Knowledge that Transforms

The front matter of the December 2012 issue contains the Table of Contents

The front matter of the February 2012 issue contains the Table of Contents

The front matter of the April 2012 issue contains the Table of Contents

This short paper examines the effect of exporting on within-plant wage distributions in employer-employee data on Mexican manufacturing plants. Using the late-1994 peso devaluation interacted with initial plant size as a source of exogenous variation in exporting and focusing on wages at the 10th, 25th, 50th, 75th and 90th percentiles within each plant, we document three patterns: (1) there is no evidence of an effect of exporting on wages at the 10th percentile; (2) the wage effects of exporting are larger at higher percentiles, up to the 75th; and (3) there is no evidence of an increase in dispersion within the top quartile.

Using a micro-founded model and a likelihood-based inference method, we show that while a passive monetary and passive fiscal policy regime prevailed in the U.S. before Paul Volcker's chairmanship at the Federal Reserve, an active monetary and passive fiscal policy regime prevailed after his appointment. Since both monetary and fiscal policies were passive pre-Volcker, equilibrium indeterminacy was a feature of the economy. Finally, pre-Volcker, the effects of unanticipated policy shifts were substantially different from those predicted by conventional monetary models: unanticipated increases in interest rates increased inflation and output, while unanticipated increases in lump-sum taxes decreased inflation and output.

The article develops a new theory of pricing to market driven by dynamic frictions of building market shares. Our key innovation is a capital theoretic model of marketing in which relations with customers are valuable. We discipline the introduced friction using data on differences between short-run and long-run price elasticity of international trade flows. We show that the model accounts for several pricing “puzzles” of international macroeconomics. (JEL E13, F14, F31, F41, F44, M31)

In the microdata underlying US trade price indexes, 40 percent of products are replaced before a single price change is observed and 70 percent are replaced after two price changes or fewer. A price index that focuses on price changes for identical items may, therefore, miss an important component of price adjustment occurring at the time of product replacements. We provide a model of this “product replacement bias” and quantify its importance using US data. Accounting for product replacement bias, long-run exchange rate “pass-through” is substantially higher than conventional estimates suggest, and the terms of trade are substantially more volatile. (JEL F14, F31)

Agents face a coordination problem akin to the adoption of a network technology. A principal announces investment subsidies that, at minimal cost, attain a given likelihood of successful coordination. Optimal subsidies target agents who impose high externalities on others and on whom others impose low externalities. Based on the analysis of the role of strategic uncertainty in coordination processes, we provide a methodology that can be used to find the optimal targets for a variety of interventions in a large class of coordination problems with heterogeneous agents. (JEL D81, D82, D83, O33)

We propose a model of delegated portfolio management with career concerns. Investors hire fund managers to invest their capital either in risky bonds or in riskless assets. Some managers have superior information on default risk. Based on past performance, investors update beliefs on managers and make firing decisions. This leads to career concerns that affect managers' investment decisions, generating a countercyclical “reputational premium.” When default risk is high, return on bonds is high to compensate uninformed managers for the high risk of being fired. As default risk changes over time, the reputational premium amplifies price volatility. (JEL G11, G12, G23, L84)

We study the effects of network externalities within a protocol for matching faculty to offices in a new building. Using web and survey data on faculty's attributes and choices, we identify the different layers of the social network: institutional affiliation, coauthorships, and friendships. We quantify the effects of network externalities on choices and outcomes, disentangle the layers of the networks, and quantify their relative influence. Finally, we assess the protocol used from a welfare perspective. Our study suggests the importance and feasibility of accounting for network externalities in assignment problems and evaluates techniques that can be employed to this end. (JEL C78, C93, D62, D85, Z13)