We examine the effect of US branch banking deregulations on the entry size of new firms using micro-data from the US Census Bureau. We find that the average entry size for startups did not change following the deregulations. However, among firms that survived at least four years, a greater...

This paper uses administrative data from 87 new venture competitions in 17 U.S. states to show that winning has large, positive effects on measures of subsequent venture success, including employment and financing. While cash prizes are valuable, especially for founders who are likely...

It is well known that new businesses are typically much smaller than their established industry competitors, and that this size gap closes slowly. We show that even in commodity-like product markets, these patterns do not reflect productivity gaps, but rather differences in demand-side...

We implement a new survey of firms, focusing on their higher-order macroeconomic expectations. The survey provides a novel set of stylized facts regarding the relationship between first-order and higher-order expectations of economic agents, including how they adjust their beliefs in response to...

Countries that specialize in commodity exports often exhibit a correlation between the relevant commodity price and the value of their currency. We explore a natural but little-studied explanation for this correlation. An increase in the commodity price leads to increases in the future values of...

Using original data from two waves of a survey conducted in March and April 2020 in eight OECD countries (N = 21,649), we show that women are more likely to see COVID-19 as a very serious health problem, to agree with restraining public policy measures adopted in response to it, and to comply...

We analyse whether research funding contests promote co-authorship. Our analysis combines Scopus publication records with data on applications to the Marsden Fund, the premiere source of funding for basic research in New Zealand. On average, and after controlling for observable and unobservable...

We identify the timing of currency, banking crises and sudden stops in New Zealand from 1880 to 2008, and consider the extent to which empirical models can explain New Zealand's crisis history. We find that the cross country evidence on the determinants of crises fits New Zealand experience...

During the last three years New Zealand has faced increasingly large external imbalances. The current account deficit has increased from 4.3% of GDP in 2003 to almost 9.0% of GDP in 2005. During the same period the country's net international investment position (NIIP) went from a negative level...