{"title":"Public Protests and Policy Making","authors":"M. Battaglini","doi":"10.1093/QJE/QJW039","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/QJE/QJW039","url":null,"abstract":"Technological advances and the development of social media have made petitions, public protests, and other form of spontaneous activism increasingly common tools for individuals to influence decision makers. To study these phenomena, in this article I present a theory of petitions and public protests that explores their limits as mechanisms to aggregate information. The key assumption is that valuable information is dispersed among citizens. Through petitions and protests, citizens can signal their private information to the policy maker, who can then choose to use it or not. I first show that if citizens’ individual signals are not sufficiently precise, information aggregation is impossible, no matter how large is the population of informed citizens, even if the conflict with the policy maker is small. I then characterize the conditions on conflict and the signal structure that guarantee information aggregation. When these conditions are satisfied, I show that full information aggregation is possible as the population grows to infinity. When they are not satisfied, I show that information aggregation may still be possible if social media are available.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":"132 1","pages":"485-549"},"PeriodicalIF":13.7,"publicationDate":"2017-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/QJE/QJW039","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44265401","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"What is the Expected Return on the Market","authors":"Ian Martin","doi":"10.1093/qje/qjw034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjw034","url":null,"abstract":"I derive a lower bound on the equity premium in terms of a volatility index, SVIX, that can be calculated from index option prices. The bound implies that the equity premium is extremely volatile and that it rose above 20% at the height of the crisis in 2008. The time-series average of the lower bound is about 5%, suggesting that the bound may be approximately tight. I run predictive regressions and find that this hypothesis is not rejected by the data, so I use the SVIX index as a proxy for the equity premium and argue that the high equity premia available at times of stress largely reflect high expected returns over the very short run. I also provide a measure of the probability of a market crash, and introduce simple variance swaps, tradable contracts based on SVIX that are robust alternatives to variance swaps.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":"132 1","pages":"367-433"},"PeriodicalIF":13.7,"publicationDate":"2017-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/qje/qjw034","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47005688","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Andrew J. Fieldhouse, Karel Mertens, Morten O. Ravn
{"title":"The Macroeconomic Effects of Government Asset Purchases: Evidence from Postwar Us Housing Credit Policy","authors":"Andrew J. Fieldhouse, Karel Mertens, Morten O. Ravn","doi":"10.1093/QJE/QJY002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/QJE/QJY002","url":null,"abstract":"We document the portfolio activity of federal housing agencies and provide evidence on its impact on mortgage markets and the economy. Through a narrative analysis, we identify historical policy changes leading to expansions or contractions in agency mortgage holdings. Based on those regulatory events that we classify as unrelated to short-run cyclical or credit market shocks, we find that an increase in mortgage purchases by the agencies boosts mortgage lending and lowers mortgage rates. Agency purchases influence prices in other asset markets and stimulate residential investment. Using information in GSE stock prices to construct an alternative instrument for agency purchasing activity yields very similar results as our benchmark narrative identification approach.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":13.7,"publicationDate":"2017-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/QJE/QJY002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61199797","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Mission: Human Capital Transmission, Economic Persistence and Culture in South America","authors":"Felipe Valencia Caicedo","doi":"10.1093/QJE/QJY024","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/QJE/QJY024","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the long-term consequences of a historical human capital intervention. The Jesuit order founded religious missions in 1609 among the Guarani, in modern-day Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay. Before their expulsion in 1767, missionaries instructed indigenous inhabitants in reading, writing, and various crafts. Using archival records, as well as data at the individual and municipal level, I show that in areas of former Jesuit presence—within the Guarani area—educational attainment was higher and remains so (by 10%–15%) 250 years later. These educational differences have also translated into incomes that are 10% higher today. The identification of the positive effect of the Guarani Jesuit missions emerges after comparing them with abandoned Jesuit missions and neighboring Franciscan Guarani missions. The enduring effects observed are consistent with transmission mechanisms of structural transformation, occupational specialization, and technology adoption in agriculture.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":"1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":13.7,"publicationDate":"2017-01-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/QJE/QJY024","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43072195","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Lights, Camera … Income! Illuminating the National Accounts-Household Surveys Debate","authors":"M. Pinkovskiy, Xavier Sala-i-Martin","doi":"10.1093/QJE/QJW003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/QJE/QJW003","url":null,"abstract":"GDP per capita and household survey means present conflicting pictures of the rate of economic development in emerging countries. One of the areas in which the national accounts–household surveys debate is key is the measurement of developing world poverty. We propose a data-driven method to assess the relative quality of GDP per capita and survey means by comparing them to the evolution of satellite-recorded nighttime lights. Our main assumption, which is robust to a variety of specification checks, is that the measurement error in nighttime lights is unrelated to the measurement errors in either national accounts or survey means. We obtain estimates of weights on national accounts and survey means in an optimal proxy for true income; these weights are very large for national accounts and very modest for survey means. We conclusively reject the null hypothesis that the optimal weight on surveys is greater than the optimal weight on national accounts, and we generally fail to reject the null hypothesis that the optimal weight on surveys is zero. Additionally, we provide evidence that national accounts are good indicators of desirable outcomes for the poor (such as longer life expectancy, better education and access to safe water), and we show that surveys appear to perform worse in developing countries that are richer and that are growing faster. Therefore, we interpret our results as providing support for estimates of world poverty that are based on national accounts. JEL Code: I32.