The Review of Economic Studies 2023年第3期

The Review of Economic Studies  2023年第3期

Volume 90, Issue 3, May 2023

——更多动态，请持续关注gzh：理想主义的百年孤独

When Less is More: Improving Choices in Health Insurance Markets

当少即是多:改善健康保险市场的选择

Jason Abaluck and Jonathan Gruber

The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 90, Issue 3, May 2023, Pages 1011–1040, https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdac050

We study the impact of changing choice set size on the quality of choices in health insurance markets. Using novel data on enrolment and medical claims for school district employees in the state of Oregon, we document that the average employee could save $600 by switching to a lower cost plan. Structural modelling reveals large “choice inconsistencies” such as non-equalization of the dollar spent on premiums and out of pocket, and a novel form of “approximate inertia” where enrolees are excessively likely to switch to other plans that are close to the current plan on the plan design spreadsheet. Variation in the number of plan choices across districts and over time shows that enrolees make lower-cost choices when the choice set is smaller. We show that a curated restriction of choice set size improves choices more than the best available information intervention, partly because approximate inertia lowers gains from new information. We explicitly test and reject the assumption that this is because individuals choose worse from larger choice sets, or “choice overload”. Rather, we show that this feature arises from the fact that larger choice sets feature worse choices on average that are not offset by individual re-optimization.

我们研究了改变选择集大小对健康保险市场选择质量的影响。利用俄勒冈州学区雇员的入学和医疗索赔的新数据，我们证明，普通雇员可以通过切换到成本较低的计划节省600美元。结构模型揭示了巨大的“选择不一致”，比如花在保费和自掏腰包上的钱不均衡，以及一种新形式的“近似惯性”，即参保人极有可能切换到与计划设计电子表格上的当前计划接近的其他计划。不同地区和不同时期的计划选择数量的变化表明，当选择集较小时，参保者会做出成本较低的选择。我们表明，对选择集大小的精心限制比最佳可用信息干预更能改善选择，部分原因是近似惯性降低了新信息的收益。我们明确地测试并拒绝了这样的假设，即这是因为个体从更大的选择集中选择更差，或者“选择过载”。相反，我们表明，这个特征源于这样一个事实，即更大的选择集平均具有更差的选择，而这些选择不会被单独的重新优化所抵消。

Wall Street and Silicon Valley: A Delicate Interaction

华尔街和硅谷:微妙的互动

George-Marios Angeletos and others

The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 90, Issue 3, May 2023, Pages 1041–1083, https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdac043

Abstract

Entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are concerned about investors’ beliefs in asset markets because these beliefs shape the value of a potential IPO and the possibility to expand. Investors’ beliefs, on the other hand, can be influenced by start-up activity insofar as the latter contains valuable information about eventual profitability. This two-way feedback is shown to generate excessive, non-fundamental, waves in start-up activity, IPOs, and asset prices. Policies that “lean against the wind” can improve welfare, without requiring an informational advantage by the government.

企业家和风险资本家担心投资者对资产市场的信念，因为这些信念决定了潜在IPO的价值和扩张的可能性。另一方面，投资者的信念可能受到初创企业活动的影响，因为后者包含有关最终盈利能力的宝贵信息。这种双向反馈被证明会在创业活动、ipo和资产价格中产生过度的、非基本面的波动。“逆风而行”的政策可以改善福利，而不需要政府的信息优势。

Matching in Dynamic Imbalanced Markets

动态不平衡市场中的匹配

Itai Ashlagi and others

The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 90, Issue 3, May 2023, Pages 1084–1124, https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdac044

Abstract

We study dynamic matching in exchange markets with easy- and hard-to-match agents. A greedy policy, which attempts to match agents upon arrival, ignores the positive externality that waiting agents provide by facilitating future matchings. We prove that the trade-off between a “thicker” market and faster matching vanishes in large markets; the greedy policy leads to shorter waiting times and more agents matched than any other policy. We empirically confirm these findings in data from the National Kidney Registry. Greedy matching achieves as many transplants as commonly used policies (1.8|$\%$|more than monthly batching) and shorter waiting times (16 days faster than monthly batching).

