经济学顶刊The Quarterly Journal of Economics （季刊）2023年第1期

The Quarterly Journal of Economics （季刊）2023年第1期

Volume 138, Issue 2, 2023

 

 

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Does Directed Innovation Mitigate Climate Damage? Evidence from U.S. Agriculture 

定向创新能减轻气候损害吗?来自美国农业的证据

Jacob Moscona and Karthik A Sastry

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 138, Issue 2, May 2023, Pages 637–701, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjac039

This article studies how innovation reacts to climate change and shapes its economic impacts, focusing on U.S. agriculture. We show in a model that directed innovation can either mitigate or exacerbate climate change’s potential economic damage depending on the substitutability between new technology and favorable climatic conditions. To empirically investigate the technological response to climate change, we measure crop-specific exposure to damaging extreme temperatures and crop-specific innovation embodied in new variety releases and patents. We find that innovation has redirected since the mid-twentieth century toward crops with increasing exposure to extreme temperatures. Moreover, this effect is driven by types of agricultural technology most related to environmental adaptation. We next show that U.S. counties’ exposure to induced innovation significantly dampens the local economic damage from extreme temperatures. Combining these estimates with the model, we find that directed innovation has offset 20% of potential losses in U.S. agricultural land value due to damaging climate trends since 1960 and that innovation could offset 13% of projected damage by 2100. These findings highlight the vital importance, but incomplete effectiveness, of endogenous technological change as a source of adaptation to climate change.

本文以美国农业为研究对象，研究创新如何对气候变化作出反应，并塑造其经济影响。我们在一个模型中表明，定向创新可以减轻或加剧气候变化的潜在经济损失，这取决于新技术和有利气候条件之间的可替代性。为了实证研究技术对气候变化的响应，我们测量了特定作物对破坏性极端温度的暴露，以及体现在新品种发布和专利中的特定作物创新。我们发现，自20世纪中叶以来，创新已经转向了越来越多地暴露在极端温度下的作物。此外，这种效应是由与环境适应最相关的农业技术类型驱动的。我们接下来表明，美国郡县受到诱导创新的影响显著地抑制了极端温度造成的当地经济损失。将这些估计与模型相结合，我们发现，自1960年以来，由于破坏性的气候趋势，定向创新已经抵消了美国农业用地价值20%的潜在损失，到2100年，创新可以抵消13%的预计损失。这些发现强调了内源性技术变革作为适应气候变化的来源的重要性，但其有效性并不完全。

 

 

How do Campaigns Shape Vote Choice? Multicountry Evidence from 62 Elections and 56 TV Debates 

竞选活动如何影响投票选择?62次选举和56次电视辩论的多国证据

Caroline Le Pennec and Vincent Pons

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 138, Issue 2, May 2023, Pages 703–767, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad002

We use two-round survey data from 62 elections in 10 countries since 1952 to study the formation of vote choice, beliefs, and policy preferences and assess how televised debates contribute to this process. Our data include 253,000 observations. We compare the consistency between vote intention and vote choice of respondents surveyed at different points before, and then again after, the election, and show that 17% to 29% of voters make up their mind during the final two months of campaigns. Changes in vote choice are concomitant to shifts in issues voters find most important and in beliefs about candidates, and they generate sizable swings in vote shares. In contrast, policy preferences remain remarkably stable throughout the campaign. Finally, we use an event study to estimate the impact of TV debates, in which candidates themselves communicate with voters, and of shocks such as natural and technological disasters which, by contrast, occur independently from the campaign. We do not find any effect of either type of event on vote choice formation, suggesting that information received throughout the campaign from other sources such as the media, political activists, and other citizens is more impactful.

