Abstract: We investigate the effects of international migration of a household member on female employment in Albania, considering the availability of childcare as a conditioning factor for women’s decisions. In order to instrument the presence of a migrant member abroad, we exploit the collapse of the Communist regime and the mass emigration of Albanians in the early 1990s as a natural experiment for migration networks. We use the Albanian DHS survey 2018 for our main analysis. Its geo-referenced clusters are combined with the universe of kindergartens in Albania and their geo-location to construct spatial preschool availability. Our results show that female carers of young children have a greater probability to have wage employment if a member of their household is abroad. This effect only arises for women living with children attending preschool or for those residing in high preschool-dense areas. The article thus shows that childcare services can leverage the effects of international migration in Albania. The analysis also shows that greater kindergarten availability directly increases female labour supply.

Abstract: Informality has become a prevailing feature of most emerging economies. Informality cost has become a major concern for many scholars. We assess the impact of initial informal status on the adoption of foreign technology by formal sector firms. The main hypothesis tested is that firms that started up informally are less likely to adopt foreign technology even after becoming formal. We use firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Survey for a large cross-section of emerging economies during the period 2006-2020. Our findings show that the beginning informal has a negative and persistent effect on adopting foreign technology even after formalization. Moreover, we find some moderating factors that reduce the persistence of informality costs. We find that exporting activities, firm productivity, skill intensity, and foreign ownership are important moderating factors that can alleviate the negative impact of beginning informal on the adoption of foreign technology. Our findings are robust to a range of firm and country characteristics, alternative econometric specifications, and checks for endogeneity issues.

Abstract: Preexisting inequalities in socioeconomic status can drive differences in children’s cognitive skill development and parents’ reactions to child development policies influencing policy effectiveness. To analyze the role of parental background and investments (nutrition diversity and schooling expenditure) in this process, I estimate a dynamic structural model using data from Indonesia. I find two main factors contribute to the adult skill gap: household income and parental education, which influences the productivity of investments. Using the model, I simulate three policies: unconditional cash transfers, nutrition, and schooling price subsidies. To compare their long-run effects on adult skills, I account for parents adjusting their investment behavior in response to policies. Given the same cost, a) subsidizing food prices is more effective than subsidizing schooling expenditure, and b) both are more effective than cash transfers. As I find nutrition and schooling to be complements, a price decrease incentivizes parents to increase both inputs. With cash transfers, parents also increase investments but increase consumption relatively more as price incentives do not change. Nutrition subsidies reduce inequality most effectively, as parents with lower education react stronger to food price changes and, consequently, increase child investments more than parents with higher education. They do so as they spend a larger share of investments on nutrition. Further, nutrition subsidies implemented alone are more cost-effective than any combination of the three policies.

Abstract: Who should be the target of health policy and interventions in sub-Saharan Africa? Despite the well-documented relationship between economic resources and health outcomes, recent evidence shows that people with health needs are majoritarily not found in poor households. In this paper, I use a structural equation model (SEM) to simultaneously estimate and characterize deficits in health status, empowerment, and access to health care, using individual survey data from rural Senegal (the ANRS12356 AmBASS survey). I find that individuals living in resource-rich households are more likely to experience lower levels of empowerment, while reporting better health, and optimal access to health services. In contrast, empowerment increases with individual earnings, and is significantly associated with improved health status. These results suggest that empowerment is the missing puzzle piece in the complex relationship between health and poverty in rural sub-Saharan Africa. A SEM-based model of health capability offers a way forward in pinpointing individuals to be targeted by a differentiated yet complementary set of policy and interventions for the promotion of health status, decision-making latitude, and access to healthcare, respectively. In particular, the model identifies cumulative vulnerabilities in women and permanent residents, and sheds light on intrinsic motivation as a shared lever for overall health capability.

Abstract: This study examines anticipated wage premiums to different field specializations at the secondary education level. The principal research question is whether an early specialization of certain fields of study, such as those categorized as fields, have comparatively higher anticipated earnings than other fields of study, when these specializations occur at the high school (secondary) level. Leveraging IV estimation to identify the effect of choosing one type of field specialization compared to another is usually challenging because due to self selection into fields. I overcome these challenges by exploiting local experiments and rich data from a Mexican system of schools public schools that admit students based on ranked admission examination test scores. I find higher anticipated wages for schools that offer specializations in services industry and engineering, and comparatively lower anticipated wages associated with schools that offer social science fields of study.

