经济学权威期刊Journal of the European Economic Association 2023年第2期

Journal of the European Economic Association 2023年第2期

Volume 21, Issue 2, April 2023

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Endogenous Lemon Markets: Risky Choices and Adverse Selection

内生柠檬市场:风险选择和逆向选择

Avi Lichtig, Ran Weksler

Journal of the European Economic Association, Volume 21, Issue 2, April 2023, Pages 413–454, https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvac041

Abstract

The severity of adverse selection depends, to a great extent, on the underlying distribution of the asset. This distribution is commonly modeled as exogenous; however, in many real-world applications, it is determined endogenously. A natural question in this context is whether one can predict the severity of the adverse selection problem in such environments. In this paper, we study a bilateral trade model in which the distribution of the asset is affected by pre-trade unobservable actions of the seller. Analyzing general trade mechanisms, we show that the seller’s actions are characterized by a risk-seeking disposition. In addition, we show that (location-independent) riskier underlying distributions of the asset induce lower social welfare. That is, “lemon markets” arise endogenously in these environments.

逆向选择的严重程度在很大程度上取决于资产的基础分布。这种分布通常被建模为外生的;然而，在许多实际应用中，它是内生决定的。在这种情况下，一个自然的问题是，在这样的环境中，人们能否预测逆向选择问题的严重性。本文研究了卖方交易前不可观察行为影响资产分配的双边交易模型。通过对一般贸易机制的分析，我们发现卖方的行为具有风险寻求倾向。此外，我们还表明(与位置无关)风险较高的资产基础分配会导致较低的社会福利。也就是说，“柠檬市场”是在这些环境中内生产生的。

European Firm Concentration and Aggregate Productivity

欧洲企业集中度与总生产率

Tommaso Bighelli, Filippo di Mauro, Marc J Melitz, Matthias Mertens

Journal of the European Economic Association, Volume 21, Issue 2, April 2023, Pages 455–483, https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvac040

This paper derives a European Herfindahl–Hirschman concentration index from 15 micro-aggregated country datasets. In the last decade, European concentration rose due to a reallocation of economic activity toward large and concentrated industries. Over the same period, productivity gains from an increasing allocative efficiency of the European market accounted for 50% of European productivity growth while markups stayed constant. Using country-industry variation, we show that changes in concentration are positively associated with changes in productivity and allocative efficiency. This holds across most sectors and countries and supports the notion that rising concentration in Europe reflects a more efficient market environment rather than weak competition and rising market power.

本文从15个微聚合国家数据集推导出欧洲Herfindahl-Hirschman浓度指数。在过去十年中，由于经济活动向大型和集中行业的重新分配，欧洲的集中度上升。在同一时期，欧洲市场配置效率提高带来的生产率增长占欧洲生产率增长的50%，而加成保持不变。利用国家-行业差异，我们发现集中度的变化与生产率和配置效率的变化呈正相关。这在大多数行业和国家都成立，并支持了这样一种观点:欧洲集中度的提高反映了一个更有效的市场环境，而不是竞争疲软和市场力量的增强。

Firms and Collective Reputation: a Study of the Volkswagen Emissions Scandal

企业与集体声誉:大众汽车尾气排放丑闻研究

Rüdiger Bachmann, Gabriel Ehrlich, Ying Fan, Dimitrije Ruzic, Benjamin Leard

Journal of the European Economic Association, Volume 21, Issue 2, April 2023, Pages 484–525, https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvac046

Abstract

This paper uses the 2015 Volkswagen (VW) emissions scandal as a natural experiment to provide evidence that collective reputation externalities are economically significant. Using a combination of difference-in-differences and demand estimation approaches, we document a spillover effect from the scandal to the non-VW German auto manufacturers. The spillover amounts to an average drop of $2,057 in consumer valuations of these manufacturers’ vehicles and a 34.6% reduction in their annual sales. We substantiate our interpretation that the estimates reflect a reputation spillover using data on internet search behavior and direct measures of consumer sentiment from Twitter.