我们使用了自1952年以来10个国家62次选举的两轮调查数据来研究投票选择、信仰和政策偏好的形成，并评估电视辩论如何促进这一过程。我们的数据包括253,000个观测值。我们比较了在选举前后不同时间点接受调查的受访者的投票意向和投票选择之间的一致性，结果表明，17%至29%的选民在竞选的最后两个月做出了决定。投票选择的变化伴随着选民认为最重要的问题和对候选人的看法的变化，它们会导致选票份额的大幅波动。相比之下，在整个竞选过程中，政策偏好保持了相当稳定。最后，我们使用事件研究来估计电视辩论的影响，在电视辩论中，候选人自己与选民沟通，以及自然和技术灾害等冲击，相比之下，独立于竞选活动发生。我们没有发现这两种类型的事件对投票选择形成有任何影响，这表明在整个竞选过程中，从其他来源(如媒体、政治活动家和其他公民)获得的信息更有影响力。

 

 

Welfare and Output With Income Effects and Taste Shocks

收入效应与需求冲击下的福利与产出

David R Baqaee and Ariel Burstein

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 138, Issue 2, May 2023, Pages 769–834, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjac042

We present a unified treatment of how welfare responds to changes in budget sets or technologies with taste shocks and nonhomothetic preferences. We propose a welfare metric that ranks production possibility frontiers that differs from one that ranks budget sets and characterize it using a general equilibrium generalization of Hicksian demand. This extends Hulten’s theorem, the basis for constructing aggregate quantity indices, to environments with nonhomothetic and unstable preferences. We illustrate our results using both long- and short-run applications. In the long run, we show that if structural transformation is caused by income effects or changes in tastes, rather than substitution effects, then Baumol’s cost disease is twice as important for our preferred measure of welfare. In the short run, we show that standard chain-weighted deflators understate welfare-relevant inflation for current tastes. Finally, using the COVID-19 recession, we illustrate that chain-weighted real consumption and real GDP are unreliable metrics for measuring welfare or production when there are taste shocks.

我们提出了一个统一的处理福利如何响应变化的预算集或技术与口味冲击和非同质偏好。我们提出了一个福利指标，它对生产可能性边界进行排序，不同于对预算集进行排序，并使用希克斯需求的一般均衡泛化来描述它。这将构建总量指标的基础Hulten定理推广到具有非同质和不稳定偏好的环境中。我们使用长期和短期应用程序来说明我们的结果。从长期来看，我们表明，如果结构转型是由收入效应或品味变化引起的，而不是替代效应，那么鲍莫尔成本病对我们首选的福利衡量标准的重要性是其两倍。在短期内，我们表明，标准链加权平减指数低估了当前口味的福利相关通胀。最后，我们利用COVID-19衰退说明，当存在味觉冲击时，链条加权实际消费和实际GDP是衡量福利或生产的不可靠指标。

 

 

Use It or Lose It: Efficiency and Redistributional Effects of Wealth Taxation

使用它或失去它:财富税的效率和再分配效应

Fatih Guvenen and others

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 138, Issue 2, May 2023, Pages 835–894, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjac047

How does wealth taxation differ from capital income taxation? When the return on investment is equal across individuals, a well-known result is that the two tax systems are equivalent. Motivated by recent empirical evidence documenting persistent return heterogeneity, we revisit this question. With heterogeneity, the two tax systems typically have opposite implications for efficiency and inequality. Under capital income taxation, entrepreneurs who are more productive and therefore generate more income pay higher taxes. Under wealth taxation, entrepreneurs who have similar wealth levels pay similar taxes regardless of their productivity, which expands the tax base, shifts the tax burden toward unproductive entrepreneurs, and raises the savings rate of productive ones. This reallocation increases aggregate productivity and output. In the simulated model parameterized to match the U.S. data, replacing the capital income tax with a wealth tax in a revenue-neutral way delivers a significantly higher average welfare. Turning to optimal taxation, the optimal wealth tax (OWT) is positive and yields large welfare gains by raising efficiency and lowering inequality. In contrast, the optimal capital income tax (OKIT) is negative—a subsidy—and delivers lower welfare gains than OWT, owing to the welfare losses from higher inequality. Furthermore, when the transition path is considered, the gains from OKIT turn into significant welfare losses for existing cohorts, whereas OWT continues to deliver robust welfare gains. These results suggest that moderate wealth taxation may be a more appealing alternative than capital income taxation, which can be significantly more distorting under return heterogeneity than under the equal-returns assumption.

