Knowledge that Transforms

That prenatal events can have life-long consequences is now well established. Nevertheless, research on the fetal origins hypothesis is flourishing and has expanded to include the early childhood (postnatal) environment. Why does this literature have a “second act?” We summarize the major themes and contributions driving the empirical literature since our 2011 reviews, and try to interpret the literature in light of an overarching conceptual framework about how human capital is produced early in life. One major finding is that relatively mild shocks in early life can have substantial negative impacts, but that the effects are often heterogeneous reflecting differences in child endowments, budget constraints, and production technologies. Moreover, shocks, investments, and interventions can interact in complex ways that are only beginning to be understood. Many advances in our knowledge are due to increasing accessibility of comprehensive administrative data that allow events in early life to be linked to long-term outcomes. Yet, we still know relatively little about the interval between, and thus about whether it would be feasible to identify and intervene with affected individuals at some point between early life and adulthood. We do know enough, however, to be able to identify some interventions that hold promise for improving child outcomes in early life and throughout the life course.

As the celebration of our 100th issue draws to a close, it is important to thank all of the editors who have served the Review of Economics and Statistics over the decades. The journal could never have existed or continued to grow without the countless hours of work these men and women dedicated to its cause. In addition, though too numerous to list by name, we also give great thanks to the thousands of referees who provided their expertise to thousands of papers.

The paper provides evidence of the effects of changes in transport costs on the geographic concentration of industries. The analysis uses micro-level commodity flow data and micro-geographic plant-level data to construct industry-specific ad valorem trucking rates and continuous measures of geographic concentration. The findings show that, controlling for international trade exposure and input-output links, increasing trucking rates are significantly associated with declining geographic concentration. The effect is large: changes in trucking rates explain around 20 percent of the observed decline in geographic concentration of Canadian manufacturing industries between 1992 and 2008.

In an economic theory of suicide, we model social cohesion of the religious community and religious beliefs about afterlife as two mechanisms by which Protestantism increases suicide propensity. We build a unique microregional data set of 452 Prussian counties for 1816 to 1821 and 1869 to 1871, when religiousness was still pervasive. Exploiting the concentric dispersion of Protestantism around Wittenberg, our instrumental variable model finds that Protestantism had a substantial positive effect on suicide. Results are corroborated in first-difference models. Tests relating to the two mechanisms based on historical church attendance data and modern suicide data suggest that the sociological channel plays the more important role.

July 01 2018 Review of Economics and Statistics over the Past 100 Years: Authorship Asim I. Khwaja, Asim I. Khwaja Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Kunal Mangal Kunal Mangal Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Asim I. Khwaja Kunal Mangal Online Issn: 1530-9142 Print Issn: 0034-6535 © 2018 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology2018 The Review of Economics and Statistics (2018) 100 (3): i–v. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_e_00743 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Asim I. Khwaja, Kunal Mangal; Review of Economics and Statistics over the Past 100 Years: Authorship. The Review of Economics and Statistics 2018; 100 (3): i–v. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_e_00743 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsThe Review of Economics and Statistics Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 2018 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology2018 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

October 01 2018 Review of Economics and Statistics over the Past 100 Years: Content Asim I. Khwaja, Asim I. Khwaja Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Kunal Mangal Kunal Mangal Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Scholar Author and Article Information Asim I. Khwaja Kunal Mangal Online Issn: 1530-9142 Print Issn: 0034-6535 © 2018 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology2018The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Review of Economics and Statistics (2018) 100 (4): i–vi. https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_e_00766 Cite Icon Cite Permissions Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Search Site Citation Asim I. Khwaja, Kunal Mangal; Review of Economics and Statistics over the Past 100 Years: Content. The Review of Economics and Statistics 2018; 100 (4): i–vi. doi: https://doi.org/10.1162/rest_e_00766 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentAll JournalsThe Review of Economics and Statistics Search Advanced Search This content is only available as a PDF. © 2018 The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology2018The President and Fellows of Harvard College and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

This paper uses world running records by age to estimate a biological frontier of decline rates. Two models are compared: a linear/ quadratic (LQ) model and a nonparametric model. Two estimation methods are used: (a) minimizing the squared difference between the observed records and the modeled biological frontier and (b) using extreme value theory to estimate the biological frontier that maximizes the probability of observing the existing world records by age. The results support the LQ model and suggest a linear percentage decline up to the late 70s and quadratic decline after that.

On March 18, 1976, the Swedish parliament voted on a bill that, if approved, would have substantially increased both the scale and scope of government representation on bank boards. Since parliament was hung, the outcome of the vote was decided by a lottery. We exploit this lottery to study the causal effect on shareholder value of government involvement in the corporate governance of banks. We find that the rejection of the bill resulted in positive abnormal returns that persisted in the following days. The results suggest that unsolicited government involvement in the corporate governance of banks is harmful for owners.

This paper analyzes the transfer pricing of multinational firms. Intrafirm prices may systematically deviate from arm’s-length prices for two motives: pricing to market and tax avoidance. Using French firm-level data on arm’s-length and intrafirm export prices, we find that the sensitivity of intrafirm prices to foreign taxes is reinforced once we control for pricing-to-market determinants. Most important, we find no evidence of tax avoidance if we disregard tax haven destinations. Tax avoidance through transfer pricing is economically sizable. The bulk of this loss is driven by the exports of 450 firms to ten tax havens.