Knowledge that Transforms

How cyclical is the U.S. labor force participation rate (LFPR)? We examine exogenous state-level business cycle shocks, finding that the LFPR is highly cyclical, but with significantly longer-lived responses than the unemployment rate. After a negative shock, the LFPR declines for about four years—substantially lagging unemployment—and only fully recovers after about eight years. Our main specifications use age-sex-adjusted LFPR, and we show that using unadjusted LFPR is problematic because local shocks spur changes in the population of high-LFPR age groups. Cyclicality varies across groups, with larger and longer-lived responses among men, younger workers, less-educated workers, and Black workers.

This study explores the impact of primary care physicians’ childhood socioeconomic status (SES) on their patients’ health and socio-economic inequality in health. We measure physicians’ SES by their parents’ education and find that SES concordance decreases low-SES patients’ mortality substantially, while high- SES patients’ mortality does not depend on their physicians’ family background, resulting in a reduction in the SES-mortality gradient of 25%. SES concordance improves low-SES patients’ health by increasing care at the intensive margin, increasing detection of chronic conditions, and improving adherence to treatment. SES concordance elevates communication, fosters empathy and trust between physicians and low-SES patients.

We propose a framework for value-added models that flexibly characterizes heterogeneous teacher productivity based on multidimensional student characteristics. We show that teacher effectiveness heavily depends on the specific attributes of their students. For example, the difference in value-added between well-matched and poorlymatched students for the average teacher is approximately 0.1 standard deviations in test scores. Notably, these matching effects are particularly pronounced among lowachieving students. In language arts, the standard deviation in teacher value-added is one-third larger for low-achieving students compared to high-achieving students.

We consider endogenous binary treatment with multiple binary instruments. We propose a novel limited monotonicity (LiM) assumption that is generally weaker than alternative monotonicity assumptions in the literature. We define and identify (under LiM) the combined compliers local average treatment effect (CC-LATE), which is arguably a more policy-relevant parameter than the weighted average of LATEs identified by two-stage least squares (TSLS), and is identified under more general conditions. Estimating the CC-LATE is trivial, equivalent to running TSLS with one constructed instrument on a subsample. We use our CC-LATE to empirically assess how knowledge of HIV status influences protective behaviors.

When should private companies allocate public resources? In our model, delegation is attractive when delay is costly, the impact of funds is similar across firms, and government and private objectives are aligned. We use novel firm-level survey data to measure heterogeneity in the impact of the Paycheck Protection Program and to assess whether banks targeted loans to high-impact firms. Banks did target loans to their most valuable pre-existing customers. However, we find that treatment effect heterogeneity is moderate, suggesting that delegation was likely superior from the government’s perspective to delaying loans to improve targeting.

Does the scientific community sanction sexual misconduct? Using a sample of scientists at U.S. universities involved in substantiated cases of sexual misconduct that became public, we find that their prior work is cited less after the allegations become known. The effect weakens with distance in the coauthorship network, suggesting that researchers primarily learn about misconduct through their peers. Among the closest peers, male authors react more strongly. In male-dominated fields, the effects on citations appear muted. Accused scientists are more likely to leave academic research, to move to non-university institutions, and to publish less.

There is significant interest in understanding labor market consequences of the opioid epidemic, but little is known about how opioid use affects on-the-job performance. We analyze the impact of opioid initiation on job performance using linked medical and personnel data for active-duty military members. Exploiting quasi-random assignment of patients to physicians in the emergency department, we find that military members assigned to high-intensity opioid prescribing physicians have a higher likelihood of long-term opioid use, are less likely to receive promotions, and are more likely to receive disciplinary actions and leave their jobs. Our results demonstrate productivity costs of opioid use.

We examine the causal impact of ideological education on students' political participation and career choices by exploiting China's staggered rollout of a high school curriculum reform that emphasized political indoctrination. Using nationally representative survey data on college students that the authors collected, we find that exposure to the new curriculum increases the likelihood of joining the Chinese Communist Party by 14% and raises the probability of securing state-sector jobs after graduation by 15%. These results highlight the powerful role of ideological education in shaping students' political alignments and career trajectories.

We provide experimental evidence that using body-worn cameras (BWCs) for police monitoring improves police-citizen interactions. In an intervention carried out in Brazil in 2018, we find that treated incidents show a 61.2% decrease in police use of force and a 47.0% reduction in adverse interactions, including handcuff use and arrests. The use of body-worn cameras also significantly improves the quality of police reporting. The rate of incomplete reports dropped by 5.9%, which is accompanied by a 69.2% increase in reported incidents of domestic violence. We explore various mechanisms that explain why BWCs work and show that the results are consistent with the police changing their behavior in the presence of cameras. Overall, results show that the use of body-worn cameras de-escalates conflicts.

We provide evidence that similar price effects occur from new multifamily rental housing on surrounding owner-occupied property values regardless of whether the development was subsidized. These effects were on average negative in higherincome communities, but became either non-distinguishable from zero or positive in higher-income communities with sufficient population density. These results imply that previous opposition to all new rental housing by homeowners is misguided as developments could raise property values in some higher-income neighborhoods.