财富税与资本所得税有何不同?当个人的投资回报相等时，一个众所周知的结果是两种税收制度是相等的。由于最近的实证证据证明了持续的回报异质性，我们重新审视了这个问题。由于存在异质性，这两种税收制度通常会对效率和不平等产生相反的影响。在资本所得税制度下，生产力更高、因此收入更多的企业家要缴纳更高的税。在财富税制度下，拥有相似财富水平的企业家无论他们的生产率如何，都要缴纳相似的税，这扩大了税基，将税收负担转移到非生产性企业家身上，并提高了生产性企业家的储蓄率。这种再分配提高了总生产率和产出。在与美国数据相匹配的参数化模拟模型中，以收入中性的方式用财富税取代资本所得税可以显著提高平均福利。转向最优税收，最优财富税(OWT)是正的，通过提高效率和降低不平等产生巨大的福利收益。相比之下，最优资本所得税(OKIT)是负的——一种补贴——由于不平等加剧导致的福利损失，它带来的福利收益低于OWT。此外，当考虑到过渡路径时，OKIT的收益变成了现有队列的重大福利损失，而OWT继续提供强劲的福利收益。这些结果表明，适度的财富税可能是比资本所得税更有吸引力的选择，资本所得税在回报异质性下比在等回报假设下更容易扭曲。

 

 

Cutting the Innovation Engine: How Federal Funding Shocks Affect University Patenting, Entrepreneurship, and Publications

切断创新引擎:联邦资金冲击如何影响大学专利、创业和出版

Tania Babina and others

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 138, Issue 2, May 2023, Pages 895–954, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjac046

This article studies how federal funding affects the innovation outputs of university researchers. We link person-level research grants from 22 universities to patents, publications, and career outcomes from the U.S. Census Bureau. We focus on the effects of large, idiosyncratic, and temporary cuts to federal funding in a researcher’s preexisting narrow field of study. Using an event study design, we document that these negative federal funding shocks reduce high-tech entrepreneurship and publications but increase patenting. The lost publications tend to be higher quality and more basic, whereas the additional patents tend to be lower quality, less general, and more often privately assigned. These federal funding cuts lead to an increase in private funding, which partially compensates for the decline in federal funding. Together with evidence from industry-university contracts, the results suggest that federal funding cuts shift university research funding from federal to private sources and lead to innovation outputs that are less openly accessible and more often appropriated by corporate funders.

本文研究了联邦资助对大学科研人员创新产出的影响。我们将22所大学的个人研究资助与美国人口普查局的专利、出版物和职业成果联系起来。我们关注的是，在研究人员先前存在的狭窄研究领域中，大规模、特殊和临时削减联邦资助的影响。使用事件研究设计，我们证明这些负面的联邦资金冲击减少了高科技创业和出版物，但增加了专利申请。失去的出版物往往质量更高，更基本，而额外的专利往往质量较低，不那么普遍，更多的是私人转让。这些联邦资金的削减导致私人资金的增加，这部分弥补了联邦资金的减少。结合产学研合同的证据，研究结果表明，联邦资金削减将大学研究资金从联邦资金转移到私人资金来源，导致创新产出不太容易公开获取，而且更经常被企业资助者挪用。

 

 

Learning from Shared News: When Abundant Information Leads to Belief Polarization

从分享的新闻中学习:当丰富的信息导致信仰两极分化

T Renee Bowen and others

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 138, Issue 2, May 2023, Pages 955–1000, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjac045

We study learning via shared news. Each period agents receive the same quantity and quality of firsthand information and can share it with friends. Some friends (possibly few) share selectively, generating heterogeneous news diets across agents. Agents are aware of selective sharing and update beliefs by Bayes’s rule. Contrary to standard learning results, we show that beliefs can diverge in this environment, leading to polarization. This requires that (i) agents hold misperceptions (even minor) about friends’ sharing and (ii) information quality is sufficiently low. Polarization can worsen when agents’ friend networks expand. When the quantity of firsthand information becomes large, agents can hold opposite extreme beliefs, resulting in severe polarization. We find that news aggregators can curb polarization caused by news sharing. Our results hold without media bias or fake news, so eliminating these is not sufficient to reduce polarization. When fake news is included, it can lead to polarization but only through misperceived selective sharing. We apply our theory to shed light on the polarization of public opinion about climate change in the United States.