我们研究了具有易匹配和难匹配代理的交易市场的动态匹配。贪婪策略试图在到达时匹配代理，忽略了等待代理通过促进未来匹配而提供的正外部性。我们证明，在大市场中，“更厚”的市场和更快的匹配之间的权衡消失了;与其他策略相比，贪婪策略的等待时间更短，匹配的代理数量更多。我们在国家肾脏登记处的数据中证实了这些发现。贪婪匹配实现与常用策略一样多的移植(比每月批处理多1.8|$\%$|)和更短的等待时间(比每月批处理快16天)。

Infrequent Random Portfolio Decisions in an Open Economy Model

开放经济模型中的不常见随机投资组合决策

Philippe Bacchetta and others

The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 90, Issue 3, May 2023, Pages 1125–1154, https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdac054

Abstract

We introduce a portfolio friction in a two-country DSGE model where investors face a constant probability to make new portfolio decisions. The friction leads to a more gradual portfolio adjustment to shocks and a weaker portfolio response to changes in expected excess returns. We apply the model to monthly data for the US and the rest of the world for equity portfolios. We show that the model is consistent with a broad set of evidence related to portfolios, equity prices, and excess returns for an intermediate level of friction. The evidence includes portfolio inertia, limited sensitivity to expected excess returns, a significant impact of financial shocks, excess return predictability, and asset price momentum and reversal.

我们在一个两国DSGE模型中引入了一个投资组合摩擦，在这个模型中，投资者面临一个恒定的概率来做出新的投资组合决策。这种摩擦导致投资组合对冲击的调整更加渐进，对预期超额收益变化的反应更弱。我们将该模型应用于美国和世界其他地区股票投资组合的月度数据。我们表明，该模型与一系列与投资组合、股票价格和中间摩擦水平的超额回报相关的广泛证据是一致的。证据包括投资组合惯性、对预期超额回报的有限敏感性、金融冲击的重大影响、超额回报的可预测性以及资产价格的动量和反转。

Estimating Intergenerational and Assortative Processes in Extended Family Data

估算扩展家庭数据的代际和分类过程

M Dolores Collado and others

The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 90, Issue 3, May 2023, Pages 1195–1227, https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdac060

Abstract

We quantify intergenerational and assortative processes by comparing different degrees of kinship within the same generation. This “horizontal” approach yields more, and more distant kinship moments than traditional methods, which allows us to account for the transmission of latent advantages in a detailed intergenerational model. Using Swedish registers, we find strong persistence in the latent determinants of status, and a striking degree of sorting—to explain the similarity of distant kins, assortative matching must be much stronger than previously thought. Latent genetic influences explain little of the variance in educational attainment, and sorting occurs primarily in non-genetic factors.

我们量化代际和分类过程通过比较不同程度的亲属关系在同一代。这种“横向”方法比传统方法产生更多、更遥远的亲属关系时刻，这使我们能够在一个详细的代际模型中解释潜在优势的传递。通过使用瑞典的注册表，我们发现在身份的潜在决定因素中有很强的持久性，并且排序的程度惊人——为了解释远亲的相似性，分类匹配必须比以前认为的要强得多。潜在的遗传影响几乎不能解释教育程度的差异，而分选主要发生在非遗传因素上。

Price Discrimination and Public Policy in the US College Market

美国大学市场的价格歧视与公共政策

Ian Fillmore

The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 90, Issue 3, May 2023, Pages 1228–1264, https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdac051

Abstract

In the US, the federal government grants colleges access to a student’s Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) which facilitates substantial price discrimination. This article is the first to estimate the consequences of allowing colleges to use the FAFSA in their pricing decisions. I build and estimate a structural model of college pricing and simulate counterfactuals wherein some or all of the FAFSA information is restricted. I find that if FAFSA information were restricted, 13|$\%$|of students attending elite colleges would be inefficiently priced out of the elite market. Nevertheless, student welfare would rise as colleges charged the majority of students lower prices. Colleges do use the FAFSA to transfer resources from high- to low-income students on average, but this redistribution is highly imprecise: allowing colleges to use the FAFSA harms one-third of low-income students while one in seven high-income students actually benefit.

