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We highlight two challenges for the notion that a pure panic bank run played an important role in the dynamics in the Great Recession. First, the conclusion depends critically on ruling out any entry of new net worth into a sector experiencing a run. We find that the implied cost of entry is implausibly large, across a range of pure panic models. Second, we show that the qualitative features of run...
Changes in the structure of work and families over the last four decades have increased many labour market inequalities. Growing earnings inequality, adverse labour market ‘shocks’ for the low‐educated, and geographically concentrated pockets of deprivation are among the most evident of these in Britain. The decade since the financial crisis has brought these inequalities into sharper focus, and the...
Attitudes towards same‐sex relationships in the USA have changed radically over a relatively short period of time. After remaining fairly constant for over two decades, opinions became more favourable starting in 1992—a presidential election year in which the Democratic and Republican Parties took opposing stands over the status of gay people in society. What roles did political parties and their...
Gender differences in paid performance have been found in many laboratory‐based competitive experiments. They have been attributed to men and women responding differently to psychological pressure. To explore this further, we conducted a laboratory experiment comprising 444 subjects, and measured gender differences in performance in four distinct competitive situations: (i) the standard tournament...
The bulk of the world's extreme poor work in subsistence agriculture. Diversification out of this activity is often seen as the sine qua non of economic development. We evaluate whether the roll‐out of a mainstay development intervention—microfinance—into poor, agricultural and largely unbanked populations in rural Uganda helps borrowers to diversify into non‐agricultural labour activities. The new...
What is the impact of warfare on inequality and the social contract? Using local data on bombing, the evolution of wealth inequality and vote shares for the Labour Party in Britain around the Second World War, we establish two results. First, on average, we find no impact of bombing on inequality. However, there is considerable heterogeneity, and this result is driven by southern Britain. In northern...
Gender differences in self‐confidence could explain women's under‐representation in high‐income occupations and glass‐ceiling effects. We draw lessons from the economic literature via a survey of experts and a Bayesian hierarchical model that aggregates experimental findings over the last 20 years. The experts’ survey indicates beliefs that men are overconfident and women underconfident. Yet the literature...
We study nudges that turn out to have precise null effects in reducing long‐run credit card debt. We test nudges across two field experiments covering 183,441 UK cardholders. Our first experiment studies nudges added to monthly credit card statements. Our second experiment studies letters and email nudges (separate from monthly statements) sent to cardholders who signed up to automatically pay the...
This paper presents an analysis of what types of values, especially in regard to obedience vs. independence, families impart to their children, and how these values interact with social mobility. In the model, obedience is a useful characteristic for employers, especially when wages are low, because independent workers require more incentives (when wages are high, these incentives are automatic)....
The second half of the 20th century saw large‐scale suburbanization in the USA, with the median share of residents who work in the county where they live falling from 87% to 71% between 1970 and 2000. We introduce a new methodology for discriminating between the three leading explanations for this suburbanization (workplace attractiveness, residence attractiveness and bilateral commuting frictions)...
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