我们通过分享新闻来学习。每个时期的代理收到相同数量和质量的第一手信息，并可以与朋友分享。一些朋友(可能很少)有选择地分享，在代理之间产生异质的新闻饮食。根据贝叶斯规则，智能体意识到选择性共享和更新信念。与标准的学习结果相反，我们表明信念在这种环境中会发生分歧，导致两极分化。这需要(i)代理人对朋友的分享有误解(即使是轻微的误解)，(ii)信息质量足够低。当代理人的朋友网络扩大时，两极分化会加剧。当第一手信息的数量变大时，代理人可能持有相反的极端信念，导致严重的两极分化。我们发现新闻聚合器可以抑制由新闻分享引起的两极分化。我们的结果在没有媒体偏见或假新闻的情况下成立，因此消除这些并不足以减少两极分化。当包含假新闻时，它可能导致两极分化，但只有通过错误的选择性分享。我们运用我们的理论来阐明美国关于气候变化的公众舆论的两极分化。

 

 

Why do Borrowers Default on Mortgages?

为什么借款人拖欠抵押贷款?

Peter Ganong and Pascal Noel

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 138, Issue 2, May 2023, Pages 1001–1065, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjac040

There are three prevailing theories of mortgage default: strategic default (driven by negative equity), cash flow default (driven by negative life events), and double-trigger default (where both negative triggers are necessary). It has been difficult to compare these theories in part because negative life events are measured with error. We address this measurement error using a comparison group of borrowers with no strategic-default motive. Our central finding is that only 6% of underwater defaults are caused exclusively by negative equity, an order of magnitude lower than previously thought. We then analyze the remaining defaults. We find that 70% are driven solely by negative life events (i.e., cash flow defaults), while 24% are driven by the interaction between negative life events and negative equity (i.e., double-trigger defaults). Together, the results provide a full decomposition of the theories underlying borrower default and suggest that negative life events play a central role.

抵押贷款违约有三种流行的理论:战略违约(由负资产驱动)，现金流违约(由负面生活事件驱动)和双重触发违约(两个负面触发都是必要的)。很难对这些理论进行比较，部分原因是负面生活事件的衡量存在误差。我们使用一组没有战略违约动机的借款人来解决这一测量误差。我们的主要发现是，只有6%的水下违约完全是由负资产引起的，比之前认为的要低一个数量级。然后我们分析剩下的默认值。我们发现70%是由负面生活事件(即现金流违约)驱动的，而24%是由负面生活事件和负资产之间的相互作用驱动的(即双重触发违约)。总之，研究结果提供了借款人违约理论的全面分解，并表明负面生活事件起着核心作用。

 

 

Globalization, Trade Imbalances, and Labor Market Adjustment 

全球化、贸易失衡与劳动力市场调整

Rafael Dix-Carneiro and others

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 138, Issue 2, May 2023, Pages 1109–1171, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjac043

We argue that modeling trade imbalances is crucial for understanding transitional dynamics in response to globalization shocks. We build and estimate a general equilibrium, multicountry, multisector model of trade with two key ingredients: (i) endogenous trade imbalances arising from households’ consumption and saving decisions; (ii) labor market frictions across and within sectors. We use our model to perform several empirical exercises. We find that the “China shock” accounted for 28% of the decline in U.S. manufacturing between 2000 and 2014—1.65 times the magnitude predicted from a model imposing balanced trade. A concurrent rise in U.S. service employment led to a negligible aggregate unemployment response. We benchmark our model’s predictions for the gains from trade against the popular ACR sufficient-statistics approach. We find that our predictions for the long-run gains from trade and consumption dynamics significantly diverge.

我们认为，建立贸易失衡模型对于理解应对全球化冲击的转型动态至关重要。我们建立并估计了一个具有两个关键要素的一般均衡、多国、多部门贸易模型:(i)由家庭消费和储蓄决策引起的内生贸易失衡;(ii)部门之间和部门内部的劳动力市场摩擦。我们使用我们的模型来执行几个实证练习。我们发现，2000年至2014年间，“中国冲击”占美国制造业衰退的28%，是贸易平衡模型预测的幅度的65倍。与此同时，美国服务业就业的增加导致总体失业率的反应微不足道。我们将模型对贸易收益的预测与流行的ACR充分统计方法进行对比。我们发现，我们对贸易和消费动态带来的长期收益的预测存在显著分歧。