本文以2015年大众汽车(Volkswagen)排放丑闻为自然实验，证明集体声誉外部性在经济上具有重要意义。结合使用差异中的差异和需求估计方法，我们记录了丑闻对非大众德国汽车制造商的溢出效应。溢出效应导致消费者对这些制造商汽车的估值平均下降2057美元，年销售额下降34.6%。我们通过使用互联网搜索行为数据和Twitter消费者情绪的直接测量来证实我们的解释，即估计反映了声誉溢出效应。

Housing Insecurity and Homelessness: Evidence from the United Kingdom

住房不安全和无家可归:来自英国的证据

Thiemo Fetzer, Srinjoy Sen, Pedro C L Souza

Journal of the European Economic Association, Volume 21, Issue 2, April 2023, Pages 526–559, https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvac055

Abstract

Homelessness and precarious living conditions are on the rise across much of the Western world. This paper exploits quasi-exogenous variation in the affordability of rents due to a cut in rent subsidies for low-income households in the United Kingdom in April 2011. Using comprehensive district-level administrative data, we show that the affordability shock caused a significant increase in financial distress, evictions, property crimes, insecure temporary housing arrangements, statutory homelessness, and actual rough sleeping. The most notable rise in statutory homelessness is driven by families with children, lone parents, individuals with existing health conditions, and as a result of having been evicted. We estimate that the fiscal savings were low and shifted toward the local administration: Savings by the central government were partially offset by an increase in council spending to meet statutory obligations for homelessness.

在西方世界的大部分地区，无家可归者和不稳定的生活条件正在上升。本文利用2011年4月英国对低收入家庭的租金补贴削减导致的租金负担能力的准外生变化。利用综合区级行政数据，我们发现，负担能力冲击导致财务困境、驱逐、财产犯罪、不安全的临时住房安排、法定无家可归者和实际露宿的情况显著增加。法定无家可归者人数最显著的增加是由有孩子的家庭、单身父母、有健康问题的个人以及被驱逐的结果造成的。我们估计，财政储蓄很低，并转移到地方政府:中央政府的储蓄部分被地方政府为满足无家可归者的法定义务而增加的支出所抵消。

Inattentive Inference

粗心的推理

Thomas Graeber

Journal of the European Economic Association, Volume 21, Issue 2, April 2023, Pages 560–592, https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvac052

Abstract

This paper studies how people infer a state of the world from information structures that include additional, payoff-irrelevant states. For example, learning from a customer review about a product’s quality requires accounting for the reviewer’s otherwise-irrelevant taste. This creates an attribution problem common to all information structures with multiple causes. We report controlled experimental evidence for pervasive overinference about states that affect utility—a form of “omitted variable bias” in belief updating, providing an explanation for various misattribution patterns. In studying why systematic misattribution arises, we consistently find that errors are not due to deliberate effort avoidance or a lack of cognitive capacity. Instead, people behave as if they form incomplete mental models of the information structure and fail to notice the need to account for alternative causes. These mental models are not stable but context-dependent: Misattribution responds to a variety of attentional manipulations, but not to changes in the costs of inattention.

本文研究了人们如何从包含额外的、与收益无关的状态的信息结构中推断世界的状态。例如，从客户的评论中了解产品的质量，就需要考虑评论者的其他无关的口味。这就产生了一个归因问题，对于所有具有多种原因的信息结构都是如此。我们报告了关于影响效用的状态的普遍过度推断的受控实验证据——信念更新中的一种“省略变量偏差”形式，为各种错误归因模式提供了解释。在研究为什么会出现系统性错误归因的过程中，我们始终发现错误不是由于故意的努力避免或缺乏认知能力。相反，人们表现得好像他们对信息结构形成了不完整的心智模型，没有注意到需要解释其他原因。这些心理模型并不稳定，而是依赖于环境:错误归因对各种注意力操作有反应，但对注意力不集中成本的变化没有反应。

Investment Funds, Monetary Policy, and the Global Financial Cycle

投资基金、货币政策与全球金融周期

Christoph Kaufmann

Journal of the European Economic Association, Volume 21, Issue 2, April 2023, Pages 593–636, https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvac043

Abstract

This paper examines the role of international investment funds in the transmission of global financial conditions to the euro area using structural Bayesian vector auto regressions. While cross-border banking sector capital flows receded significantly in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, portfolio flows from investors actively searching for yield on financial markets worldwide gained importance during the post-crisis “second phase of global liquidity”. The analysis presented in this paper shows that a loosening of US monetary policy leads to higher investment fund inflows to equities and debt globally. Focussing on the euro area, these inflows not only imply elevated asset prices but also coincide with increased debt and equity issuance. The findings demonstrate the growing importance of non-bank financial intermediation over the past decade and hold important policy implications for monetary and financial stability.

