarize a much richer heterogeneity, and may be endogenous to the context in which they get applied. We demonstrate this point empirically using data from Medicare Part D, showing that risk scores confound underlying health and endogenous spending response to insurance. We then illustrate theoretically that when individuals have heterogeneous behavioral responses to contracts, strategic incentives for cream-skimming can still exist, even in the presence of "perfect" risk scoring under a given contract. (JEL C55, G22, G28, H51, I13)
DOI: 10.3886/e113643v1
title: Replication data for: Beyond Statistics: The Economic Content of Risk Scores

description: "Big data" and statistical techniques to score potential transactions have transformed insurance and credit markets. In this paper, we observe that these widely-used statistical scores summarize a much richer heterogeneity, and may be endogenous to the context in which they get applied. We demonstrate this point empirically using data from Medicare Part D, showing that risk scores confound underlying health and endogenous spending response to insurance. We then illustrate theoretically that when individuals have heterogeneous behavioral responses to contracts, strategic incentives for cream-skimming can still exist, even in the presence of "perfect" risk scoring under a given contract. (JEL C55, G22, G28, H51, I13)
DOI: 10.3886/e113644
title: Replication data for: The Impact of Disability Benefits on Labor Supply: Evidence from the VA's Disability Compensation Program

description: Combining administrative data from the US Army, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Social Security Administration, we analyze the effect of the VA's Disability Compensation (DC) program on veterans' labor force participation and earnings. We study the 2001 Agent Orange decision, a unique policy change that expanded DC eligibility for Vietnam veterans who served in theater but did not expand eligibility to other veterans of this era, to assess the causal effects of DC enrollment. We estimate that benefits receipt reduced veterans' labor force participation by 18 percentage points, though measured income net of transfer income rose on average.
DOI: 10.3886/e113644v1
title: Replication data for: The Impact of Disability Benefits on Labor Supply: Evidence from the VA's Disability Compensation Program

description: Combining administrative data from the US Army, Department of Veterans Affairs, and Social Security Administration, we analyze the effect of the VA's Disability Compensation (DC) program on veterans' labor force participation and earnings. We study the 2001 Agent Orange decision, a unique policy change that expanded DC eligibility for Vietnam veterans who served in theater but did not expand eligibility to other veterans of this era, to assess the causal effects of DC enrollment. We estimate that benefits receipt reduced veterans' labor force participation by 18 percentage points, though measured income net of transfer income rose on average.
DOI: 10.3886/e113906
title: Replication data for: Should Aid Reward Performance? Evidence from a Field Experiment on Health and Education in Indonesia

description: We report an experiment in 3,000 villages that tested whether incentives improve aid efficacy. Villages received block grants for maternal and child health and education that incorporated relative performance incentives. Subdistricts were randomized into incentives, an otherwise identical program without incentives, or control. Incentives initially improved preventative health indicators, particularly in underdeveloped areas, and spending efficiency increased. While school enrollments improved overall, incentives had no differential impact on education, and incentive health effects diminished over time. Reductions in neonatal mortality in nonincentivized areas did not persist with incentives. We find no systematic scoring manipulation nor funding reallocation toward richer areas.
DOI: 10.3886/e113907
title: Replication data for: When the Floodgates Open: "Northern" Firms' Response to Removal of Trade Quotas on Chinese Goods

description: Using the dismantling of the Multi-fibre Arrangement quotas on Chinese textile products in conjunction with China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), within firms adjustments to intensified low-wage competition is analyzed. Employing Danish employer-employee matched data covering from 1995 to 2007, the analysis shows a significant change in the workforce composition of firms in response to heightened competition. Competition is found to negatively affect employment, value-added, and intangible assets of the Danish firms, and firms refocus away from products, where China's competitive advantage becomes higher. The results show an important role of the distributional impact of low-wage competition within firms in restructuring the industry.
DOI: 10.3886/e113907v1
title: Replication data for: When the Floodgates Open: "Northern" Firms' Response to Removal of Trade Quotas on Chinese Goods

description: Using the dismantling of the Multi-fibre Arrangement quotas on Chinese textile products in conjunction with China's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), within firms adjustments to intensified low-wage competition is analyzed. Employing Danish employer-employee matched data covering from 1995 to 2007, the analysis shows a significant change in the workforce composition of firms in response to heightened competition. Competition is found to negatively affect employment, value-added, and intangible assets of the Danish firms, and firms refocus away from products, where China's competitive advantage becomes higher. The results show an important role of the distributional impact of low-wage competition within firms in restructuring the industry.
DOI: 10.3886/e113908
title: Replication data for: Merit Aid, College Quality, and College Completion: Massachusetts' Adams Scholarship as an In-Kind Subsidy

