This article uses responses from the 2025 National Quinquennial Survey on Teaching and Assessment Methods in Undergraduate Economics, the seventh iteration of the Becker and Watts effort begun in 1995, to examine assessment methods across four course types: introductory, intermediate theory, statistics and econometrics, and other upper-division field courses. The work emphasizes pre- and post-COVID-19 changes. Results show increased average grade weights on homework/problem sets and decreased average weights on long-answer exam questions across course types and increased average weight on class participation in introductory courses. Aside from these changes, assessment weights changed little overall, while respondent demographics are the most diverse to date.
How nearby hospitals adjust financially after a neighboring closure may depend on ownership incentives, yet existing research has not examined this variation by ownership type. Using publicly available cost report data from the National Academy for State Health Policy Hospital Cost Tool for short-term hospitals from 2011 through 2022, we compare hospitals with exactly two neighbors within sixty miles that experienced a neighboring closure to those retaining two neighbors, ensuring comparable baseline market structure. For-profit hospitals show the largest post-closure increases in Charge-to-cost, though pre-closure trends make this pattern suggestive, while the for-profit Net-profit-margin gain is the best-identified result and is comparable in size to the non-profit gain. Governmental hospitals show changes indistinguishable from zero, motivating ownership-differentiated policy responses.
This paper presents a classroom game about comparative advantage that demonstrates that gains from trade increase with the heterogeneity of opportunity costs between trading partners. Students allocate their labor endowment toward the production of two types of candy in three rounds. In the first round, students produce and consume candies under autarky. In the second round, students can trade. In the final round, each group becomes absolutely better at producing the good for which they have a comparative advantage and absolutely worse at producing the good for which they have a comparative disadvantage. The consumption of an abundance of goods in this final stage after trade provides a powerful lesson that greater differences in opportunity costs lead to larger gains from trade.
Over the past two decades, telehealth has become an increasingly common form of healthcare delivery in the United States. As healthcare providers continue to invest more into telehealth, the capabilities of virtual care have expanded rapidly. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for telehealth reached new heights as people were forced to quarantine indoors and avoid in person contact for extended periods of time. We combine data on monthly, state-level insurance claims, rates of COVID-19, google trends, and local demographics and provide a descriptive analysis of the demand for telehealth for mental health visits during the pandemic. Results indicate that mental health claims increase with COVID-19 deaths, and as the COVID-19 deaths rates increase, this relationship concentrates among adults 50 years and older. The pandemic appears to have increased the demand for tele-mental health among older adults who were more susceptible to death due to the virus. We also investigate the relationship between mental health claims and expectations of income loss due to unemployment using the US Census Household Pulse Survey. We find that younger people, ages 0-18, file more mental health claims as they expect more adults in their household to lose income from unemployment.
This paper estimates the effect of first commercial bank branch entry on measured local economic activity in rural Mozambique. The analysis exploits a 2007 package of regulatory and fiscal incentives introduced by the Government and Central Bank of Mozambique to encourage commercial banks to open branches in previously unbanked districts. Using a balanced district-year panel for 2000–2013, the study compares 37 districts that received their first branch between 2007 and 2013 with 62 districts that remained unbanked throughout the sample period. The empirical strategy uses a synthetic difference-in-differences estimator adapted to staggered adoption, with never-treated districts forming the donor pool. Economic activity is measured by district-level nighttime light intensity from Defense Meteorologic Satellite Data (DMSP). Estimates indicate that first branch entry increases nighttime light intensity by about 0.08 digital number (DN) units relative to a synthetic counterfactual. This effect is economically meaningful relative to the low baseline luminosity of rural districts. Placebo tests, pre-treatment trend analyses, and sensitivity checks support the robustness of a positive reduced-form relationship. The findings suggest that policies lowering the costs of rural branch expansion can stimulate local economic activity in low-income settings.
This paper examines determinants of career exits and breaks in the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) from 1997 through 2024, distinguishing temporary breaks from permanent exits. We employ logit models with player characteristics, per-game performance, and team, position, and season fixed effects. Results suggest that roster instability discourages continued participation and that All-Star selection is positively associated with breaks, consistent with elite players leveraging their status to pursue outside opportunities. Off-season participation in overseas leagues has no significant relationship with career breaks but a weakly negative association with career exits, though estimates diverge by nationality. COVID-19 increased the probability of a career break by approximately ten percentage points.
Net flows from part-time for noneconomic reasons to part-time for economic reasons contributed substantially to the overall increase in part-time for economic reasons during the Global Financial Crisis in the United States. These transitions may reflect an "added worker effect" or a response to loss of wealth. In that case, the increase in measures of labor market slack that include part-time for economic reasons may overstate the decline in labor demand during that period. Contributions in prior recessions were smaller, or even of opposite sign, and suggest no significant overstatement during those periods.
