Businesses are "burdened" by government through corporate taxes and bureaucratic procedures. We interpret these two channels as tools for raising revenue and study, theoretically and empirically, how different political institutions rely on these tools. We establish two stylized facts: the...

A sizable number of localities have in recent years limited the use of criminal background checks in hiring decisions, or "banned the box." Using LEHD Origin-Destination Employment and American Community Survey data, we show that these bans increased employment of residents in high-crime...

The authors argue that the pattern of multifactor productivity (MFP) growth across industries may presage a second wave of productivity advance supported by the digital economy.

While the employment effects of minimum wage increases have been heavily studied, the impact of minimum wage increases on non-labor market outcomes has received less attention. This study is the first to investigate whether minimum wage increases in the U.S. affect an important non-market...

Long-term data show that the dynamic efficiency condition r>g holds when g is represented by the average growth rate of real GDP if r is the average real rate of return on equity, E(re ), but not if r is the risk-free rate, rf .

A recent survey found that a higher percentage of sampled smokers had tried vaping in the UK, relative to the US, especially among those who claimed they had tried to quit smoking previously.

We use prediction market data from Betfair, the world's largest Internet betting exchange, to measure the electability of 2016 Presidential candidates using regressions that compare the general election contest and party nomination win probabilities for each candidate. A candidate who is more...

This paper examines the impact of cargo preference requirements, which create market power for domestic shipping companies, on the effectiveness of USAID's Food for Peace emergency food aid program.

This paper presents a data set that tracks effective minimum wage rates across the US states, including the District of Columbia, from January 1, 2011, to January 1, 2018.

Social service providers such as teachers, healthcare providers and homeless shelters receive trillions of dollars each year to help people. Recently, policymakers and other funders have attempted to obtain better outcomes by implementing performance-based incentive schemes that pay more money...