在美国，联邦政府允许大学获得学生免费申请联邦学生援助(FAFSA)的权利，这导致了严重的价格歧视。这篇文章是第一个估计允许大学在他们的定价决策中使用FAFSA的后果。我建立并估计了一个大学定价的结构模型，并模拟了一些或全部FAFSA信息受到限制的反事实。我发现，如果FAFSA的信息受到限制，那么就读精英大学的13亿美元的学生将被无效地排除在精英市场之外。然而，随着大学向大多数学生收取较低的学费，学生福利将会增加。大学确实利用FAFSA将资源从高收入学生平均转移到低收入学生，但这种再分配非常不精确:允许大学使用FAFSA损害了三分之一的低收入学生，而七分之一的高收入学生实际上受益。

Marginal Jobs and Job Surplus: A Test of the Efficiency of Separations

边际工作与工作剩余:分离效率的检验

Simon Jäger and others

The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 90, Issue 3, May 2023, Pages 1265–1303, https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdac045

Abstract

We present a test of Coasean theories of efficient separations. We study a cohort of jobs from the introduction through the repeal of a large age- and region-specific unemployment benefit extension in Austria. In the treatment group, 18.5|$\%$|fewer jobs survive the program period. According to the Coasean view, the destroyed marginal jobs had low joint surplus. Hence, after the repeal, the treatment survivors should be more resilient than the ineligible control group survivors. Strikingly, the two groups instead exhibit identical post-repeal separation behaviour. We provide, and find suggestive evidence consistent with, an alternative model in which wage rigidity drives the inefficient separation dynamics.

我们提出了科斯的有效分离理论的检验。我们研究了奥地利从引入到废除大规模年龄和地区特定失业救济金延长的一系列工作。在治疗组中，在项目期间存活下来的工作减少了18.5个。根据科斯的观点，被摧毁的边际工作的联合剩余很低。因此，在废除后，治疗幸存者应该比不符合条件的对照组幸存者更有弹性。引人注目的是，这两个群体在废除后反而表现出相同的分离行为。我们提供，并发现与之相一致的暗示证据，另一种模型中，工资刚性驱动低效的分离动态。

Asset Prices and Unemployment Fluctuations: A Resolution of the Unemployment Volatility Puzzle

资产价格与失业波动:解决失业波动之谜

Patrick J Kehoe and others

The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 90, Issue 3, May 2023, Pages 1304–1357, https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdac048

Abstract

Recent work has demonstrated that existing solutions of the unemployment volatility puzzle are at odds with the procylicality of the opportunity cost of employment, the cyclicality of wages, and the volatility of risk-free rates. We propose a model of business cycles that is immune to these critiques by incorporating two key features. First, we allow for preferences that generate time-varying risk over the business cycle to account for observed fluctuations in asset prices. Second, we introduce human capital acquisition, as is consistent with the evidence on how wages grow with experience in the labor market. Our model reproduces the observed fluctuations in unemployment because hiring a worker is a risky investment with long-duration returns. As in the data, the price of risk in our model sharply increases in recessions. The benefit from hiring new workers therefore greatly declines, leading to a large decrease in job vacancies and an increase in unemployment of the same magnitude as in the data. We show that our results extend to versions of the model that include physical capital, a life cycle for workers, and alternative preference structures common in the asset-pricing literature.

最近的研究表明，失业波动之谜的现有解决方案与就业机会成本的顺周期性、工资的周期性和无风险利率的波动性不一致。我们提出了一个商业周期模型，通过结合两个关键特征，它不受这些批评的影响。首先，我们考虑到在商业周期中产生时变风险的偏好，以解释观察到的资产价格波动。其次，我们引入了人力资本获取，这与劳动力市场中工资如何随着经验增长的证据是一致的。我们的模型再现了观察到的失业率波动，因为雇佣工人是一项具有长期回报的风险投资。正如数据显示的那样，我们模型中的风险价格在衰退中急剧上升。因此，雇用新工人带来的好处大大下降，导致职位空缺大幅减少，失业率上升，与数据中显示的幅度相同。我们表明，我们的结果扩展到模型的版本，包括实物资本，工人的生命周期，以及资产定价文献中常见的替代偏好结构。

Sentimental Business Cycles

情感商业周期

Andresa Lagerborg and others

The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 90, Issue 3, May 2023, Pages 1358–1393, https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdac053

Abstract

We estimate the dynamic causal effects of consumer sentiment shocks in the US. We identify autonomous changes in survey evidence on consumer confidence using fatalities in mass shootings as an instrument. We find the instrument to be significant for an aggregate index of consumer expectations and also back up the identification scheme with micro evidence that exploits the geographical variation in mass shootings. Sentiment shocks have real macroeconomic effects. A negative sentiment shock is recessionary: It sets off a persistent decline in consumer confidence and induces a contraction in industrial production, private sector consumption and in the labour market, while having less evident nominal effects. Finally, sentiment shocks explain a non-negligible part of the cyclical fluctuations in consumer confidence and real macroeconomic aggregates.

