Knowledge that Transforms

Because wines are aged for several years before they are released, newly hired winemakers arrive as wines made by their predecessors enter the market. An analysis of winemaker hiring events reveals that wines released right after a new winemaker's arrival from a prominent competitor are priced significantly higher than corresponding wines released in the preceding year. However, the wines released before and after the hiring event are indistinguishable in terms of quality. These findings isolate a “purely symbolic” effect of employee mobility, which affirm sociological accounts of markets—under conditions of uncertainty, inter-organizational affiliations condition producers' returns to quality demonstrations.

A common view is that cross-border vertical linkages played a key role in the 2008–2009 collapse of global trade. This paper presents two accounting results from a global input-output framework that shed light on this channel. We feed in observed changes in final demand and find that trade in final goods fell by twice as much as trade in intermediate goods. Nevertheless, intermediate goods account for more than two-fifths of the trade collapse. We also find that vertical specialization trade fell 13 percent, while value-added trade fell by 10 percent, because declines in demand were largest in highly vertically-specialized sectors.

This paper examines the intersection between two aspects of climate policy design. The first is the point of regulation: should it be placed on pollution sources, carbon-rich inputs, or consumers? The second aspect concerns the external effects of a local climate policy. Leakage occurs when partial regulation results in an increase in emissions in unregulated parts of the economy. Our model demonstrates how directly regulating polluters can increase foreign emissions while indirect regulation (either upstream or downstream of the pollution source) will decrease foreign emissions. The net effect on combined domestic and foreign emissions will depend on market elasticities.

We compare the structure and performance of private (non-GSE) mortgage-backed securities sold by large issuers vs. those sold by small issuers over the period 2000–2006. Securities sold by large issuers have less subordination—a greater fraction of the deal receiving AAA rating—than those sold by small issuers. Prices for AAA-rated and non-AAA rated tranches sold by large issuers fell more when the market turned down than those sold by small issuers, and this difference was concentrated among tranches issued between 2004 and 2006. These results suggest that rating agencies grant favorable ratings to large issuers, especially during market booms.

We estimate the effect of Vietnam-era Army service on mortality, exploiting Australia's conscription lotteries for identification. We utilize population data on deaths during 1994–2007 and military personnel records. The estimates are identified by over 51,000 compliers induced to enlist in the Army. We find no statistically significant effects on mortality overall, nor for any cause of death. The estimated relative risk (RR) of death associated with Army service is 1.03 (95% CI: 0.92, 1.19). On the assumption that Army service affected mortality only for those who served in Vietnam, the estimated RR is 1.06 (95% CI: 0.81, 1.51).

The modern definition of unemployment emerged in the late 1930s from research conducted at the Works Progress Administration and the Census Bureau. According to this definition, people who are not working but actively searching for work are counted as unemployed. This concept was first used in the Enumerative Check Census, a follow-up sample for the 1937 Census of Unemployment, and continued with the Monthly Report on the Labor Force survey, begun in December 1939 by the Works Progress Administration. A similar definition is now used to measure unemployment around the world.

This paper evaluates the hypothesis that during the 2008–2009 collapse in international trade, imports of higher quality goods experienced larger reductions compared to low-quality imports, using data on US imports disaggregated by HS-10 product category and source country. We find little, if any, robust econometric evidence in support of this hypothesis.

Svensson (2006) argues that Morris and Shin (2002) is, contrary to what is claimed, pro-transparency. This paper reexamines the issue but with an important modification to the original Morris and Shin framework. Recognizing that central banks impact the economy not only indirectly via public announcements, but also directly through policy actions, we consider the social value of public information in the presence of active policy intervention. Our results strengthen Morris and Shin's conclusions considerably: in particular, we find that public disclosure of the central bank's information is unambiguously, i.e., regardless of parameter values, undesirable.

We show that the financial accelerator may be very large in a liquidity trap. We study a sticky price model with real estate and a financial friction specified as a collateral constraint. Expectations can lead the economy to a self-fulfilling liquidity trap equilibrium where the lower bound on the nominal interest rate binds. We model these equilibria as stochastic sunspots. As in the Great Depression, a liquidity trap entails house price depreciation and potentially large output losses. Higher leverage implies much larger output losses but at the same time rules out the existence of short-lived liquidity traps.

The paper addresses two issues. First, economics has evolved both as a positive science and, from moral philosophy, also as a normative discipline. Advancing the public good requires that public policy walk on both these legs. Second, the criticism has been forcefully made that markets undermine morality. This contention is refuted in several ways.