We provide evidence that democracy has a positive effect on GDP per capita. Our dynamic panel strategy controls for country fixed effects and the rich dynamics of GDP, which otherwise confound the effect of democracy. To reduce measurement error, we introduce a new indicator of democracy that consolidates previous measures. Our baseline results show that democratizations increase GDP per capita by about 20 percent in the long run. We find similar effects using a propensity score reweighting strategy as well as an instrumental-variables strategy using regional waves of democratization. The effects are similar across different levels of development and appear to be driven by greater investments in capital, schooling, and health.

We use the late nineteenth-century establishment of agricultural experiment stations at preexisting land-grant colleges across the United States to estimate the importance of proximity to research for productivity growth. Our analysis reveals that proximity to newly opened permanent stations affected land productivity for about 20 years and then subsequently declined until becoming largely absent today. We conclude that spatial frictions substantially reduced the rate of return to public research spending in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but such frictions significantly diminished as extension programs, automobiles, and telephones made it easier for discoveries to reach farther farms.

We study how intelligence and personality affect the outcomes of groups, focusing on repeated interactions that provide the opportunity for profitable cooperation. Our experimental method creates two groups of subjects who have different levels of certain traits, such as higher or lower levels of Intelligence, Conscientiousness, and Agreeableness, but who are very similar otherwise. Intelligence has a large and positive long-run effect on cooperative behavior. The effect is strong when at the equilibrium of the repeated game there is a trade-off between short-run gains and long-run losses. Conscientiousness and Agreeableness have a natural, significant but transitory effect on cooperation rates.

An increase in credit supply driven by looser lending constraints in the mortgage market is the key force behind four empirical features of the housing boom before the Great Recession: the unprecedented rise in home prices, the surge in household debt, the stability of debt relative to house values, and the fall in mortgage rates. These facts are more difficult to reconcile with the popular view that attributes the housing boom only to looser borrowing constraints associated with lower collateral requirements, because they shift the demand for credit.

We examine the effect of the establishment of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) clearinghouse in 1892 on counterparty risk using a novel historical experiment. During this period, the NYSE stocks were dual-listed on the Consolidated Stock Exchange (CSE), which already had a clearinghouse. Using identical securities on the CSE as a control, we find that the introduction of multilateral net settlement through a clearinghouse substantially reduced volatility of NYSE returns caused by settlement risk and increased asset values. Our results indicate that a clearinghouse can improve market stability and value through a reduction in network contagion and counterparty risk.

Empirical work has drawn attention to the high degree of productivity differences within industries and their role in resource allocation. This paper examines the allocational efficiency of such markets. Productivity differences introduce two new margins of potential inefficiency: selection of the right distribution of firms and allocation of the right quantities across firms. We show that these considerations affect welfare and policy analysis, and market power across firms leads to distortions in resource allocation. Demand-side elasticities determine how resources are misallocated and when increased competition from market expansion provides welfare gains

