In traditional models, votes are an expression of preferences and beliefs. Psychological theories of cognitive dissonance suggest, however, that behavior may shape preferences. In this view, the very act of voting may influence political attitudes. A vote for a candidate may lead to more...

We experimentally test how psychological motivations can impact the processing of purely objective information. We first document that, when the high-stakes College Entrance Exam is held in the month of Ramadan, Chinese Muslim students perform significantly worse. When asked about the impact of...

This paper investigates the local impact of biomedical research on mortality in the USA. Causally estimating the marginal value of biomedical research is challenging due to a lack of micro data linking health outcomes to plausibly exogenous variation in research. We create a new linkage between...

This paper explores the economic incentives for medical procedure innovation. Using a proprietary dataset on billing code applications for emerging medical procedures, we highlight two mechanisms that could hinder innovation. First, the administrative hurdle of securing permanent, reimbursable...

The "shutdown" economy of April 2020 is compared to a normally functioning economy both in terms of market and nonmarket activities. Three novel methods and data indicate that the shutdown puts market production 25-28 percent below normal in the short run. At an annual rate, the shutdown is...

Academic Medical Centers (AMCs)--comprising medical schools, teaching hospitals, and research laboratories)--play an important role in US biomedical innovation. The Balanced Budget Act of 1997 (BBA) changed the formula used to reimburse Medicare inpatient claims and subsidies for medical...

Recent policy attention has focused on proposals to reduce prices for drugs that have received public funding. From an implementation perspective, such policies rely on public disclosure of government support for research. In this paper, we highlight two conceptual problems with past attempts to...

Are scientific knowledge flows embodied in individuals, or "in the air"? To answer this question, we measure the effect of labor mobility in a sample of 9,483 elite academic life scientists on the citation trajectories associated with individual articles (resp. patents) published (resp. granted)...

I analyze the effects of four types of medical innovation and cancer incidence on U.S. cancer mortality rates during the period 2000-2009, by estimating difference-in-differences models using longitudinal (annual) data on about 60 cancer sites (breast, colon, etc.). The outcome measure used is...

For decades, the US public and private sectors have committed substantial resources towards cancer research, but the societal payoff has not been well-understood. We quantify the value of recent gains in cancer survival, and analyze the distribution of value among various stakeholders. Between...