Japanese public pension benefits, which were distributed quarterly through February 1990 and every other month since then, induce substantial but predictable income fluctuations. The relative magnitude of the payments combined with the delay between payments yields a stronger test of the...

This paper explores the changing role of government involvement in health care financing policy outside the United States. It provides a review of the economics literature in this area to understand the implications of recent policy changes on efficiency, costs and quality. Our review reveals...

What is the aggregate real rate of return in the economy? Is it higher than the growth rate of the economy and, if so, by how much? Is there a tendency for returns to fall in the long-run? Which particular assets have the highest long-run returns? We answer these questions on the basis of a new...

Trade theorists have come to understand that their theory is ambiguous on the question: Are trade and factor flows substitutes? While this sounds like an open invitation for empirical research, hardly any serious econometric work has appeared in the literature. This paper uses history to fill...

We employ a novel dataset on almost 30,000 trade credit contracts to describe the broad characteristics of the parties that contract together and the key contractual terms of these contracts. Whereas prior work has typically used information on only one side of the buyer-seller transaction, this...

We focus on the economies of the North Atlantic Core during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and find that an impressive variety of local financial institutions emerged to supply the needs of SMEs wherever there was sufficient demand for their services. Although these intermediaries...

This paper presents new stylized facts on the distribution of the home bias at the fund level. We find (i) a large heterogeneity in the degree of home bias across mutual funds; (ii) a positive correlation between the size of funds and home bias; and (iii) a positive correlation between the size...

This paper develops a spacial model of ATM networks to explore the implications for banks and non-banks of interchange fees, foreign fees and surcharges applied to transactions by customers at other than an own-bank ATM. Surcharging raises the price (foreign fee plus surcharge) paid by customers...

We explore the impact of COVID-19 on employee's digital communication patterns through an event study of lockdowns in 16 large metropolitan areas in North America, Europe and the Middle East. Using de- identified, aggregated meeting and email meta-data from 3,143,270 users, we find, compared to...

This paper compares two possible formats for free trade in the Americas: a system of spokes surrounding a U.S. hub, and a free trade area. The paper identifies the sources of welfare change, and it argues that a country's attitude towards a system depends on whether the arrangement is a...