Work requirements in means-tested transfer programs have grown in importance in the U.S. and in some other countries. The theoretical literature which considers their possible optimality generally operates within a traditional welfarist framework where some function of the utility of the poor is...

Classic theories suggest that common pool resources are subject to overexploitation. Community-based resource management approaches may ameliorate "tragedy of the commons" effects. Using a randomized evaluation in Namibia's communal rangelands, we find that a comprehensive four-year program to...

We estimate intergenerational mobility of immigrants and their children in fifteen receiving countries. We document large income gaps for first-generation immigrants that diminish in the second generation. Around half of the second-generation gap can be explained by differences in parental...

Discussion of the causes of the Great Inflation in the UK during the 1970s has centred around the relative importance of two potential explanations, which we label "bad luck" - the occurrence of unusually large commodity price and supply-side shocks - and "bad policy" reflecting failures in both...

Over the last several decades, there have been historic shifts in the structure of cash transfer programs in Western, developed countries, including the U.S., Canada, and U.K. For all three of these countries, the turn of the 21st century marked a shift away from unconditional cash transfer...

We study the role of the English Industrial Revolution in promoting social mobility and ending the society of orders: one based on rigid social categories and regulated by inherited characteristics. We combine two new datasets on individual wealth holdings before and after the Industrial...

We study carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) policies, as currently being implemented by the EU and UK. Policy discussions have cited three motivations and one concern. CBAMs can improve domestic competitiveness in regulated markets, reduce emissions leakage to unregulated markets, and...

The quantity theory of money is applied to the paper money regimes of seven of the nine British North American colonies south of New England. Individual colonies, and regional groupings of contiguous colonies treated as one monetary unit, are tested. Little to no statistical relationship, and...

We examine the hypothesis that the slowdown in productivity following the Great Recession was in significant part an endogenous response to the contraction in demand that induced the downturn. We first present some panel data evidence that technology diffusion is highly cyclical. We then develop...

Economists have long been aware of utility externalities such as a tendency to compare own income with others'. If welfare losses from income comparisons are significant, any governmental interventions that alter such attitudes may have large welfare consequences. We conduct an original online...