This paper investigates the oft-repeated claim that delayed retirement by older workers will result in higher unemployment among the young, a claim which has garnered increased attention in the media in the United States and which drives retirement policy in China. Using 1977-2011 data from the...

In an effort to combat childhood obesity, many schools have banned the sale of carbonated beverages on school grounds. I evaluate the effectiveness of these measures by investigating their impact on household carbonated beverage consumption. I match households in Nielsen Homescan Data to their...

Recently, we evaluated a fiscal consolidation strategy for the United States that would bring the government budget into balance by gradually reducing government spending relative to GDP to the ratio that prevailed prior to the crisis (Cogan et al, JEDC 2013). Specifically, we published an...

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included $7 billion for broadband development. We highlight two endemic problems with the rural subsidy programs managed by NTIA: 1) There is little economic rationale for subsidizing rural areas; and 2) NTIA’s mechanism for selecting projects...

Over the past 80 years, the Federal Communications Commission has been responsible for the allocation of non-governmental use of the radio frequency spectrum. Over that time, here have been significant changes in spectrum use that have been driven by changes in demand and technology. The...

Employer-provided pension plans may affect employee mobility both through an “incentive effect,†where the bundle of benefit characteristics such as vesting rules, pension wealth accrual, risk, and liquidity affect turnover directly, and a “selection effect,†where employees...

I use detailed data from an online financial management service to analyze the extent to which short-run impatience can explain why people hold expensive credit card balances. I first measure the sensitivity of consumption spending to paycheck receipt for each user and argue that it provides a...

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis and great recession, many countries face substantial deficits and growing debts. In the United States, federal government outlays as a ratio to GDP rose substantially from about 19.5 percent before the crisis to over 24 percent after the crisis. In...

Major changes in technology and in regulation led to the proliferation of and willingness to pay for new communication services The changes in technology enabled the changes in regulation, both through the ability to increase supply and quality, but because technological change opened the...

This lecture examines monetary policy during the past three decades. It documents two contrasting eras: first a Rules-Based Era from 1985 to 2003 and second an Ad Hoc Era from 2003 to the present. During the Rules-Based Era, monetary policy, in broad terms, followed a predictable systemic...