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May 2025, Volume 17, Issue 2
1. Title:Dividend Taxation and Firm Performance with Heterogeneous Payout Responses
Authors: Katarzyna Bilicka; İrem Güçeri; Evangelos Koumanakos
Abstract: We analyze the performance of firms that were differentially affected by an unexpected tax on dividends before the global financial crisis. We use exogenous policy variation for firms with different legal statuses and financial year-end dates to separately identify the policy announcement and implementation effects. We provide causal evidence for a sharp drop in dividends but zero change in equipment purchases. Treated firms accumulate investment goods that are likely to be owner-manager's personal assets instead of productive capital. At a time of severe liquidity shortage, some of the funds kept in the firm are used to pay back short-term debt.
2. Title: Buy Baits and Consumer Sophistication: Field Evidence from Instant Rebates
Authors: Matthias Rodemeier
Abstract: Are consumers in the marketplace aware of their cognitive limitations? I answer this question in the context of a ubiquitous form of price discrimination: instant rebates that require active redemption. In a large-scale field experiment with a major online retailer, I find that consumers correctly increase demand when the firm offers a redemption reminder, but they fail to reduce demand when the firm increases the hassle required to redeem. Structural estimates reveal that, while consumers are sophisticated about the probability of forgetting to redeem the rebate, they vastly underestimate the hassle of redeeming it by €20 per consumer.
3.Title: Increasing Organ Donor Registration as a Means to Increase Transplantation: An Experiment with Actual Organ Donor Registrations
Authors: Judd B. Kessler; Alvin E. Roth
Abstract:The United States has a severe shortage of organs for transplant. Recently—inspired by research based on hypothetical choices—jurisdictions have tried to increase organ donor registrations by changing how the registration question is asked. We evaluate these changes with a novel "field-in-the-lab" experiment, in which subjects change their real organ donor status, and with new donor registration data collected from US states. A "yes/no" frame is not more effective than an "opt-in" frame, contradicting conclusions based on hypothetical choices, but other question wording can matter, and asking individuals to reconsider their donor status increases registrations.
4.Title:Public and Private Provision of Information in Market-Based Public Programs: Evidence from Advertising in Health Insurance Marketplaces
Authors:Naoki Aizawa; You Suk Kim
Abstract:This paper studies government and private advertising in market-based public programs. In a model of advertising, we first examine when government advertising increases welfare. Then, we estimate the effects of advertising on consumer demand and assess their welfare effects in the Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplaces. We find government advertising increases overall enrollment and enhances welfare. By contrast, the market expansion effect of private advertising is modest at most. Although private advertising increases demand for insurers in certain specifications, it is not a very efficient tool to induce consumers to select insurers with better plans due to rent-seeking competition.
5.Title: Welfare Analysis of Changing Notches: Evidence from Bolsa Família
Authors:Katy Bergstrom; William Dodds; Juan Rios
Abstract:We develop a framework to bound the welfare impacts of arbitrarily large reforms to notches using two sufficient statistics: the change in the number of households located below the new notch and the change in the number of households located below the old notch. Our bounds hold in a wide class of models, highlighting a new way to use reduced-form bunching evidence for welfare analysis without making strong assumptions on the economic environment. We estimate these two statistics using a difference-in-difference strategy for a reform to the antipoverty program Bolsa Família, finding that the reform's MVPF is between 0.90–1.12.
6.Title:A Machine Learning Approach to Analyze and Support Anticorruption Policy
Authors: Elliott Ash; Sergio Galletta; Tommaso Giommoni
Abstract:Can machine learning support better governance? This study uses a tree-based, gradient-boosted classifier to predict corruption in Brazilian municipalities using budget data as predictors. The trained model offers a predictive measure of corruption, which we validate through replication and extension of previous corruption studies. Our policy simulations show that machine learning can significantly enhance corruption detection: Compared to random audits, a machine-guided targeted policy could detect almost twice as many corrupt municipalities for the same audit rate.
7.Title: Do Consumers Distinguish Fixed Cost from Variable Cost? "Schmeduling" in Two-Part Tariffs in Energy
Authors: Koichiro Ito; Shuang Zhang
Abstract:A central assumption in economics is that consumers properly distinguish fixed cost from variable cost. This assumption is fundamental to various economic theories, including optimal taxation, redistribution, and price discrimination. Using a quasi-experiment in heating price reform in China, we find empirical evidence that is inconsistent with this conventional assumption and more consistent with the "schmeduling" model in Liebman and Zeckhauser (2004). As we demonstrate its policy implications for two-part energy tariffs, this schmeduling behavior makes fixed costs directly relevant to the perceived relative prices of goods, and therefore alters the welfare implications of price, tax, and subsidy designs.
8.Title: Free Trade and the Formation of Environmental Policy: Evidence from US Legislative Votes
Authors:Jevan Cherniwchan; Nouri Najjar
Abstract:We test the hypothesis that governments alter environmental policy in response to trade by studying NAFTA's effects on the formation of environmental policy in the US House of Representatives between 1990 and 2000. We find that reductions in US tariffs decreased political support for environmental legislation. This decrease appears to be due to (i) a reduction in support by incumbent Republican legislators in response to trade-induced changes in the policy preferences of their constituents and (ii) changes in partisan representation in affected districts due to decreased electoral support for pro-NAFTA Democrats following the agreement.