Abstract: We study the impact of having a child on the relationship quality of couples. First child birth greatly and persistently reduces relationship quality, both for fathers and mothers. We argue that this effect is induced by a reduction in the amount of time spent together and the reallocation of time spent across housework and employment. Preliminary evidence on a Shared Parental Leave suggests that policies encouraging fathers to assume housework responsibilities can mitigate the negative impact of childbirth on relationship quality.

Abstract: Compact cities are uniformly seen as more productive, through agglomeration externalities, and tend to be more environmentally-friendly, as they have lower CO2 emissions per capita. Nonetheless, urban density can have a downside, in that it could induce higher local pollution, which would lower productivity. I use French panel data over the 2006-2017 period to uncover the impact of urban morphological aspects, including density and polycentricity, on local air quality, and, in turn, on productivity and wages. Using a double instrumental variable strategy to tackle endogeneity issues, I find that urban density does foster higher fine particulate matter (PM2.5) concentration. The results also show that a more polycentric structure would allow to weaken this negative impact.

Abstract: Owing to deforestation, since 2021, the Amazon rainforest is emitting more CO2 than it is able to absorb, with a crucial impact on global warming and biodiversity loss. Legal Amazonia is an administrative area in Brazil that accounts for 64% of the whole Amazon rainforest in South America. With 5.2 million km2, it represents 61% of the entire Brazilian territory, encompassing 9 federal states. The Amazon Fund is one of the main vehicles of international climate finance operating in Legal Amazonia. Its disbursements have dramatically dropped in recent years following important disagreements with the Brazilian government. The goal of this paper is to assess the impact of the Amazon Fund’s projects in reducing deforestation, along with some other key factors, such as the national environmental agency’s sanctions and agricultural production. Using satellite observations and microeconomic data, we build a panel dataset on the evolution of variables capturing environmental features, climate finance, regulation and production over 2002-2020 across the 760 municipalities of Legal Amazonia. We use a Panel Vector AutoRegression (PVAR) to replicate a stylized economic system where variables can influence each other at different lags. Our main empirical findings entail interesting policy implications: i) the Amazon Fund disbursements significantly reduce deforestation rates; ii) by recipient body, projects managed at the states level are more efficient than those managed by municipalities or universities; iii) by type of project, those related to land use planning, which involve the development and protection of local autochthonous communities, are the most efficient.

Abstract: Urban areas are main economic centers that gather most of the world’s population but they are exposed to diverse and complex disaster risks. Indeed, potential damages from extreme events grow with urban development. On the other hand, the recurrence of catastrophic events is likely to increase with climate change, which challenges public authorities to build resilient urban development. Risks prevention plans (PPR) are a type of land use regulation that intend to tackle externalities deriving from inhabitants choosing to locate in hazardous areas by controlling constructions and land use. It is a two-step policy that first provides objective information to inhabitants about existing risks to correct for imperfect information. It then converts the risk assessment into effective land use restrictions that limit possible uses and new buildings. Does the PPR implementation limit number of stakes and their vulnerability in at-risk areas? This paper relies on high-quality geolocalized administrative data to disentangle the effect of a uniform risk-information provision from land-use regulation restrictions at the national level. To the best of my knowledge, it is the first data set on hazard-based land use regulations that study the effect of new zoning over a large and detailed period with granular geospatial data. I identify the causal impacts of each implementation phase (first information, second land use regulation) on local housing markets in a difference-in-difference with a staggered adoption framework. Very preliminary results indicate no significant impact of plan adoptions on either new construction or changes in land use, which follow the same urban development trend as before. Consistently with previous work on information shocks (Kocornik-Mina et al. 2020) and on environmental land use regulations (Sims and Schuetz 2009), it suggests a limited integration of risks by housing markets even with better information.

Abstract: Real manufacturing output increased rapidly in China from 2000 to 2012 while SO2 pollution emissions grew at a much lower rate. I show by reduced-form analysis that this is partly because economies of scale reduce pollution intensity along with trade liberalization, environmental regulations and higher productivity. I then decompose pollution emissions and find that the change is primarily driven by within-sector firm heterogeneities rather than industry structural change. Further analysis based on a quantitative model reveals that environmental regulations play a major role in reducing pollution and the implicit pollution tax faced by firms grew substantially over the period. In addition, tariff cuts due to trade liberalization also drove down variable costs of trade that allow firms to abate pollution more.

