Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-03-14DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112284
Andrei Barbos
{"title":"De-policing and fatal traffic crashes","authors":"Andrei Barbos","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112284","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112284","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Traffic stops by the police have declined significantly in recent years in the United States, especially after 2020. It has been hypothesized that this trend could either be a lingering effect of the pandemic or a response to the increased levels of public attention to police abuse determined by several recent highly publicized killings of African Americans. Over the same period, the country experienced a significant increase in fatal traffic crashes. This paper aims to establish a direct link between de-policing and the increase in fatal traffic crashes over the past decade. To this aim, we employ an identification strategy used in the earlier literature to establish a causal relationship between highly publicized police killings and de-policing. Our analysis elicits an impact of de-policing on fatal traffic crashes around the time of the first instances of such high-profile police killings from 2014, and then a much larger effect after 2020.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"250 ","pages":"Article 112284"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143705306","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-03-13DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112262
Hongseok Choi
{"title":"On the timing premium puzzle","authors":"Hongseok Choi","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112262","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112262","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The long-run risk model has been criticized for implying an excessive timing premium (excessive willingness to pay for resolving consumption uncertainty early). In this paper, I argue that the criticism is misplaced: The agent’s timing premium is not to be compared with our own, because our horizons are not infinite and the timing premium turns out to be sensitive to the choice of the horizon. Furthermore, the agent’s preference for early resolution of uncertainty is neither essential nor necessary, in the first place, in explaining the equity premium of the long-run risk model.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"250 ","pages":"Article 112262"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143678938","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-03-13DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112266
Jérôme Mathis
{"title":"Corrigendum to “Asymmetries in banking conduct: A Cournot – Bertrand model” [Econom. Lett. 233 (2023) 111426]","authors":"Jérôme Mathis","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112266","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112266","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>I correct a few mistakes in Dalla (2023). According to Dalla (2023), the deposit market becomes progressively more efficient with the Cournot, Cournot-Bertrand, and Bertrand models. However, this holds true only under a specific condition on the parameter values. The violation of this condition may either reverse the efficiency ranking or prevent the existence of equilibrium.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"250 ","pages":"Article 112266"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143678927","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-03-11DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112281
Ahmet Koseoglu, Ali Gokhan Yucel
{"title":"Club convergence in state fragility: Global insights","authors":"Ahmet Koseoglu, Ali Gokhan Yucel","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112281","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112281","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This letter presents the first study on the convergence of state fragility, measured by the Fragile States Index. Applying the club convergence and clustering test of Phillips and Sul (2007), we find no evidence of overall convergence but identify nine distinct groups of countries following separate long-term trajectories. The existence of multiple convergence clubs underscores the substantial disparities in state fragility among countries. Furthermore, the distribution of countries within these convergence clubs is highly asymmetric, with many countries in less stable groups, suggesting a potential stability trap.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"250 ","pages":"Article 112281"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143619811","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-03-11DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112282
Chao Wu, Ke Zhao, Jinquan Liu
{"title":"Trade uncertainty and macroeconomic performance: An empirical analysis based on cross-country data","authors":"Chao Wu, Ke Zhao, Jinquan Liu","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112282","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112282","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper uses import and export data from the top 15 countries by global trade volume and applies the DF-SV model to systematically identify the overall uncertainty level in their trade sectors. Based on this, a two-way fixed effect model and mediation effect model are employed to empirically examine whether and how trade uncertainty affects a country's macroeconomic performance. The results show that international trade uncertainty is \"event-driven\" and highly sensitive to major economic and trade crises. Trade uncertainty can lead to a decline in economic output and a rise in prices through channels such as financial frictions, foreign direct investment, and cross-border capital inflows, manifesting as a negative supply-side shock. Further heterogeneity analysis indicates that economic openness, financial openness, and a flexible exchange rate regime all help mitigate the negative impact of trade uncertainty.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"250 ","pages":"Article 112282"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143629398","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Do analysts matter for green investment? Evidence from the EU taxonomy","authors":"Grégoire Davrinche , Jean-Yves Filbien , Ludovic Vigneron","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112277","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112277","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>To mitigate climate warming, one critical strategy is to redirect corporate investments toward low-carbon projects. This study explores the role that financial analysts' focus on environmental issues can play in this process. The research leverages the implementation of the EU Taxonomy Regulation for publicly listed companies in France during the period 2022–2023, which provides a comprehensive, precise, and standardized measure of corporate green investments. We use a firm-level measure of climate change exposure as a proxy for analysts’ attention on environmental issues. We find that analyst attention has a positive and significant effect on corporate green investments. Our results remain robust to potential self-selection bias and reverse causality. In a further analysis, we also find that our main result is driven by analysts' focus on opportunities. This study offers new insights into how analyst scrutiny impacts ESG practices and highlights the potential contributions of the EU Taxonomy Regulation.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"250 ","pages":"Article 112277"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143654812","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-03-10DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112279
Youngjoo Jung, Sanghee Mun
{"title":"Does single-sex schooling improve students' physical fitness?: Evidence from a natural experiment in South Korea","authors":"Youngjoo Jung, Sanghee Mun","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112279","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112279","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Leveraging a randomized natural experiment, this study examines the impact of attending single-sex middle schools on students' physical fitness, measured through standardized nationwide physical tests. In South Korea, middle school students are assigned by lottery to either single-sex or coeducational schools within their designated school zones, providing an ideal setting to evaluate the effects of single-sex schooling. Using school-level data covering all middle schools, the study finds that boys attending single-sex schools achieve significantly higher pass rates on standardized physical fitness tests, suggesting improved physical fitness compared to their peers in coeducational schools. However, no similar improvement is observed for girls attending single-sex schools. These findings suggest that single-sex schooling has differential effects by gender, highlighting the need to further research to understand the mechanisms underlying these varied outcomes.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"250 ","pages":"Article 112279"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143608774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-03-02DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112263
Vishaal Baulkaran , Pawan Jain
{"title":"U.S Congress members’ trading activities: A case of NANC and KRUZ","authors":"Vishaal Baulkaran , Pawan Jain","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112263","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112263","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This paper analyzes U.S. Congress members' investment behaviors through ETFs NANC and KRUZ, reflecting Democratic and Republican trading patterns. While NANC outperforms KRUZ, neither significantly outperforms market returns, suggesting regulatory measures like the STOCK Act mitigate informational advantages.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"250 ","pages":"Article 112263"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143551838","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Economics LettersPub Date : 2025-03-02DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112258
Hyoseok David Hwang , Hocheol Nam
{"title":"Political corruption and local mutual fund performance","authors":"Hyoseok David Hwang , Hocheol Nam","doi":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112258","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.econlet.2025.112258","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This study investigates the impact of political corruption on the performance of local mutual funds. Using comprehensive U.S. mutual fund and state corruption data from 2003 to 2019, we find that local corruption is positively associated with fund performance. Mutual funds in the most corrupt states outperform those in the least corrupt states by 24 basis points annually, with results remaining consistent across various performance metrics. This counterintuitive finding suggests that fund managers in corrupt environments might develop superior information networks and local connections that provide them with valuable investment insights. The results indicate that institutional investors like mutual funds might be better positioned than other market participants to navigate and potentially benefit from corrupt environments.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11468,"journal":{"name":"Economics Letters","volume":"250 ","pages":"Article 112258"},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143642899","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}