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":"131 1","pages":"579-631"},"PeriodicalIF":13.7,"publicationDate":"2016-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/QJE/QJW003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61199730","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A Typology of Players: Between Instinctive and Contemplative","authors":"A. Rubinstein","doi":"10.1093/QJE/QJW008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/QJE/QJW008","url":null,"abstract":"A new typology of players is proposed based on the classification of actions as either instinctive or contemplative. A person’s type is the probability of him choosing a contemplative action. To test the typology, results of 10 games are analyzed. Actions in each game were classified depending on whether their response time was more or less, respectively, than the median response time of all subjects who played the game. It is argued that fast actions are more instinctive and slow actions are more contemplative. A subject’s contemplative index (CI) is defined as the proportion of games in which he chose a contemplative action. It is found that for 8 of the 10 games, the CI in the other 9 games is positively correlated with a player’s choice of a contemplative action in that game (average Spearman correlation of 9%). The CI is used to shed light on the nature of choice in five additional games. JEL Codes: C72, C91.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":"131 1","pages":"859-890"},"PeriodicalIF":13.7,"publicationDate":"2016-02-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/QJE/QJW008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61199744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Political Centralization and Government Accountability","authors":"F. Boffa, Amedeo Piolatto, G. Ponzetto","doi":"10.1093/QJE/QJV035","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/QJE/QJV035","url":null,"abstract":"This article explains why decentralization can undermine accountability and answers three questions: what determines if power should be centralized or decentralized when regions are heterogeneous? How many levels of government should there be? How should state borders be drawn? We develop a model of political agency in which voters differ in their ability to monitor rent-seeking politicians. We find that rent extraction is a decreasing and convex function of the share of informed voters, because voter information improves monitoring but also reduces the appeal of holding office. As a result, information heterogeneity pushes toward centralization to reduce rent extraction. Taste heterogeneity pulls instead toward decentralization to match local preferences. Our model thus implies that optimal borders should cluster by tastes but ensure diversity of information. We also find economies of scope in accountability that explain why multiplying government tiers harms efficiency. A single government in charge of many policies has better incentives than many special-purpose governments splitting its budget and responsibilities. Hence, a federal system is desirable only if information varies enough across regions. JEL Codes: D72, D82, H73, H77.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":"131 1","pages":"381-422"},"PeriodicalIF":13.7,"publicationDate":"2016-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/QJE/QJV035","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61199643","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Effects of Youth Employment: Evidence from New York City Lotteries","authors":"Alexander M. Gelber, A. Isen, Judd B. Kessler","doi":"10.1093/QJE/QJV034","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/QJE/QJV034","url":null,"abstract":"Programs to encourage labor market activity among youth, including public employment programs and wage subsidies like the Work Opportunity Tax Credit, can be supported by three broad rationales. They may (i) provide contemporaneous income support to participants; (ii) encourage work experience that improves future employment and/or educational outcomes of participants; and/or (iii) keep participants \"out of trouble.\" We study randomized lotteries for access to the New York City (NYC) Summer Youth Employment Program (SYEP), the largest summer youth employment program in the United States, by merging SYEP administrative data on 294,100 lottery participants to IRS data on the universe of U.S. tax records; to New York State administrative incarceration data; and to NYC administrative cause of death data. In assessing the three rationales, we find that (i) SYEP participation causes average earnings and the probability of employment to increase in the year of program participation, with modest contemporaneous crowdout of other earnings and employment; (ii) SYEP participation causes a modest decrease in average earnings for three years following the program and has no impact on college enrollment; and (iii) SYEP participation decreases the probability of incarceration and decreases the probability of mortality, which has important and potentially pivotal implications for analyzing the net benefits of the program. JEL Codes: J13, J45, J38, J21.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":"131 1","pages":"423-460"},"PeriodicalIF":13.7,"publicationDate":"2016-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/QJE/QJV034","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61199628","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Dynamic Selection: An Idea Flows Theory of Entry, Trade and Growth","authors":"T. Sampson","doi":"10.1093/QJE/QJV032","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/QJE/QJV032","url":null,"abstract":"This paper develops an idea flows theory of trade and growth with heterogeneous firms. New firms learn from incumbent firms, but the diffusion technology ensures entrants learn not only from frontier technologies, but from the entire technology distribution. By shifting the productivity distribution upwards, selection on productivity causes technology diffusion and this complementarity generates endogenous growth without scale effects. On the balanced growth path, the productivity distribution is a traveling wave with an increasing lower bound. Growth of the lower bound causes dynamic selection. Free entry mandates that trade liberalization increases the rates of technology diffusion and dynamic selection to offset the profits from new export opportunities. Consequently, trade integration raises long-run growth. The dynamic selection effect is a new source of gains from trade not found when firms are homogeneous. Calibrating the model implies that dynamic selection approximately triples the gains from trade relative to heterogeneous firm economies with static steady states.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":"131 1","pages":"315-380"},"PeriodicalIF":13.7,"publicationDate":"2016-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/QJE/QJV032","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61199592","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Learning from Inflation Experiences","authors":"Ulrike Malmendier, S. Nagel","doi":"10.1093/QJE/QJV037","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1093/QJE/QJV037","url":null,"abstract":"How do individuals form expectations about future inflation? We propose that individuals overweight inflation experienced during their lifetimes. This approach modifies existing adaptive learning models to allow for age-dependent updating of expectations in response to inflation surprises. Young individuals update their expectations more strongly than older individuals since recent experiences account for a greater share of their accumulated lifetime history. We find support for these predictions using 57 years of microdata on inflation expectations from the Reuters/Michigan Survey of Consumers. Differences in experiences strongly predict differences in expectations, including the substantial disagreement between young and old individuals in periods of highly volatile inflation, such as the 1970s. It also explains household borrowing and lending behavior, including the choice of mortgages. JEL Codes: E03, G02, D03, E31, E37, D84, D83, D14.","PeriodicalId":48470,"journal":{"name":"Quarterly Journal of Economics","volume":"131 1","pages":"53-87"},"PeriodicalIF":13.7,"publicationDate":"2016-02-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1093/QJE/QJV037","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"61199684","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}