Abstract: Who should be the target of health policy and interventions in sub-Saharan Africa? Despite the well-documented relationship between economic resources and health outcomes, recent evidence shows that people with health needs are majoritarily not found in poor households. In this paper, I use a structural equation model (SEM) to simultaneously estimate and characterize deficits in health status, empowerment, and access to health care, using individual survey data from rural Senegal (the ANRS12356 AmBASS survey). I find that individuals living in resource-rich households are more likely to experience lower levels of empowerment, while reporting better health, and optimal access to health services. In contrast, empowerment increases with individual earnings, and is significantly associated with improved health status. These results suggest that empowerment is the missing puzzle piece in the complex relationship between health and poverty in rural sub-Saharan Africa. A SEM-based model of health capability offers a way forward in pinpointing individuals to be targeted by a differentiated yet complementary set of policy and interventions for the promotion of health status, decision-making latitude, and access to healthcare, respectively. In particular, the model identifies cumulative vulnerabilities in women and permanent residents, and sheds light on intrinsic motivation as a shared lever for overall health capability.

Abstract: This study examines anticipated wage premiums to different field specializations at the secondary education level. The principal research question is whether an early specialization of certain fields of study, such as those categorized as fields, have comparatively higher anticipated earnings than other fields of study, when these specializations occur at the high school (secondary) level. Leveraging IV estimation to identify the effect of choosing one type of field specialization compared to another is usually challenging because due to self selection into fields. I overcome these challenges by exploiting local experiments and rich data from a Mexican system of schools public schools that admit students based on ranked admission examination test scores. I find higher anticipated wages for schools that offer specializations in services industry and engineering, and comparatively lower anticipated wages associated with schools that offer social science fields of study.

Abstract: We study the impact of having a child on the relationship quality of couples. First child birth greatly and persistently reduces relationship quality, both for fathers and mothers. We argue that this effect is induced by a reduction in the amount of time spent together and the reallocation of time spent across housework and employment. Preliminary evidence on a Shared Parental Leave suggests that policies encouraging fathers to assume housework responsibilities can mitigate the negative impact of childbirth on relationship quality.

Abstract: I propose a novel method for estimating teacher value added which controls for non-random student-teacher sorting without having to control for lagged grades in standardised tests, by exploiting ”networks” of teachers - teachers from the same subject who are observed in classrooms with a unique ”link” teacher from another subject. I measure the relative value added of two teachers in a network as the difference between their classrooms’ grades in a standardised exam, net of student characteristics, correcting for the classrooms’ grade differential in the subject of the link teacher. I show that the estimated teacher effects are unbiased under plausible assumptions. Using exhaustive French administrative data, I find that a 1 SD increase in teacher value added within school improves student scores by 0.17 SD in Math and 0.16 SD in French.

Abstract: The US is one of the few advanced economies that does not provide universal public child care. The financial burden of child care has soared in recent decades, with its price increasing by more than 200 percent between 1990 and 2020. I use differences in state regulations as an instrument to estimate the effect of childcare prices on female labor force participation and hours worked. I find no effect on the extensive margin but a significant negative effect on the intensive margin, which is driven primarily by low-skill workers. This difference is explained by the type of child care arrangement that low- and high-skill women use. Low-skill women cannot easily substitute formal for informal care because they are already using family child care arrangements, which leads them to reduce the number of hours worked. Conversely, high-skill women use babysitters and can increase their use without reducing the number of hours worked.

Abstract: This paper builds on the existing literature on individual-level resource estimation, and proposes a new, more accurate and widely applicable, approach. This methodology extends recent developments in resource share estimation to a model with public goods and time-use. This is the first paper to esti- mate individual-level resources from detailed time-use data, instead of assignable clothing expenditure or labour supply data. Drawing on a structural Collective household model, I show how individual resources can be estimated with a system of linear regressions on widely available data. I apply this novel approach to data on UK heterosexual working couples. I find that equal sharing does not hold and that, on average, men command a higher proportion of resources than women. As predicted by the Collective model of the household, individuals with high educational qualifications and potential earnings - or matched with individuals with low educational qualifications and potential earnings - have higher bargaining power than average, and hence a higher share of household resources. My findings suggest that other existing methodologies, which focus on clothing expenditure, risk overestimating female resources. I also show how my extension to a context with public goods is important to avoid overestimating overall individual-level inequality.