Younger individuals exhibit lower levels of political interest compared to older generations. This study examines uncertainty as a potential explanation for this pattern. Building on a social insurance framework that predicts systematically different optimal policies across age groups, I introduce uncertainty in future income using an autoregressive process of order one (AR(1)). Using 1,000 simulations, I derive confidence intervals for the expected lifetime utility associated with different policy choices. The results show that, under plausible levels of income uncertainty, the difference in expected utility between the preferred policies of younger and older individuals becomes statistically insignificant for the young. This reduces the perceived benefits of political participation and may explain their lower levels of political interest and voting. Furthermore, more complex or less precise prediction processes are likely to increase prediction error, particularly for younger individuals who have not yet established stable career paths. This heightened uncertainty further weakens their incentives to engage in politics.
A group of Chilean economists trained at the University of Chicago, known as the Chicago Boys, moved into Chilean policymaking positions in the late 1970s. They implemented widespread free market reforms. We quantify the impact of these policies on the Chilean economy by applying the Synthetic Control Method. This method generates a synthetic Chile, mirroring the macroeconomic and political characteristics of the actual country, albeit without the presence of the Chicago Boys. We show that GDP per capita is markedly higher than it would have been had the reforms not been implemented.
This paper examines the role of industrial enclaves such as industrial parks and export processing zones in affecting firm performance in South Asia. Using firm-level data from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys, I investigate whether firms located within such industrial enclaves are associated with better outcomes as measured by sales, labor productivity and exports. Estimates obtained using ordinary least square estimation and propensity score matching show that enclave firms are associated with higher sales, labor productivity and better export performance than non-enclave firms. These estimates vary by firm size and industry type. The paper contributes to the empirical literature on the effectiveness of place-based industrial policies for developing countries and also provides firm level evidence for South Asia.
Previous studies showed that the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program (HRRP) had significantly lowered readmissions and proposed several explanations. One possible mechanism was reducing healthcare-acquired infections (HAIs). Because of the significant associations between HAIs and readmissions, hospitals could have adopted stronger infection control protocols and other direct measures to reduce HAIs. Various quality improvements resulting from the HRRP (e.g., better discharge instructions and follow-up) could have also indirectly reduced HAIs. Therefore, we hypothesize that implementation of the HRRP is associated with a statistically significant reduction in HAIs among Medicare patients with targeted conditions, relative to non-targeted controls. We use the Nationwide Readmissions Database (NRD) to compare six types of HAIs in the pre-policy (2010–2011) and post-policy (2012–2014) periods: Clostridium difficile (C. diff) infection, surgical site infection (SSI), sepsis, catheter-associated urinary tract infection (CAUTI), central line bloodstream infection (CLABSI), and any of the aforementioned infections (i.e., “overall infections”). We use the difference-in-differences (DID) method to compare HAIs for the HRRP-targeted conditions (i.e., the treatment group of Medicare patients with acute myocardial infarction, heart failure, or pneumonia) with three control groups: Medicare patients with gastrointestinal (GI) conditions, Medicare patients with non-targeted conditions, and privately insured patients aged 45 to 65 with the same targeted conditions. We conduct various sensitivity analyses to test the robustness of the findings, including alternative definitions of readmissions, infections, readmission days, and comorbidity measures; models controlling for hospital-level fixed effects; the propensity score matching method and its related weights; and triple difference (DDD) models. All models controlled for patient and hospital characteristics and time-fixed effects. We consistently find that HRRP is associated with significant HAI reductions. Overall infection rates decreased significantly more in the HRRP-targeted conditions than in the control groups, especially for C. diff, sepsis, and CAUTI. However, these findings could have been expanded and, perhaps, improved with better and more granular data. Studies using alternative databases with explicit hospital identifiers are needed to examine the relationship between the HRRP and HAIs by penalty status. Future research should also investigate the direct and indirect mechanisms underlying the HAI reductions and other aspects of patient safety and quality-of-care indicators that may have been affected by the HRRP.
This study examines the association between workers’ remittances and food insecurity in Latin America and the Caribbean using data from a Coronavirus survey covering over 100,000 individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic. Results indicate that receipt of remittances is associated with an 8.8
In 2017, Atlanta decriminalized misdemeanor amounts of marijuana. Previously, possession of an ounce or less could result in a fine of up to 1,500 and a year in jail under Georgia state law. After decriminalization, the penalty in Atlanta was reduced to a maximum75 fine with no jail time. We employ two-way fixed effects and synthetic difference-in-difference methods to analyze the impact on Atlanta’s crime rates, using other Georgia cities still enforcing state law as a control group. Our findings suggest that decriminalization led to a reduction in violent crime and violent crime clearances, likely due to police reallocating resources from marijuana enforcement to violent crime prevention—aligning with claims by the Atlanta Police Department.