本文利用结构贝叶斯向量自回归研究了国际投资基金在全球金融状况向欧元区传导中的作用。尽管在全球金融危机之后，跨境银行业资本流动显著减少，但在危机后的“全球流动性第二阶段”，来自积极寻求全球金融市场收益的投资者的投资组合流动变得越来越重要。本文的分析显示，美国货币政策的放松，将导致更多投资资金流入全球股市和债市。集中在欧元区，这些资金流入不仅意味着资产价格上涨，而且还伴随着债券和股票发行的增加。研究结果表明，非银行金融中介在过去十年中日益重要，并对货币和金融稳定具有重要的政策意义。

The Real Exchange Rate, Innovation, and Productivity

实际汇率、创新和生产率

Laura Alfaro, Alejandro Cuñat, Harald Fadinger, Yanping Liu

Journal of the European Economic Association, Volume 21, Issue 2, April 2023, Pages 637–689, https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvac058

Abstract

We build a dynamic heterogeneous-firm model in which real depreciations raise export demand and the cost of importing intermediates, and also affect borrowing constraints and the profitability of engaging in research and development (R&D). A number of stylized facts on manufacturing firms for a large set of countries discipline our estimation: Firms in emerging East Asia are very export oriented and rely little on imported intermediates, whereas the opposite holds for Latin America and Eastern Europe; firms from industrialized countries export as much as they import. Exporters experience an increase in cash flow, R&D, and productivity growth in response to real exchange rate (RER) depreciations; importers experience the opposite outcomes. In counterfactual simulations of temporary RER movements, the effects on innovation and productivity growth are heterogeneous across regions, sizeable and persistent. In emerging Asia, real depreciations are associated with higher probabilities to engage in R&D, faster growth of average firm-level productivity and cash flow, and higher export entry rates; we find negative average effects on these outcomes for firms in other emerging economies, and no significant average effects for firms in industrialized economies.、

我们构建了一个动态异质企业模型，在该模型中，实际贬值会提高出口需求和进口中间产品的成本，并影响借贷约束和从事研发(R&D)的盈利能力。大量国家制造业企业的程式化事实约束了我们的估计:新兴东亚的企业非常以出口为导向，很少依赖进口中间体，而拉丁美洲和东欧则相反;工业化国家的公司出口和进口一样多。由于实际汇率(RER)贬值，出口商经历了现金流、研发和生产率增长的增加;进口商经历了相反的结果。在对临时RER运动的反事实模拟中，对创新和生产率增长的影响在不同地区是不同的，相当大且持续。在亚洲新兴市场，实际贬值与更高的研发概率、企业平均生产率和现金流的更快增长以及更高的出口进入率相关;我们发现，对其他新兴经济体的企业来说，这些结果的平均影响是负面的，而对工业化经济体的企业来说，没有显著的平均影响。

City of Dreams

理想之城

Jorge De la Roca, Gianmarco I P Ottaviano, Diego Puga

Journal of the European Economic Association, Volume 21, Issue 2, April 2023, Pages 690–726, https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvac042

Abstract

Bigger cities offer more valuable experiences and opportunities in exchange for higher housing costs. While higher-ability workers benefit more from bigger cities, they are not more likely to move to one. Our model of urban sorting by workers with heterogeneous self-confidence and ability suggests flawed self-assessment is partly to blame. Analysis of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 data shows that, consistent with our model, young workers with high self-confidence are more likely to locate in a big city initially. For more experienced workers, ability plays a stronger role in determining location choices, but the lasting impact of earlier choices dampens their incentives to move.

