This paper asks whether comprehensive, non-interest government size has an inverted Ushaped effect on private economic output in Canada and whether its current size is too large relative to the estimated tipping point. Using data from 1929 through 2011 and controlling for both correlations...

We pursue a novel empirical strategy to identify monetary news shocks and determine their effects on the US economy during the Greenspan-Bernanke era of Federal Reserve Chairmanship. We first construct a monetary policy residual as gap between the observed federal funds rate and a policy rule....

The news-shock literature interprets empirical news-shock identifications as signals about future productivity. Under this view, changes in productivity cause changes in expectations. I investigate an alternative interpretation whereby changes in expectations cause changes in productivity. I...

A large number of countries have introduced successful leniency programs into their competition law enforcement to encourage colluding firms to come forward with evidence that will help detect cartels and punish price-fixers. This paper studies a feature of some of these programs that has...

I estimate the energy efficiency premium in unlabeled office buildings by exploiting variation in mandatory building energy standard implementations, as a result of the U.S. 1992 Energy Policy Act. A more stringent energy code leads to rent and price premiums of approximately 4% and 9%,...

The paper analyzes the replacement of universal social programs with targeted social benefits. We define "universality" as separability of tax/transfer system in income and other non-monetary attributes, and introduce the concept of "parallel equity" - a requirement that like differences in...