Abstract: Who should be the target of health policy and interventions in sub-Saharan Africa? Despite the well-documented relationship between economic resources and health outcomes, recent evidence shows that people with health needs are majoritarily not found in poor households. In this paper, I use a structural equation model (SEM) to simultaneously estimate and characterize deficits in health status, empowerment, and access to health care, using individual survey data from rural Senegal (the ANRS12356 AmBASS survey). I find that individuals living in resource-rich households are more likely to experience lower levels of empowerment, while reporting better health, and optimal access to health services. In contrast, empowerment increases with individual earnings, and is significantly associated with improved health status. These results suggest that empowerment is the missing puzzle piece in the complex relationship between health and poverty in rural sub-Saharan Africa. A SEM-based model of health capability offers a way forward in pinpointing individuals to be targeted by a differentiated yet complementary set of policy and interventions for the promotion of health status, decision-making latitude, and access to healthcare, respectively. In particular, the model identifies cumulative vulnerabilities in women and permanent residents, and sheds light on intrinsic motivation as a shared lever for overall health capability.

Abstract: This study examines anticipated wage premiums to different field specializations at the secondary education level. The principal research question is whether an early specialization of certain fields of study, such as those categorized as fields, have comparatively higher anticipated earnings than other fields of study, when these specializations occur at the high school (secondary) level. Leveraging IV estimation to identify the effect of choosing one type of field specialization compared to another is usually challenging because due to self selection into fields. I overcome these challenges by exploiting local experiments and rich data from a Mexican system of schools public schools that admit students based on ranked admission examination test scores. I find higher anticipated wages for schools that offer specializations in services industry and engineering, and comparatively lower anticipated wages associated with schools that offer social science fields of study.

Abstract: We study the impact of having a child on the relationship quality of couples. First child birth greatly and persistently reduces relationship quality, both for fathers and mothers. We argue that this effect is induced by a reduction in the amount of time spent together and the reallocation of time spent across housework and employment. Preliminary evidence on a Shared Parental Leave suggests that policies encouraging fathers to assume housework responsibilities can mitigate the negative impact of childbirth on relationship quality.

Abstract: A large body of evidence suggests that people are willing to sacrifice their own material payoffs to reward those who are kind to them or to hurt those who are unkind to them. In this paper, we present a theory of reciprocity, which consists of a two-sided underlying intentional kindness of other people (incorporating views about what payoffs other people can receive and what they should receive), and a one-sided consequential kindness of other people (in which the decision maker dislikes inequitable outcomes for themselves but does not care about inequitable outcomes for others). We also introduce a new definition of efficient strategy that successfully solves paradoxes in existing behavioural models. We further show that our model reflects the findings of a host of experiments on games such as the ultimatum game and the sequential prisoner’s dilemma, which neither the standard theory nor other existing reciprocity models can explain. Finally, our model explains why the decision maker’s positive or negative reciprocity falls when they have an opportunity to punish others.

Abstract: According to revealed preference theory, observed choice reveals tastes over the out- comes of the decision. Nevertheless, if a moral principle prescribes an act for reasons unrelated to its consequences, the inference drawn regarding preferences is misleading. In this paper, I study the behaviour of deontological decision makers who follow the moral principle of universalisation. I develop a decision theory for agents who value the impact of their choice in determining a counterfactual outcome they envision. Hence, the choice of action reveals a preference for counterfactual outcomes. I propose a unifying model based on my theory, inspired by the equal sacrifice principle. It can be specified to ob- tain the most prominent models of universalisation, compare them, highlight and arguably overcome their limitations.

Abstract: In this paper, we investigate the fact-checking and information sharing behavior of influencers and their followers regarding true/false information on social media. While influencers are able to share information with their entire follower base, followers can only share information with one other individual. Upon receiving a message, individuals have the option to fact-check the information, and then share the information only when it is truthful. When they do not fact-check the information, individuals choose between sharing or not sharing the in- formation, without knowing the validity of the information. We show that the impact of influencers on the quality of information depends on several characteristics of the influencers. On the one hand, the impact of influencers is strictly increasing in the neutrality of influencers, i.e., the extent to which influencers are incentivized to share truthful information. On the other hand, the impact of influencers is only weakly increasing in the size of the influencer’s follower base. Hence, more followers do not guarantee a higher quality of information when the follower base of the influencer is already large. Moreover, we derive a sufficient condition for which influencers have a positive impact on the quality of information on social media. Overall, this paper underlines the importance of influencers’ fact-checking behavior as an instrument to limit the spread of fake news on social media.

Abstract: We consider a family of normal-form two-player games with identical action spaces, and we propose that players categorize these into K analogy classes applying the K-means clustering technique to the data generated by the distribution of behavior of the opponent in the various games. This leads us to consider Calibrated Analogy-Based Expectation Equilibria in which strategies are analogy-based expetation equilibria given the analogy partitions and analogy partitions are obtained from the strategies by the K-means clustering algorithm. We discuss various concepts formalizing this, and we observe that distributions over analogy partitions are sometimes required to guarantee existence. We apply the approach to a family of games with one-dimensional action space and linear best-responses ordered by increasing impact on the best-response of opponent’s action. We observe that in the case of strategic complements, calibrated analogy-based expectation equilibria that employ pure strategies and a single interval analogy partition always exist, and we provide a charcaterization of those. By contrast, in the case of strategic substitute, mixing over interval analogy partitions is required in a calibrated analogy-based expectation equilibrium.

