Are smarter machines our children's friends? Or can they bring about a transfer from our relatively unskilled children to ourselves that leaves our children and, indeed, all our descendants - worse off? This, indeed, is the dire message of the model presented here in which smart machines...

Improved health, equity, macro-economic efficiency, efficient provision of care, and client satisfaction are the common goals of the health system. The relative significance of these goals varies, however, across nations, communities, and with time. As for health care finance, the attainment of...

Method of Simulated Moments (MSM) estimators introduced by McFadden (1989)and Pakes and Pollard (1989) are of great use to applied economists. They are relatively easy to use even for estimating very complicated economic models. One simply needs to generate simulated data according to the model...

We introduce an algorithm for solving dynamic economic models that merges stochastic simulation and projection approaches: we use simulation to approximate the ergodic measure of the solution, we construct a fixed grid covering the support of the constructed ergodic measure, and we use...

Computers are an important part of modern education, yet many schoolchildren lack access to a computer at home. We test whether this impedes educational achievement by conducting the largest-ever field experiment that randomly provides free home computers to students. Although computer ownership...

Evidence shows that the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is underutilized. WIC enrolls only sixty percent of eligible persons. Participants claim only a fraction of available benefits. Researchers suggest that people underutilize WIC because of the...

We study a non-parametric class of neoclassical trade models with global production networks and arbitrary distortions. We characterize their properties in terms of sufficient statistics useful for growth and welfare accounting as well as for counterfactuals. Using these sufficient statistics,...

We evaluate whether hospital adoption of electronic medical records (EMRs) leads to increases in billing where financial gains are large or where hassle costs of complete coding are low. The 2007 Medicare payment reform varied both financial incentives and hassle costs of coding. We find no...

In 1966, the philosopher Michael Polanyi observed, "We can know more than we can tell... The skill of a driver cannot be replaced by a thorough schooling in the theory of the motorcar; the knowledge I have of my own body differs altogether from the knowledge of its physiology." Polanyi's...