 

The Fractured-Land Hypothesis

断裂土地假说

Jesús Fernández-Villaverde and others

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 138, Issue 2, May 2023, Pages 1173–1231, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad003

Patterns of state formation have crucial implications for comparative economic development. Diamond (1997) famously argued that “fractured land” was responsible for China’s tendency toward political unification and Europe’s protracted polycentrism. We build a dynamic model with granular geographical information in terms of topographical features and the location of productive agricultural land to quantitatively gauge the effects of fractured land on state formation in Eurasia. We find that topography alone is sufficient but not necessary to explain polycentrism in Europe and unification in China. Differences in land productivity, in particular the existence of a core region of high land productivity in northern China, deliver the same result. We discuss how our results map into observed historical outcomes, assess how robust our findings are, and analyze the differences between theory and data in Africa and the Americas. 

 

Let the Worst One Fail: A Credible Solution to the Too-Big-To-Fail Conundrum

让最坏的倒闭:一个解决“大而不倒”难题的可靠方案

Thomas Philippon and Olivier Wang

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 138, Issue 2, May 2023, Pages 1233–1271, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjac044

We study time-consistent bank resolution mechanisms. The key constraint is that governments cannot avoid bailouts that are ex post efficient. Contrary to common wisdom, we show that the government may still avoid moral hazard and implement the first-best allocation by using the distribution of bailouts across banks to provide incentives. We analyze properties of credible tournament mechanisms that provide support to the best-performing banks and resolve the worst-performing ones. We extend our mechanism and show that it continues to perform well when banks are imperfect substitutes, when they are differentially interconnected as long as bailout funds can be earmarked, and when their risk-taking is driven by overoptimism instead of moral hazard.

我们研究时间一致的银行清算机制。关键的制约因素是，政府无法避免事后有效的纾困。与常识相反，我们表明，政府仍然可以通过在银行间分配救助资金来提供激励，从而避免道德风险，实现最优配置。我们分析了可信竞赛机制的特性，这些机制为表现最好的银行提供支持，并解决表现最差的银行。我们扩展了我们的机制，并表明，当银行是不完美的替代品时，当银行之间存在差异联系时，只要救助资金可以指定，当他们的冒险行为是由过度乐观而不是道德风险驱动时，它仍然表现良好。

 

 

The Refugee’s Dilemma: Evidence from Jewish Migration out of Nazi Germany

难民的困境:来自纳粹德国犹太移民的证据

Johannes Buggle and others

The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Volume 138, Issue 2, May 2023, Pages 1273–1345, https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjad001

We estimate the push and pull factors involved in the outmigration of Jews facing persecution in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1941. Our empirical investigation makes use of a unique individual-level data set that records the migration history of the Jewish community in Germany over the period. Our analysis highlights new channels, specific to violent contexts, through which social networks affect the decision to flee. We estimate a structural model of migration where individuals base their migration decision on the observation of persecution and migration among their peers. Identification rests on exogenous variations in local push and pull factors across peers who live in different cities of residence. Then we perform various experiments of counterfactual history to quantify how migration restrictions in destination countries affected the fate of Jews. For example, removing work restrictions for refugees in the recipient countries after the Nuremberg Laws (1935) would have led to an increase in Jewish migration out of Germany in the range of 12% to 20% and a reduction in mortality due to prevented deportations in the range of 6% to 10%.

我们估计了1933年至1941年在纳粹德国面临迫害的犹太人的外迁所涉及的推动和拉动因素。我们的实证调查利用了一个独特的个人层面的数据集，记录了这一时期德国犹太社区的移民历史。我们的分析强调了新的渠道，特别是在暴力环境下，社交网络通过这些渠道影响人们逃离的决定。我们估计了一个迁移的结构模型，在这个模型中，个人的迁移决定是基于对同伴之间迫害和迁移的观察。识别依赖于居住在不同城市的同龄人之间当地推拉因素的外生变化。然后，我们进行了各种反事实历史实验，以量化目的国的移民限制如何影响犹太人的命运。例如，在纽伦堡法案(1935年)之后，在接收国取消对难民的工作限制将导致离开德国的犹太移民增加12%至20%，由于防止驱逐而导致的死亡率降低6%至10%。