Abstract: Chile economy is mainly based in natural resources such as cooper. Production and exports do not have a high level of sophistication. Moreover, country is also losing ground in the US and European markets. Literature suggest one of the main challenges from Chile has been productivity stagnation. How can Chile change their structural productive system? Literature suggest innovation as a key tool to push productivity. Here we focus on how innovation can help the Chile to move from agricultural and natural resources production to high technological products. We develop a conditional fixed-effect logistic regression for Chilean manufacturing firms between 2009 and 2016. We distinguish between internal and external R&D innovation strategies. We found a complementarity effect between innovation strategies. Moreover, product innovation seems more related to external innovation strategies while process innovation is mainly due to internal innovation strategies. Finally, innovation strategies seems not to affect firms performance at least in the short run.

Abstract: Recently, demand-side innovation policies have succeeded in stimulating technology upgrading in many countries around the world. Especially, public procurement has become a major and important industrial policy for achieving technological development and competitiveness. This paper examines empirically the impact of R&D public procurement (innovative public procurement) on high-tech exports of 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia over the period 2000–2008. The econometric analysis relies on panel fixed-effects estimations and an instrumental variable approach to investigate the causal effect of the R&D public procurement on high-tech exports. Based on a unique panel dataset of federal procurement in the USA, the empirical results show that there is a positive and statistically significant effect of R&D federal procurement on high-tech exports. The results of this paper confirm the importance and effectiveness of R&D public procurement as a policy to enhance technological competitiveness. The results are robust using various robustness checks. Moreover, this paper also shows three potential mechanisms through which R&D public procurement may affect high-tech exports.

Abstract: How do households value broadband internet access? Assuming that the evolution of housing prices will reflect the value brought by access to faster Internet technology, this paper shows that Fiber to the Home (FTTH) eligibility is an important determinant of house prices (but not of apartments). To answer this question, I take advantage of the massive deployment of FTTH technology as part of the Plan Très Haut-Débit in France, of the availability of data with building-level precision for each quarter between 2019 and 2021, and of the discontinuity at the border of eligibility zones to apply a Regression Discontinuity Design impact evaluation. Thus, fiber eligibility increases home prices by 2.4 percent on average. Major improvements of the paper and additional analysis remain to be provided.

Abstract: Using French employer-employee data (2003-2018), we examine labor adjustment dynamics in response to sales fluctuations and large disruptions. We create a firm-level measure of average daily employment to capture day-to-day adjustments, comparing the impact of significant sales changes on employment to slight fluctuations. Our primary goal is to test whether big shocks are indeed associated with substantially larger jumps in employment growth or whether adjustment is smooth over sales fluctuations or major disruptions. We estimate the point at which the relationship between employment growth and sales change is most pronounced for a given sector. Then, using instrumental variables, regression discontinuity techniques, and cross-validation, we test for a discrete change in adjustment behavior when firm sales deviations cross this sector-specific threshold. Preliminary findings indicate that there is no homogeneous fixed employment adjustment, contrary to existing evidence. This prompts us to investigate sector heterogeneity in employment adjustment to sales.

Abstract: Correlation between asset prices play an important role in the failure of a financial institution as well as in the onset and development of a financial crisis. Covariation is usually modelled via correlation coefficients or copulas, which impose definite constraints on the joint distribution of random variables. The adequateness of this modelling is usually taken for granted. The aim of this work is to better understand the nature of covariation in the vicinity of extremes on financial data and assess whether the usual assumptions and covariation measures fits the actual data.

Abstract: Corporate subsidies are at the center of the political and economic debate as a major source of controversy in the world trading system. Much attention has been devoted to the direct link between government support and exports, but there is scarce evidence on the effect of downstream exposure to subsidies. Using detailed information on US corporate subsidies between 2000 and 2019, I document a positive impact of subsidies on the export performance of the recipient industries and of industries that use subsidized goods and services as inputs of production. Similar results are observed for employment and imports. From a policy perspective, the paper stresses the importance of taking a value chain approach when evaluating the effects of subsidies.