我们估计了美国消费者信心冲击的动态因果效应。我们以大规模枪击事件中的死亡人数为工具，确定了消费者信心调查证据的自主变化。我们发现该工具对于消费者期望的综合指数具有重要意义，并且还利用大规模枪击事件中地理差异的微观证据来支持识别方案。情绪冲击会对宏观经济产生真正的影响。负面情绪冲击是衰退性的:它引发消费者信心持续下降，导致工业生产、私人部门消费和劳动力市场萎缩，而名义效应则不那么明显。最后，情绪冲击解释了消费者信心和实际宏观经济总量的周期性波动中不可忽视的一部分。

Consumer Search and Prices in the Automobile Market

汽车市场中的消费者搜索和价格

José Luis Moraga-González and others

The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 90, Issue 3, May 2023, Pages 1394–1440, https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdac047

Abstract

This article develops a discrete choice model of demand with optimal sequential consumer search. Consumers first choose a product to search; then, once they learn the utility they get from the searched product, they choose whether to buy it or to keep searching. We characterize the search problem as a standard discrete choice problem and propose a parametric search cost distribution that generates closed-form expressions for the probability of purchasing a product. We propose a method to estimate the model that supplements aggregate product data with individual-specific data which allows for the separate identification of search costs and preferences. We estimate the model using data from the automobile industry and find that search costs have non-trivial implications for elasticities and markups. We study the effects of exclusive dealing regulation and find that firms benefit at the expense of consumers, who face higher search costs and higher prices than would be the case if multi-brand dealerships were used.

本文建立了一个具有最优顺序消费者搜索的离散需求选择模型。消费者首先选择产品进行搜索;然后，一旦他们了解了他们从搜索产品中获得的效用，他们就会选择是购买还是继续搜索。我们将搜索问题描述为一个标准的离散选择问题，并提出了一个参数搜索成本分布，该分布生成了购买产品概率的封闭形式表达式。我们提出了一种方法来估计模型，该模型补充了个人特定数据的汇总产品数据，允许单独识别搜索成本和偏好。我们使用来自汽车行业的数据来估计模型，并发现搜索成本对弹性和加价有重要的影响。我们研究了独家交易监管的影响，发现企业以牺牲消费者为代价而受益，消费者面临着比使用多品牌经销商更高的搜索成本和更高的价格。

Reputation Building under Observational Learning

观察学习下的声誉建设

Harry Pei

The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 90, Issue 3, May 2023, Pages 1441–1469, https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdac052

Abstract

A patient seller interacts with a sequence of myopic consumers. Each period, the seller chooses the quality of his product, and a consumer decides whether to trust the seller after she observes the seller’s actions in the last|$K$| periods (limited memory) and at least one previous consumer’s action (observational learning). However, the consumer cannot observe the seller’s action in the current period. With positive probability, the seller is a commitment type who plays his Stackelberg action in every period. I show that under limited memory and observational learning, consumers are concerned that the seller will not play his Stackelberg action when he has a positive reputation and will play his Stackelberg action after he has lost his reputation. Such a concern leads to equilibria where the seller receives a low payoff from building a reputation. I also show that my reputation failure result hinges on consumers’ observational learning.

We Are All Behavioural, More, or Less: A Taxonomy of Consumer Decision-Making

我们都是行为的，或多或少:消费者决策的分类

Victor Stango and Jonathan Zinman

The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 90, Issue 3, May 2023, Pages 1470–1498, https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdac055

Abstract

We examine how 17 behavioural biases relate to each other, to three standard measures of risk and time preferences, to cognitive skills, personality, and demographics, and to outcomes in household finance, well-being, and health. Most consumers in our nationally representative panel data exhibit multiple biases, with substantial cross-person heterogeneity. Biases are positively correlated within person, especially after adjusting for measurement error. From that correlation structure, we reduce our 20 bias and standard preference measures to four behavioural common factors. Each BCF reflects a group of related biases regarding beliefs, decision quality, discounting, or risk/uncertainty attitudes. The first two BCFs also strongly correlate with each other (positively) and cognitive skills (negatively). The first three BCFs and cognitive skills strongly correlate with various outcomes in the expected directions. Our results support processing-based models where basic limitations in cognition and/or attention produce multiple biases, and they have several other implications for theory and practice.

