Ethnic networks - as proxies for information networks - have been associated with higher levels of international trade. Previous research has not differentiated between the roles of these networks on the extensive and intensive margins. The present paper does so using a model with fixed effects,...

Ethnic networks — as proxies for information networks — have been associated with higher levels of international trade. Previous research has not differentiated between the roles of these networks on the extensive and intensive margins. The present paper does so using a model with fixed...

A large literature studies the information contained in national-level economic indicators, such as financial and aggregate economic activity variables, for forecasting and nowcasting U.S. business cycle phases (expansions and recessions.) In this paper, we investigate whether there is...

Much of the literature examining the effects of oil shocks asks the question - “What is an oil shock?” and has concluded that oil-price increases are asymmetric in their effects on the US economy. That is, sharp increases in oil prices affect economic activity adversely, but sharp decreases...

Investigates the effects of marginal income tax ratesand bankruptcy exemptions on entrepreneurship rates. After a discussion ofspatial and temporal trends in United States entrepreneurship, an empiricalmodel is used to estimate state rates of entrepreneurship. A state-level paneldata set that...

The burdens of a recession are not spread evenly across demographic groups. The public and media, for example, noticed that, from the start of the current recession in December 2007 through June 2009, men accounted for more than three quarters of net job losses. Other differences have garnered...

This paper examines the effect of cross-border lobbying on domestic lobbying and on external tariffs in both Customs Union (CU) and Free Trade Area (FTA). We do so by developing a two-stage game which endogenizes the tariff formation function in a political economic model of the directly...

We model the U.S. business cycle using a dynamic factor model that identifies common factors underlying fluctuations in state-level income and employment growth. We find three such common factors, each of which is associated with a set of factor loadings that indicate the extent to which each...