Abstract: There is growing concern that workers reallocate quite slowly in response to structural shocks, e.g. globalization shocks or new technologies. However, still little is known about the determinants of worker reallocation speed. In this paper, I take a network perspective on the structure of worker flows between occupations, and argue that it provides news insights about the sluggishness of worker reallocation. More specifically, I construct an occupational network, whose nodes are occupations and whose edges represent possible professional transitions. I make three contributions. First, I provide descriptive evidence on the structure of the French occupational network. I find that the occupational network is very sparse and that there are central bottleneck occupations in-between other many other occupations. Second, I build a tractable model of random search with heterogeneous occupations connected by an occupational network. I quantify the speed of worker reallocation after structural shocks, modelled as permanent asymmetric productivity shocks. My main finding is that the job finding rate in central bottleneck occupations has a disproportionate effect of reallocation speed. Third, I provide a proof of identification of the structural parameters of the quantitative model, and discuss potential applications. This work has important implications for public policy, in par- ticular regarding the targeting of employment subsidies or the design of training programs.

Abstract: I study the optimal monetary policy in a New Keynesian model with heterogeneous households. The Ramsey planner maximizes aggregate welfare in an economy with rich heterogeneity in the income distribution, as well as a wealth distribution that features an occasionally binding borrowing constraint. I show that heterogeneity qualitatively changes optimal monetary policy relative to the representative agent economy. I highlight that the importance of the novel incentive of the optimal policy in this setting comes from counteracting the increase of hand-to-mouth households in recessions. The mechanism acts through mitigating unequal exposure of households to an aggregate shock, hence the effect is partially present even in the absence of this incentive.

Abstract: We examine the effect of changing naturalization costs on the choice of second-generation migrants to become French. We exploit the 1997 reform that abolished the military service for men born after 1978. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we find that a decrease in the costs of naturalization led to an increase in its take-up. We find that this effect is driven by low-educated Europeans for whom the military service cost is binding. On the contrary, there is no effect on non-Europeans in line with their higher perceived benefits, nor on the higher-educated for whom the military service is less strenuous. Exploiting the shock in an instrumental variable setting, we find large positive effects of naturalization on labor market outcomes for low-educated Europeans.

Abstract: I study the role of natural amenities in neighbourhood racial dynamics. I highlight the importance of these location fundamentals by using a database of consistent-boundary neighbourhoods in U.S. metropolitan areas, 1880–2010, spatial data for natural features such as coastlines, rivers, lakes and hills, and confederate monuments to exploit spatial variation in anti-black attitudes. First, persistent natural amenities anchor neighbourhoods to high white share over time through both value and exclusion mechanisms. Downtowns near to the coast were less affected by white suburbanisation during the white flight period. Secondly, I use a structural model of residential choices to estimate a relative demand for neighbourhoods. Results confirm the importance of racial preferences and relocation rigidities in explaining the dynamic of racial composition within U.S. neighbourhoods, and natural amenities exacerbate the effect of racial preferences. Overall, these first-nature factors seem to influence racial segregation through different mechanisms.

Abstract: We consider a family of normal-form two-player games with identical action spaces, and we propose that players categorize these into K analogy classes applying the K-means clustering technique to the data generated by the distribution of behavior of the opponent in the various games. This leads us to consider Calibrated Analogy-Based Expectation Equilibria in which strategies are analogy-based expetation equilibria given the analogy partitions and analogy partitions are obtained from the strategies by the K-means clustering algorithm. We discuss various concepts formalizing this, and we observe that distributions over analogy partitions are sometimes required to guarantee existence. We apply the approach to a family of games with one-dimensional action space and linear best-responses ordered by increasing impact on the best-response of opponent’s action. We observe that in the case of strategic complements, calibrated analogy-based expectation equilibria that employ pure strategies and a single interval analogy partition always exist, and we provide a charcaterization of those. By contrast, in the case of strategic substitute, mixing over interval analogy partitions is required in a calibrated analogy-based expectation equilibrium.

Abstract: Chile economy is mainly based in natural resources such as cooper. Production and exports do not have a high level of sophistication. Moreover, country is also losing ground in the US and European markets. Literature suggest one of the main challenges from Chile has been productivity stagnation. How can Chile change their structural productive system? Literature suggest innovation as a key tool to push productivity. Here we focus on how innovation can help the Chile to move from agricultural and natural resources production to high technological products. We develop a conditional fixed-effect logistic regression for Chilean manufacturing firms between 2009 and 2016. We distinguish between internal and external R&D innovation strategies. We found a complementarity effect between innovation strategies. Moreover, product innovation seems more related to external innovation strategies while process innovation is mainly due to internal innovation strategies. Finally, innovation strategies seems not to affect firms performance at least in the short run.