我们研究了17种行为偏差如何相互关联，与风险和时间偏好的三种标准测量，认知技能，个性和人口统计，以及家庭财务，福祉和健康的结果。在我们具有全国代表性的面板数据中，大多数消费者表现出多重偏见，具有实质性的跨人异质性。偏差在人体内正相关，特别是在调整测量误差后。从这种关联结构中，我们将20种偏见和标准偏好措施减少到4种行为共同因素。每个BCF反映了一组有关信念、决策质量、贴现或风险/不确定性态度的相关偏见。前两个bcf之间也有很强的相关性(正相关)，认知技能之间也有很强的相关性(负相关)。前三个bcf和认知技能与预期方向的各种结果密切相关。我们的研究结果支持基于处理的模型，在这种模型中，认知和/或注意力的基本限制会产生多种偏见，并且它们对理论和实践有其他一些启示。

The Missing Profits of Nations

国家失去的利润

Thomas Tørsløv and others

The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 90, Issue 3, May 2023, Pages 1499–1534, https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdac049

Abstract

By exploiting new macroeconomic data known as foreign affiliates statistics, we show that affiliates of foreign multinational firms are an order of magnitude more profitable than local firms in a number of low-tax countries. Leveraging this differential profitability, we estimate that 36|$\%$|of multinational profits are shifted to tax havens globally. US multinationals shift twice as much profit as other multinationals relative to the size of their foreign earnings. We analyse how the location of corporate profits would change if shifted profits were reallocated to their source countries. Domestic profits would increase by about 20|$\%$| in high-tax European Union countries, 10|$\%$| in the US, and 5|$\%$| in developing countries, while they would fall by 55|$\%$| in tax havens. We provide a new international database of GDP, trade balances, and factor shares corrected for profit shifting. In contrast to the picture painted by official statistics, our results suggest that the corporate capital share has increased not only in North America but also in high-tax European countries. Capital is making a comeback globally, but its rise is obscured by the tax avoidance strategies of multinational companies.

通过利用被称为外国子公司统计的新宏观经济数据，我们表明，在一些低税收国家，外国跨国公司的子公司比当地公司的利润高出一个数量级。利用这种不同的盈利能力，我们估计有360亿美元的跨国公司利润被转移到全球的避税天堂。相对于海外收入规模，美国跨国公司转移的利润是其他跨国公司的两倍。我们分析了如果转移的利润重新分配到其来源国，企业利润的位置将如何变化。高税收的欧盟国家的国内利润将增长约200亿美元，美国将增长100亿美元，发展中国家将增长50亿美元，而避税天堂的利润将下降550亿美元。我们提供了一个新的国内生产总值、贸易平衡和要素份额的国际数据库，并对利润转移进行了修正。与官方统计数据所描绘的情况相反，我们的研究结果表明，不仅在北美，而且在高税收的欧洲国家，企业资本份额也有所增加。资本正在全球范围内卷土重来，但跨国公司的避税策略掩盖了它的崛起。

Hours Constraints, Occupational Choice, and Gender: Evidence from Medical Residents

工时限制、职业选择与性别:来自住院医师的证据

Melanie Wasserman

The Review of Economic Studies, Volume 90, Issue 3, May 2023, Pages 1535–1568, https://doi.org/10.1093/restud/rdac042

Abstract

Do the long work hours required by many high-paying professions inhibit the entry of women? I investigate this question by studying a 2003 policy that capped the average workweek for medical residents at 80 hours. Using data on the universe of US medical school graduates, I find that when a specialty reduces its weekly hours, more women enter the specialty, whereas there is little change in men’s entry. I provide evidence that the increase in women is due to changes in labour supply, rather than labour demand. At the residency program level, I document that baseline female representation predicts female entry after the reform. A back-of-the-envelope calculation suggests that the reallocation of women among medical specialties due to the hours reduction can close the physician gender wage gap by 11|$\%$|⁠.

许多高薪职业所要求的长时间工作是否阻碍了女性的进入?我通过研究2003年的一项政策来调查这个问题，该政策将住院医生的平均每周工作时间限制在80小时以内。利用美国医学院毕业生的数据，我发现，当一个专业减少每周工作时间时，更多的女性进入该专业，而男性进入该专业的人数几乎没有变化。我提供的证据表明，女性人数的增加是由于劳动力供应的变化，而不是劳动力需求的变化。在住院医师计划层面，我记录了女性代表的基线预测了改革后女性的加入。一个粗略的计算表明，由于工作时间的减少，在医学专业中重新分配妇女可以将医生的性别工资差距缩小110亿美元。