The Frisch-Waugh-Lovell (FWL) theorem is one of the most widely used results in linear regression analysis. In this paper, I trace the historical and analytical development of this theorem to highlight two points. First, I show how the scope of the theorem has expanded over the decades from least squares estimators to a much larger class of estimators that now include the whole k-class of estimators and generalized method of moments estimators. Second, I highlight the pioneering contribution of the statistician G. Udny Yule in the development of the theorem at its very inception and suggest that the theorem be renamed as the Yule-Frisch-Waugh-Lovell (YFWL) theorem.
This paper studies how salient emotional triggers affect domestic violence. Using pitch-by-pitch data from Major League Baseball and crime reports from the National Incident-Based Reporting System, I examine umpire inaccuracies as an exogenous source of emotionally charged frustration. I find that domestic violence reports increase following losses in games officiated by highly inaccurate umpires. The effect is concentrated among the most inaccurate umpires and is driven by missed calls that favor the opposing team. These results are robust across specifications and occur in the hours following a game.
This study examines investors’ rejection criteria in equity crowdfunding, an under-researched area, through the lens of Elimination-By-Aspects and Prospect Theories. Using real-time Verbal Protocol Analysis with a proprietary simulated equity crowdfunding platform, we found that rejection decisions were primarily driven by loss aversion and sequential elimination of alternatives. We identify nine deal-killer criteria, including high share prices, lack of transparency, low market potential, and strong future competitors, which trigger immediate campaign rejection. Our findings reveal notable similarities with the rejection criteria employed by traditional equity investors, such as business angels and venture capitalists, as well as by stock market and IPO investors, suggesting that decision patterns transcend investment contexts. This study contributes to theory by extending cognitive decision-making frameworks to the equity crowdfunding context and offers practical implications for entrepreneurs and platform managers, alongside propositions for future research.
The federal and state earned income tax credit (EITC) programs have been found to have significant positive effects on the labor force participation of low-income single mothers in a number of studies over the past 30 years. Another vulnerable group with low attachment to the labor force consists of people with disabilities, and policy analysts have suggested that a disability-related EITC program could increase their employment rates. We analyze the effects of EITC expansions on labor force participation among women with children and low levels of education, focusing on those who report a work limitation and those who report receiving Supplemental Security Income (SSI) disability benefits. Using models based on two different identification strategies and data sets, our findings are mixed. Our positive and significant estimates for women without disabilities are consistent with other studies in the literature. We also find a large increase in labor force participation after the 1994–1996 federal expansion among women who report SSI income but no work limitation. However, none of the estimates women with work limitations are statistically significant.
Although there is agreement on the positive role of innovation in the economy in the long run, there is little evidence to show whether its impact on employment varies during the business cycle. In this paper, we use patent and R D data as a measure of innovation and exploit US state variation to fill this gap in the literature. We find that, measured by patents or R D expenditures, greater innovation amplifies the variation of employment over the business cycle. In other words, highly innovative states see larger employment gains during expansions, but also higher employment losses during downturns.
This paper explores the presence of compensating wage differentials in the National Basketball Association. Using data for over 900 unrestricted free agent contracts in the NBA for the 2012-13 through the 2023-24 seasons, empirical results show that players are willing to trade off salary for the ability to sign with a team that had a superior win percentage in the previous regular season. A similar result is found when using pre-season probabilities of winning a championship in place of win percent differentials. Examining the relationship between contract length and salary, results show that players signing longer term contracts generally earned greater salaries, confirming the findings of previous research.
This paper explores labor market outcomes of undergraduate economics majors in the United States. Using 2014–2023 American Community Survey data on over four million individuals aged between 25 and 65 across all 50 states, we estimate the marginal effects of having three separate baccalaureate economics degrees—general, agricultural, and business—on wages and weeks worked per year. We find a positive and statistically significant effect of having an economics degree on earnings controlling for a large number of socioeconomic, individual, and state-level covariates. The evidence is most robust for general (non-business and non-agricultural) economics majors. We find little evidence that majoring in economics strongly affects the number of weeks worked per year or that occupational choice drives increased earnings, suggesting the estimated premium is driven primarily through wages rather than quantity supplied of labor or occupation type.