Abstract: Recently, demand-side innovation policies have succeeded in stimulating technology upgrading in many countries around the world. Especially, public procurement has become a major and important industrial policy for achieving technological development and competitiveness. This paper examines empirically the impact of R&D public procurement (innovative public procurement) on high-tech exports of 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia over the period 2000–2008. The econometric analysis relies on panel fixed-effects estimations and an instrumental variable approach to investigate the causal effect of the R&D public procurement on high-tech exports. Based on a unique panel dataset of federal procurement in the USA, the empirical results show that there is a positive and statistically significant effect of R&D federal procurement on high-tech exports. The results of this paper confirm the importance and effectiveness of R&D public procurement as a policy to enhance technological competitiveness. The results are robust using various robustness checks. Moreover, this paper also shows three potential mechanisms through which R&D public procurement may affect high-tech exports.

Abstract: How do households value broadband internet access? Assuming that the evolution of housing prices will reflect the value brought by access to faster Internet technology, this paper shows that Fiber to the Home (FTTH) eligibility is an important determinant of house prices (but not of apartments). To answer this question, I take advantage of the massive deployment of FTTH technology as part of the Plan Très Haut-Débit in France, of the availability of data with building-level precision for each quarter between 2019 and 2021, and of the discontinuity at the border of eligibility zones to apply a Regression Discontinuity Design impact evaluation. Thus, fiber eligibility increases home prices by 2.4 percent on average. Major improvements of the paper and additional analysis remain to be provided.

Abstract: Using French employer-employee data (2003-2018), we examine labor adjustment dynamics in response to sales fluctuations and large disruptions. We create a firm-level measure of average daily employment to capture day-to-day adjustments, comparing the impact of significant sales changes on employment to slight fluctuations. Our primary goal is to test whether big shocks are indeed associated with substantially larger jumps in employment growth or whether adjustment is smooth over sales fluctuations or major disruptions. We estimate the point at which the relationship between employment growth and sales change is most pronounced for a given sector. Then, using instrumental variables, regression discontinuity techniques, and cross-validation, we test for a discrete change in adjustment behavior when firm sales deviations cross this sector-specific threshold. Preliminary findings indicate that there is no homogeneous fixed employment adjustment, contrary to existing evidence. This prompts us to investigate sector heterogeneity in employment adjustment to sales.

Abstract: Does political conflict with a foreign county influence domestic consumers’ daily consumption choices? This study investigates whether consumers boycott goods associated with a foreign country in a setting where the conflict does not directly influence the characteristics of these focal goods. More concretely, we use the volatile US-China relations in 2018 and 2019 to analyze whether consumers reduce their visits to Chinese restaurants in the US when the bilateral relations deteriorate. We measure the degree of political conflict through the negativity in media reports and rely on smartphone location data of more than 11 million devices to proxy daily visits to over 190,000 restaurants in the US. We find that a deterioration in US-China relations induces a statistically and economically significant decline in visits to Chinese restaurants in the US. At the same time, visits to restaurants of other foreign cuisines also decrease substantially, while visits to traditional American restaurants increase. We interpret these results as evidence that reporting on international conflicts triggers ethnocentric consumer behavior.

Abstract: This project tests whether rising inequality and exposure to globalization (trade, FDI, and tourism) explain the striking change in the political landscape of Costa Rica since 2002. Income inequality has increased since at least the 1990s. In addition, the country has signed several important Free Trade Agreements (FTA) in the last two decades (US, China, and the EU). During the same period, international tourism has significantly grown. In this context, the project makes two main contributions. Firstly, expand the extensive literature on globalization and electoral outcomes by exploring globalization and political realignment in a developing country with a long democratic tradition. Secondly, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first project to combine two sets of administrative data at the individual level to answer questions on the effect of globalization and inequality on electoral outcomes. We observe that districts with higher income inequality vote less in both presidential and local elections – even when controlling for the increase in trade and FDI at the local level – show higher electoral volatility, vote less for traditional parties, and vote more for pro- globalization and conservative parties. Moreover, we observe that higher exposure to international trade and FDI reduces private campaign contributions, especially to the traditional parties of the two-party era. In conclusion, those “affected” by inequality, international trade, and FDI vote less and increasingly support the new parties.