description: We analyze a Massachusetts merit aid program that gives highscoring students tuition waivers at in-state public colleges with lower graduation rates than available alternative colleges. A regression discontinuity design comparing students just above and below the eligibility threshold finds that students are remarkably willing to forgo college quality and that scholarship use actually lowered college completion rates. These results suggest that college quality affects college completion rates. The theoretical prediction that inking subsidies of public institutions can reduce consumption of the subsidized good is shown to be empirically important.
DOI: 10.3886/e113908v1
title: Replication data for: Merit Aid, College Quality, and College Completion: Massachusetts' Adams Scholarship as an In-Kind Subsidy

description: We analyze a Massachusetts merit aid program that gives highscoring students tuition waivers at in-state public colleges with lower graduation rates than available alternative colleges. A regression discontinuity design comparing students just above and below the eligibility threshold finds that students are remarkably willing to forgo college quality and that scholarship use actually lowered college completion rates. These results suggest that college quality affects college completion rates. The theoretical prediction that inking subsidies of public institutions can reduce consumption of the subsidized good is shown to be empirically important.
DOI: 10.3886/e113909
title: Replication data for: Citizenship, Fertility, and Parental Investments

description: Citizenship rights are associated with better economic opportunities for immigrants. This paper studies how in a country with a large fraction of temporary migrants the fertility decisions of foreign citizens respond to a change in the rules that regulate child legal status at birth. The introduction of birthright citizenship in Germany in 2000, represented a positive shock to the returns to investment in child human capital. Consistent with Becker's "quality-quantity" model of fertility, we find that birthright citizenship leads to a reduction in immigrant fertility and an improvement in health and socio-emotional outcomes for the children affected by the reform.
DOI: 10.3886/e113909v1
title: Replication data for: Citizenship, Fertility, and Parental Investments

description: Citizenship rights are associated with better economic opportunities for immigrants. This paper studies how in a country with a large fraction of temporary migrants the fertility decisions of foreign citizens respond to a change in the rules that regulate child legal status at birth. The introduction of birthright citizenship in Germany in 2000, represented a positive shock to the returns to investment in child human capital. Consistent with Becker's "quality-quantity" model of fertility, we find that birthright citizenship leads to a reduction in immigrant fertility and an improvement in health and socio-emotional outcomes for the children affected by the reform.
DOI: 10.3886/e113910
title: Replication data for: Price, Quality, and Variety: Measuring the Gains from Trade in Differentiated Products

description: This paper explores the gains from trade in differentiated products from three channels: decreases in price, improvements in quality, and increases in variety. Using data on Indian imports of computer printers from 1996 to 2005, a period of trade liberalization, I find that quality was the leading source of welfare gains. Consumers would require a 65 percent decrease in all 1996 prices to be as well off as they were with the quality available in 2005. The contribution of price was slightly smaller, while variety lagged farther behind. These effects varied across buyers, as gains were largest for small businesses.
DOI: 10.3886/e113910v1
title: Replication data for: Price, Quality, and Variety: Measuring the Gains from Trade in Differentiated Products

description: This paper explores the gains from trade in differentiated products from three channels: decreases in price, improvements in quality, and increases in variety. Using data on Indian imports of computer printers from 1996 to 2005, a period of trade liberalization, I find that quality was the leading source of welfare gains. Consumers would require a 65 percent decrease in all 1996 prices to be as well off as they were with the quality available in 2005. The contribution of price was slightly smaller, while variety lagged farther behind. These effects varied across buyers, as gains were largest for small businesses.
DOI: 10.3886/e113141
title: Replication data for: Team Incentives and Performance: Evidence from a Retail Chain

description: In a field experiment with a retail chain (1,300 employees, 193 shops), randomly selected sales teams received a bonus. The bonus increases both sales and number of customers dealt with by 3 percent. Each dollar spent on the bonus generates $3.80 in sales, and $2.10 in profit. Wages increase by 2.2 percent while inequality rises only moderately. The analysis suggests effort complementarities to be important, and the effectiveness of peer pressure in overcoming free-riding to be limited. After rolling out the bonus treatment, and control shops' performance converge, suggesting long-term stability of the treatment effect.
DOI: 10.3886/e113142
title: Replication data for: Violence and Risk Preference: Experimental Evidence from Afghanistan: Comment

