In the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, the U.S. equity markets have witnessed a surge in the number of publicly listed companies. Using data for the three major U.S. stock exchanges (AMEX, NYSE, and NASDAQ), we find that the number of publicly traded companies went from 4,144 at the end of...

Consumers lose access to credit when their congressional district boundaries are irregularly redrawn to benefit a political party (i.e., are gerrymandered). We identify this effect by matching a longitudinal panel of consumer credit data with changes in congressional district boundaries...

How does going public affect firms’ tax obligations and tax planning? Using a panel of U.S. corporate tax return data from 1994 to 2018, we compare tax payments for firms that completed an IPO with those that filed for an IPO but later withdrew and remained private. We find that in the years...

In this paper, I examine the effects of a countercyclical fiscal policy that gave firms additional tax refunds -- additional liquidity -- at the end of the past two recessions. I take advantage of a discontinuity in the slope of the tax refund formula to estimate the policy's impact. I find that...

I provide empirical evidence that the effect of high-cost credit access on household material well-being depends on if a household is experiencing temporary financial distress. Using detailed data on household consumption and location, as well as geographic variation in access to high cost...

Globalization can lead to either conservation or depletion of natural resources that are used in the production of traded goods. Rising prices may lead to better resource man- agement. Alternatively, stronger incentives to extract these resources may exacerbate their decline- especially in open...