Abstract: Can female-led protests improve women’s participation in the political sphere? The 2017 Women’s March has been the largest single-day protest that ever happened in the US and a showcase of female leadership. This paper exploits the geographic variation in congressional districts’ exposure to protests to investigate whether the March had an impact on the supply of female politicians in partisan primaries. Using difference-in-differences designs and event-study analyses that leverage distance from the nearest protest, I find that the March affected the supply of female Republican politicians: doubling the distance leads to a 29% drop of probability of having at least one female candidate and to a 60% drop of the share of female candidates. I find no effect in Democratic primaries. Moreover, I investigate the consequences for women’s representation in federal politics, finding that doubling the distance decreased the probability of having a female US House Representative by 33%, regardless of party affiliation.

Abstract: We consider a family of normal-form two-player games with identical action spaces, and we propose that players categorize these into K analogy classes applying the K-means clustering technique to the data generated by the distribution of behavior of the opponent in the various games. This leads us to consider Calibrated Analogy-Based Expectation Equilibria in which strategies are analogy-based expetation equilibria given the analogy partitions and analogy partitions are obtained from the strategies by the K-means clustering algorithm. We discuss various concepts formalizing this, and we observe that distributions over analogy partitions are sometimes required to guarantee existence. We apply the approach to a family of games with one-dimensional action space and linear best-responses ordered by increasing impact on the best-response of opponent’s action. We observe that in the case of strategic complements, calibrated analogy-based expectation equilibria that employ pure strategies and a single interval analogy partition always exist, and we provide a charcaterization of those. By contrast, in the case of strategic substitute, mixing over interval analogy partitions is required in a calibrated analogy-based expectation equilibrium.

Abstract: Chile economy is mainly based in natural resources such as cooper. Production and exports do not have a high level of sophistication. Moreover, country is also losing ground in the US and European markets. Literature suggest one of the main challenges from Chile has been productivity stagnation. How can Chile change their structural productive system? Literature suggest innovation as a key tool to push productivity. Here we focus on how innovation can help the Chile to move from agricultural and natural resources production to high technological products. We develop a conditional fixed-effect logistic regression for Chilean manufacturing firms between 2009 and 2016. We distinguish between internal and external R&D innovation strategies. We found a complementarity effect between innovation strategies. Moreover, product innovation seems more related to external innovation strategies while process innovation is mainly due to internal innovation strategies. Finally, innovation strategies seems not to affect firms performance at least in the short run.

Abstract: Recently, demand-side innovation policies have succeeded in stimulating technology upgrading in many countries around the world. Especially, public procurement has become a major and important industrial policy for achieving technological development and competitiveness. This paper examines empirically the impact of R&D public procurement (innovative public procurement) on high-tech exports of 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia over the period 2000–2008. The econometric analysis relies on panel fixed-effects estimations and an instrumental variable approach to investigate the causal effect of the R&D public procurement on high-tech exports. Based on a unique panel dataset of federal procurement in the USA, the empirical results show that there is a positive and statistically significant effect of R&D federal procurement on high-tech exports. The results of this paper confirm the importance and effectiveness of R&D public procurement as a policy to enhance technological competitiveness. The results are robust using various robustness checks. Moreover, this paper also shows three potential mechanisms through which R&D public procurement may affect high-tech exports.

Abstract: How do households value broadband internet access? Assuming that the evolution of housing prices will reflect the value brought by access to faster Internet technology, this paper shows that Fiber to the Home (FTTH) eligibility is an important determinant of house prices (but not of apartments). To answer this question, I take advantage of the massive deployment of FTTH technology as part of the Plan Très Haut-Débit in France, of the availability of data with building-level precision for each quarter between 2019 and 2021, and of the discontinuity at the border of eligibility zones to apply a Regression Discontinuity Design impact evaluation. Thus, fiber eligibility increases home prices by 2.4 percent on average. Major improvements of the paper and additional analysis remain to be provided.

Abstract: Using French employer-employee data (2003-2018), we examine labor adjustment dynamics in response to sales fluctuations and large disruptions. We create a firm-level measure of average daily employment to capture day-to-day adjustments, comparing the impact of significant sales changes on employment to slight fluctuations. Our primary goal is to test whether big shocks are indeed associated with substantially larger jumps in employment growth or whether adjustment is smooth over sales fluctuations or major disruptions. We estimate the point at which the relationship between employment growth and sales change is most pronounced for a given sector. Then, using instrumental variables, regression discontinuity techniques, and cross-validation, we test for a discrete change in adjustment behavior when firm sales deviations cross this sector-specific threshold. Preliminary findings indicate that there is no homogeneous fixed employment adjustment, contrary to existing evidence. This prompts us to investigate sector heterogeneity in employment adjustment to sales.