We estimate the effects of cash transfers on a severe measure of child welfare: maltreatment. To do so, we leverage year-to-year household variation from a universal and unconditional cash transfer, the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend (PFD). Using linked individual-level administrative data on...

We discuss recent work evaluating the role of the government in shaping the economy during the long 19th century, a practice we refer to as industrial policy. We show that states deployed a vast variety of different policies aimed at, primarily, but not exclusively, fostering industrialization....

This paper examines whether a generous cash intervention early in life can "undo" some of the long-term disadvantage associated with poor health at birth. We use new linkages between several large-scale administrative datasets to examine the short-, medium-, and long-term effects of providing...

We study how the Jones Act -- a 100-year-old U.S. regulation that constrains domestic waterborne shipping -- affects U.S. markets for crude oil and petroleum products. We collect data on U.S. Gulf Coast and East Coast fuel prices, movements, and consumption, and we estimate domestic non-Jones...

We investigate the event-based geopolitical shocks from the Russian invasion of Ukraine on selected agricultural and energy commodities using daily event-based structural vector autoregression (SVAR). We find that the geopolitical shock affects the markets of wheat (3%) and European natural gas...

Societal aging is arguably one of our most critical demographic challenges, and Singapore is aging at a much faster rate compared to other countries. Population aging could negatively affect older adults, contribute to an increase in healthcare expenditure and increase caregivers' financial and...

We estimate the causal impact of access to means-tested public health insurance coverage (Medicaid) on health outcomes and recidivism for those recently released from incarceration. To do so, we leverage a policy change in South Carolina that allowed simplified Medicaid re-enrollment for...

This paper studies the long-run economic impact of dismissing city councils infiltrated by organized crime. Applying a matched difference-in-differences design to the universe of Italian social security records, we find that city council dismissals (CCDs) increase employment, the number of...

Many proposed surface water transfers undergo a series of regulatory reviews designed to mitigate hydrological and economic externalities. While these reviews help limit externalities, they impose substantial transaction costs that also limit trade. To promote a well-functioning market for...

We show that the largest increase in unemployment benefits in U.S. history had large spending impacts and small job-finding impacts. This finding has three implications. First, increased benefits were important for explaining aggregate spending dynamics--but not employment dynamics--during the...