description: In this comment on Callen et al. (2014), I revisit recent evidence uncovering a "preference for certainty" in violation of dominant normative and descriptive theories of decision-making under risk. I show that the empirical findings are potentially confounded by systematic noise. I then develop choice lists that allow me to disentangle these different explanations. Experimental results obtained with these lists reject explanations based on a preference for certainty in favor of explanations based on random choice. From a theoretical point of view, the levels of risk aversion detected in the choice list involving certainty can be accounted for by prospect theory through reference dependence activated by salient outcomes.
DOI: 10.3886/e113142v1
title: Replication data for: Violence and Risk Preference: Experimental Evidence from Afghanistan: Comment

description: In this comment on Callen et al. (2014), I revisit recent evidence uncovering a "preference for certainty" in violation of dominant normative and descriptive theories of decision-making under risk. I show that the empirical findings are potentially confounded by systematic noise. I then develop choice lists that allow me to disentangle these different explanations. Experimental results obtained with these lists reject explanations based on a preference for certainty in favor of explanations based on random choice. From a theoretical point of view, the levels of risk aversion detected in the choice list involving certainty can be accounted for by prospect theory through reference dependence activated by salient outcomes.
DOI: 10.3886/e113143v1
title: Replication data for: Bias in Cable News: Persuasion and Polarization

description: We measure the persuasive effects of slanted news and tastes for like-minded news, exploiting cable channel positions as exogenous shifters of cable news viewership. Channel positions do not correlate with demographics that predict viewership and voting, nor with local satellite viewership. We estimate that Fox News increases Republican vote shares by 0.3 points among viewers induced into watching 2.5 additional minutes per week by variation in position. We then estimate a model of voters who select into watching slanted news, and whose ideologies evolve as a result. We use the model to assess the growth over time of Fox News influence, to quantitatively assess media-driven polarization, and to simulate alternative ideological slanting of news channels.
DOI: 10.3886/e113144
title: Replication data for: The Optimal Timing of Unemployment Benefits: Theory and Evidence from Sweden

description: This paper provides a simple, yet robust framework to evaluate the time profile of benefits paid during an unemployment spell. We derive sufficient-statistics formulae capturing the marginal insurance value and incentive costs of unemployment benefits paid at different times during a spell. Our approach allows us to revisit separate arguments for inclining or declining profiles put forward in the theoretical literature and to identify welfare-improving changes in the benefit profile that account for all relevant arguments jointly. For the empirical implementation, we use administrative data on unemployment, linked to data on consumption, income, and wealth in Sweden. First, we exploit duration-dependent kinks in the replacement rate and find that, if anything, the moral hazard cost of benefits is larger when paid earlier in the spell. Second, we find that the drop in consumption affecting the insurance value of benefits is large from the start of the spell, but further increases throughout the spell. In trading off insurance and incentives, our analysis suggests that the flat benefit profile in Sweden has been too generous overall. However, both from the insurance and the incentives side, we find no evidence to support the introduction of a declining tilt in the profile.
DOI: 10.3886/e113144v1
title: Replication data for: The Optimal Timing of Unemployment Benefits: Theory and Evidence from Sweden

description: This paper provides a simple, yet robust framework to evaluate the time profile of benefits paid during an unemployment spell. We derive sufficient-statistics formulae capturing the marginal insurance value and incentive costs of unemployment benefits paid at different times during a spell. Our approach allows us to revisit separate arguments for inclining or declining profiles put forward in the theoretical literature and to identify welfare-improving changes in the benefit profile that account for all relevant arguments jointly. For the empirical implementation, we use administrative data on unemployment, linked to data on consumption, income, and wealth in Sweden. First, we exploit duration-dependent kinks in the replacement rate and find that, if anything, the moral hazard cost of benefits is larger when paid earlier in the spell. Second, we find that the drop in consumption affecting the insurance value of benefits is large from the start of the spell, but further increases throughout the spell. In trading off insurance and incentives, our analysis suggests that the flat benefit profile in Sweden has been too generous overall. However, both from the insurance and the incentives side, we find no evidence to support the introduction of a declining tilt in the profile.