Previous article FreeJPE Turnaround Times, Previous Two YearsPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreJPE Turnaround Times, Previous Two Years Outcome of 1st Round DecisionsMean Days to DecisionMedian Days to DecisionDecision Later than Six Months after Submission (as percentage of decisions within decision type)Desk Rejection52%970%Reject with Reviews41%1249117%Revise8%18715139%Average time from original submission to acceptance (omitting time with author in revision) = 464 daysView Table Image Previous article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Political Economy Volume 127, Number 4August 2019 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/705013 © 2019 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Previous articleNext article FreeRecent RefereesPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreJournal of Political Economy acknowledges the assistance of:Jonathan AdamsAnna AizerStefania AlbanesiAlberto AlesinaS. Nageeb AliFranklin AllenTreb AllenFernando AlvarezIsaiah AndrewsPeter ArcidiaconoCostas ArkolakisAdrien AuclertChristopher AverySandeep BaligaMarco BassettoBrian BellFrederico BeloDaniel BenjaminDaniel BergstresserJohn BeshearsV BhaskarAndreas BlumeAaron Bodoh-CreedPietro BonaldiAlessandro BonattiLeah BoustanBen BrooksRyan BrownLeonardo BursztynGabriel CarrollSylvain ChassangAndrew ChingGabe Chodorow-ReichJames ChoiCyrus ChuGian ClementiRiccardo ColacitoGeorge ConstantinidesDean CorbaeArnaud CostinotVictor CoutureVincent CrawfordRahul DebMarco Del NegroManasi DeshpandeRebecca DiamondJonathan DingelWill DobbieDavid DornMirko DracaAngela DuckworthPascaline DupasGilles DurantonWioletta DziudaMark EganNatalia FabraHenry FarberJoseph FarrellTimothy FeddersenJoseph FerrieFrederico FinanDoireann FitzgeraldAlexander FrankelCarlos GarrigaMatthew GentzkowRobert GertnerBart GolsteynJoao GomesSanjeev GoyalDavid GreenDaniel GreenwaldNaijia GuoYingni GuoKinda HachemGordon HansonMariaflavia HarariYinghua HeJonas HedlundPaul HeidhuesNathaniel HendrenEmeric HenryHolger HerzStephen HollandPeter IrelandOleg ItskhokiJuanna JoensenLisa KahnMarek KapickaNavin KartikSupreet KaurPatrick KehoeAndreas KleinerPeter KlenowBrian KnightRalph KoijenAnton KolotilinMichael KremerKory KroftNicola LaceteraDavid LagakosRicardo LagosNicolas LambertRasmus LandersoeRobin LeeRaphael LevyWei LiElliot LipnowskiQingmin LiuAlessandro LizzeriMichael LovenheimW. Bentley MacLeodNeale MahoneyIoana MarinescuJames MarroneLaurent MathevetGregor MatvosArnaud MaurelMaurizio MazzoccoTimothy McQuadeXin MengKonrad MenzelKurt MittmanAhmed MobarakJoel MokyrEduardo MoralesStephen MorrisMichael Mueller-SmithCharles NathansonJ. NearyJ. Peter NilssonDmitry OrlovKevin O’RourkeGerard Padro i MiquelFernando ParroEduardo Perez-RichetPetra PerssonSalvatore PiccoloEvan PiermontGiorgio PrimiceriVictoria ProwseCliment Quintana-DomequeJoao RamosJoshua RauhDevesh RavalMorten RavnLuis RayoCullen RobertsKim RuhlJohn RustFlorian ScheuerSam Schulhofer-WohlRajiv SethiJoseph ShapiroCaixia ShenXianwen ShiEran ShmayaAli ShouridehAndrzej SkrzypaczJames SmithAlex SmolinSebastian SoteloCharles SprengerFrancesco SquintaniStefanie StantchevaBryce SteinbergColin StewartTodd StinebricknerPhilipp StrackBalazs SzentesAlan TaylorFelix TintelnotRobert TopelAlexander TorgovitskyAaron TornellSergey TsyplakovMatthew TurnerSelale TuzelPhilip UschevJohannes Van BiesebroeckJohn Van ReenenChristoph VanbergJoseph VavraFrederic VermeulenNicolas VieilleBauke VisserJonathan VogelRakesh VohraHans VothJessica WachterJoel WaldfogelFabian WaldingerChristopher WaltersAndrea WeberPierre-Olivier WeillRonald WolthoffChunhua WuOwen ZidarSeth Zimmerman Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Political Economy Volume 127, Number 1February 2019 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/702873 © 2019 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Previous article FreeJPE Turnaround TimesPDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditEmailQR Code SectionsMoreJPE Turnaround Times, Previous Two Years Outcome of 1st Round DecisionsMean Days to DecisionMedian Days to DecisionDecision Later than Six Months after Submission (as percentage of decisions within decision type)Desk Rejection55%1070%Reject with Reviews36%13610122%Revise9%21418149% Previous article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Journal of Political Economy Volume 127, Number 1February 2019 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/702725 © 2019 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved.PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

This paper considers cost-reducing R&D investment with spillovers in a Cournot oligopoly with overlapping ownership. We show that overlapping ownership leads to internalization of rivals. profits by firms and find that, for demand not too convex, increases in overlapping ownership increase (decrease) R&D and output for high (low) enough spillovers while it increases R&D but decreases output for intermediate levels of spillovers. There is scope for overlapping ownership to improve welfare provided that spillovers are sufficiently large. The socially optimal degree of overlapping ownership increases with the number of firms, with the elasticity of demand and of the innovation function, and with the extent of spillover effects. In terms of consumer surplus standard, the desirability of overlapping ownership is greatly reduced even under low market concentration. When R&D has commitment value and spillovers are high the optimal extent of overlapping ownership is higher. The results obtained are robust in the context of a Bertrand oligopoly model with product differentiation