9. Title: Show Me the Money! A Field Experiment on Electric Vehicle Charge Timing
Authors:Megan R. Bailey; David P. Brown; Blake Shaffer; Frank A. Wolak
Abstract:We use a field experiment to measure the effectiveness of financial incentives to shift the timing of electric vehicle (EV) charging. EV owners respond strongly to financial incentives, reducing charging during peak hours by 49 percent by shifting to off-peak hours. In contrast, a prosocial information treatment has no discernible effect. When financial incentives are removed, charge timing reverts to pre-intervention behavior, reinforcing that "money matters." Our findings highlight the substantial flexibility of EV charging compared to other forms of electricity demand. Such flexibility has the potential to greatly reduce future electric system costs arising from a rapidly decarbonizing transportation sector.
10.Title: Who Watches the Watchmen? Local News and Police Behavior in the United States
Authors:Nicola Mastrorocco; Arianna Ornaghi
Abstract:Do US municipal police departments respond to news coverage of local crime? We address this question exploiting an exogenous shock to local crime reporting induced by acquisitions of local TV stations by a large broadcast group, Sinclair. Using a unique dataset of 8.5 million news stories and a triple-differences design, we document that Sinclair ownership decreases news coverage of local crime. This matters for policing: Municipalities that experience the change in news coverage have lower violent crime clearance rates relative to municipalities that do not. The result is consistent with a decrease of crime salience in the public opinion.
11.Title: The Effects of a Multifaceted Poverty Alleviation Program on Rural Income and Household Behavior in China
Authors:Rui Li; Hong Song; Jun Zhang; Junsen Zhang
Abstract:This study examines the effects of a government-led, large-scale, multifaceted poverty alleviation program on rural income in China. We find that the program has a positive impact on national key poor counties, with a 10.9 percent increase in rural income. This effect mainly arises via industrial support, agricultural development, and public service improvement. Poverty alleviation strategies consistent with local comparative advantages yield more significant effects. Household-level analyses suggest the program changes households' income and expenditure, and the effects are particularly substantial for the poorest households. The study provides novel insights and policy implications for China's recent experience with poverty alleviation.
12Title:Corporate Minimum Tax and the Elasticity of Taxable Income: Evidence from Administrative Tax Records
Authors: Jaroslav Bukovina; TomášLichard; Ján Palguta; Branislav Žúdel
Abstract:We examine business responses to a minimum tax (MT) that prescribed fixed floors on corporate tax liability while permitting MT credit carryforwards. Using 2010–2020 tax-return data on all Slovak corporations, we find that many companies immediately relocated from reporting zero taxable income toward bunching at the new floors. We infer the elasticity of taxable income (ETI) to be between 0.33 and 2.28 across value-added tax (VAT) and turnover categories, and quantify the marginal efficiency burden (MEB) of the corporation tax. Given limited extensive-margin responses, our evidence suggests the MT reduced the overall efficiency burden while raising additional tax revenue.
13.Title:Informing Mothers about the Benefits of Conversing with Infants: Experimental Evidence from Ghana
Authors:Pascaline Dupas; Camille Falezan; Seema Jayachandran; Mark Walsh
Abstract: We evaluate a low-cost intervention designed to boost parents' verbal engagement with infants, which tends to be limited in developing countries. In our randomized experiment, recent or expectant mothers watched a three-minute informational video and received a themed calendar. Six months later, treated mothers reported stronger belief in the benefits of verbal engagement, more frequent parent-infant conversation, and more advanced infant language skills. Treatment effects on objective measures of parent-child conversation frequency and infant skills were positive but insignificant. We find larger immediate treatment effects on objective parent-child conversation, suggesting potentially larger long-term effects had the behavior change stuck more.
14.Title: Pay Transparency and Gender Equality
Authors:Jack Blundell; Emma Duchini; Ştefania Simion; Arthur Turrell
Abstract:Since 2018, UK firms with at least 250 employees have been mandated to publicly disclose gender equality indicators. Exploiting variations in this mandate across firm size and time, we show that pay transparency closes 19 percent of the gender pay gap by reducing men's pay growth. By combining different sources of data, we also provide suggestive evidence that the public availability of the equality indicators enhances public scrutiny. In turn, employers more exposed to public scrutiny seem to reduce their gender pay gap the most.
15.Title:Communicating Program Eligibility: A Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Field Experiment
Authors: Jeffrey Hemmeter; John Phillips; Elana Safran; Nicholas Wilson
Abstract:We conducted a direct mail field experiment with 4,016,461 individuals to test several key hypotheses about why take-up of Supplemental Security Income among individuals age 65 and above is so low. Communicating likely eligibility in a basic letter generated substantial increases in take-up in relative terms. Adding behaviorally informed statements increased the effectiveness of these communications. Yet, the application rate in our study sample during the full 24-month follow-up period remained no greater than 7 percent. Our results reveal a modest trade-off between increasing applications and the conditional likelihood of award, as well as the award amount.
16.Title: Physician Group Influences on Treatment Intensity and Health: Evidence from Physician Switchers
Authors: Joseph J. Doyle; Becky Staiger
Abstract:Treatment intensity varies remarkably across physicians, and physicians are increasingly working in groups. This paper tests whether group affiliation impacts physicians' treatment intensity and patient health. Using Medicare inpatient claims data, we focus on internists who switch groups within the same hospital. Event studies show that internists who join more-intensive groups immediately increase their own intensity, with an elasticity of 0.27. This change is reflected in higher Medicare spending due to higher-priced services. We do not detect a change in health outcomes, suggesting that treatment intensity induced by group affiliation may not be productive.
（张佳思摘编）