较大的城市提供更多有价值的体验和机会，以换取更高的住房成本。尽管能力更高的工人从大城市中受益更多，但他们并不太可能搬到大城市去。我们的模型显示，自信和能力各不相同的工人在城市进行分类，这在一定程度上要归咎于有缺陷的自我评估。对1979年全国青年纵向调查(National Longitudinal Survey of Youth)数据的分析表明，与我们的模型一致，自信心高的年轻工作者最初更有可能在大城市安家。对于经验丰富的员工来说，能力在决定地点选择方面发挥了更大的作用，但早期选择的持久影响会抑制他们搬家的动机。

Terrorism, Media Coverage, and Education: Evidence from al-Shabaab Attacks in Kenya

恐怖主义、媒体报道和教育:来自肯尼亚青年党袭击的证据

Marco Alfano, Joseph-Simon Görlach

Journal of the European Economic Association, Volume 21, Issue 2, April 2023, Pages 727–763, https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvac054

Abstract

We relate terrorist attacks to media signal coverage and schooling in Kenya to examine how terrorism alters the demand for education through perceived risks and returns. Exploiting variation in wireless signal coverage and attacks across space and time, we establish that media access reinforces negative effects of terrorism on schooling. Our results are robust to instrumenting both media signal and attacks. We also find that attacks raise self-reported fears for households with media access. Based on these insights, we estimate a simple structural model where heterogeneous households experiencing terrorism form beliefs about risks and returns to education. We allow these beliefs to be affected by media and find that households with media access significantly over-estimate fatality risks.

我们将恐怖袭击与肯尼亚的媒体信号报道和学校教育联系起来，以研究恐怖主义如何通过感知风险和回报改变教育需求。利用无线信号覆盖范围的变化和跨越空间和时间的攻击，我们确定了媒体访问加强了恐怖主义对学校教育的负面影响。我们的结果对于检测媒体信号和攻击都是稳健的。我们还发现，对于有媒体接入的家庭来说，攻击引发了自我报告的恐惧。基于这些见解，我们估计了一个简单的结构模型，在这个模型中，经历恐怖主义的异质家庭形成了对教育风险和回报的信念。我们允许这些信念受到媒体的影响，并发现有媒体接入的家庭显著高估了死亡风险。

Ballots Instead of Bullets? The Effect of the Voting Rights Act on Political Violence

用选票代替子弹?选举权法案对政治暴力的影响

Jean Lacroix

Journal of the European Economic Association, Volume 21, Issue 2, April 2023, Pages 764–813, https://doi.org/10.1093/jeea/jvac048

Abstract

The extension of voting rights epitomizes the construction of modern democracies. This paper empirically investigates the effect of such an enfranchisement on political violence in the context of the US Voting Rights Act (VRA) of 1965, which forbade discrimination in voting. The formula the VRA used to determine the counties it applied to generated both geographic and temporal local discontinuities in enfranchisement. This paper’s empirical strategy takes advantage of these features by comparing the evolution of political violence in geographically close covered and non-covered counties. Difference-in-differences estimates indicate that VRA coverage halved the incidence and the onset of political violence. Additional empirical evidence implies that voting became the new institutionalized way to state political preferences. Indeed, VRA coverage mostly decreased electoral and small-scale strategic violence. This result is not explained by disaggrievement. Extensions suggest that new strategies of political action may explain a decrease in violence after enfranchisement.

投票权的扩大是现代民主制度建设的缩影。本文以1965年禁止投票歧视的美国《投票权法案》(VRA)为背景，实证研究了这种选举权对政治暴力的影响。VRA用来确定它所适用的县的公式在选举权分配中产生了地理和时间上的局部不连续性。本文的实证策略利用了这些特征，比较了地理上接近覆盖县和未覆盖县的政治暴力演变。差异中的差异估计表明，VRA的覆盖使政治暴力的发生率和起发率减少了一半。额外的经验证据表明，投票成为新的制度化的方式，以说明政治偏好。事实上，VRA的覆盖范围基本上减少了选举和小规模战略暴力。这一结果不能用不满来解释。延伸表明，新的政治行动策略可能解释了获得选举权后暴力事件的减少。