土地制度和分配不当对农业生产力的影响

1、NATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCHNBERReporterA quarterly summary of NBER researchALSO IN THIS ISSUEProbability of an Economic DisasterProbability of disaster implied by the historical price-to-earnings ratio of the S&P 50014%12108 Average6 4 2 01890191019301950197019902010Source: J. A. Wachter, N

2、BER Working Paper No 14386Program Report Public EconomicsRaj Chetty and Amy Finkelstein*No. 1, March 2020 HYPERLINK l _bookmark44 Rare Events and Financial ftarkets7 HYPERLINK l _bookmark65 The Impact of Land Institutions and HYPERLINK l _bookmark65 ftisallocation on Agricultural Productivity11 HYPE

3、RLINK l _bookmark86 Firm-Level Risk, Lifetime Earnings HYPERLINK l _bookmark86 Uncertainty, and Household Savings 15 HYPERLINK l _bookmark97 The Benefits of Rehabilitative Incarceration 18 HYPERLINK l _bookmark108 NBER News 22 HYPERLINK l _bookmark109 Conferences 25 HYPERLINK l _bookmark110 Program

4、and Working Group fteetings 29 HYPERLINK l _bookmark111 NBER Books 34Public economics is the study of government intervention in the mar- ket economy, designed to move outcomes away from the market equilib- rium. The two primary motivations for such interventions are improving market efficiency and

5、redistributing resources across populations. The field is principally concerned with analyzing the effects of various tools such as tax policies and social insurance programs that are designed to achieve these aims.The NBER Public Economics Program has made significant progress in understanding thes

6、e issues during the eight years since the last program report. Between January 1, 2012 and the present the time period covered by the current report there were almost 2,000 NBER working papers in public economics. ftuch of this work has been fueled by the availability of new data sources that permit

7、 researchers to study longstanding questions with unprecedented precision and granularity.Rather than attempting to summarize this entire corpus of work, this report focuses on two areas of research: Determinants of the take-up of government programs and the impacts of these programs on behavior and

8、 economic outcomes. These examples are not meant to be exhaustive; they focus on a limited, and admittedly somewhat arbitrary, subset of the excit- ing research being undertaken by program affiliates. However, they illus- trate some of the main themes and richness in analysis that have emerged from

9、recent work. All of the recent working papers by program affiliates may be found here: HYPERLINK /papersbyprog/PE.html /papersbyprog/PE.html.*Raj Chetty is the William A. Ackman Professor of Public Economics at Harvard University and the director of Opportunity Insights, an institute which uses big

10、data to identify and develop scalable ways to overcome barriers to eco- nomic opportunity. Amy Finkelstein is the John & Jennie S. MacDonald Professor of Economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and co-founder and co-scientific director of J-PAL North America, a research center that en

11、courages and facilitates randomized evaluations of important domestic policy issues.Reporter Online at: HYPERLINK /reporter /reporterThe National Bureau of Economic Research is a private, nonprofit research orga- nization founded in 1920 and devoted to objective quantitative analysis of the American

12、 economy. Its officers and board of directors are:President and Chief Executive Officer James M. PoterbaController Kelly HorakCorporate Secretary Alterra MiloneBOARD OF DIRECTORSChair Karen N. Horn Vice Chair John Lipsky Treasurer Robert MednickDIRECTORS AT LARGETake-up and Targeting of Government P

13、rogramsNBER ReporterA natural assumption when designing govern- ment programsone made in much of the theoret- ical literature in public finance for decadesis that everyone who is eligible for the program in question participates. But enrollment in social safety net pro- grams is typically not automa

14、tic: individuals must apply for the programs and demonstrate eligibility. Often, eligibility rules are complicated, application forms long, and documentation requirements sub- stantial. Perhaps as a result, many people who are eligible for social safety net programs do not par- ticipate. Common hypo

15、theses for this “incomplete take-up puzzle” include lack of information aboutPeter Aldrich Elizabeth E. Bailey Susan ft. Collins Kathleen B. Cooper Charles H. Dallara George C. Eads Jessica P. Einhorn ftohamed El-Erian Diana FarrellJacob A. Frenkel Robert S. Hamada Peter Blair Henry Karen N. Horn Li

16、sa JordanJohn Lipsky Laurence H. fteyer Karen ftillsftichael H. ftoskow Alicia H. ftunnell Robert T. Parry Douglas Peterson James ft. Poterba John S. Reedftark Weinberger ftartin B. Zimmermaneligibility, transaction costs associated with enroll- ment, and stigma associated with applying for or enrol

17、ling in the programs.Recent research has examined two empirical questions that relate to take-up: identifying barriers to take-up and estimating how those barriers affect the characteristics of applicants and enrollment,DIRECTORS BY UNIVERSITY APPOINTftENTknown as the “targeting” property of the bar

18、rier.Timothy Bresnahan, StanfordPierre-Andr Chiappori, Columbiaftaureen Cropper, MarylandAlan V. Deardorff, MichiganGraham Elliott, California, San DiegoEdward Foster, MinnesotaJohn P. Gould, ChicagoBruce Hansen, Wisconsin-MadisonBenjamin Hermalin, California, BerkeleySamuel Kortum, YaleGeorge ftail

19、ath, Pennsylvania Joel ftokyr, Northwestern Cecilia Elena Rouse, Princeton Richard L. Schmalensee, MIT Ingo Walter, New YorkDavid B. Yoffie, HarvardEconomists have posited very different hypotheses for what kinds of eligible individuals are deterred from enrolling. Drawing on neoclassical theory, so

20、me have argued that those deterred might be the least needy among the eligible, while recent work in behavioral economics has suggested that deter- rent ordeals may have exactly the opposite targetingDIRECTORS BY APPOINTftENT OF OTHER ORGANIZATIONSTimothy Beatty, Agricultural and Applied Economics A

21、ssociationftartin Gruber, American Finance Association Philip Hoffman, Economic History Association Arthur Kennickell, American Statistical AssociationJack Kleinhenz, National Association for Business Economics Robert ftednick, American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Peter L. Rousseau, Am

22、erican Economic AssociationGregor W. Smith, Canadian Economics AssociationWilliam Spriggs, American Federation of Labor andCongress of Industrial OrganizationsBart van Ark, The Conference BoardThe NBER depends on funding from individuals, corporations, and private foundations to maintain its indepen

23、dence and its flexibility in choosing its research activities. Inquiries concerning contributions may be addressed to James ft. Poterba, President & CEO, NBER, 1050 ftassachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, ftA 02138-5398. All contributions to the NBER are tax-deductible.The Reporter is issued for informati

24、onal purposes and has not been reviewed by the Board of Directors of the NBER. It is not copyrighted and can be freely repro- duced with appropriate attribution of source. Please provide the NBERs Public Information Department with copies of anything reproduced.Requests for subscriptions, changes of

25、 address, and cancellations should be sent to Reporter, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc., 1050 ftassachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, ftA 02138-5398 (please include the current mailing label), or by email to HYPERLINK mailto:subs subs. Print copies of the Reporter are only mailed to subscribers

26、 in the U.S. and Canada; those in other nations may request electronic subscriptions at HYPERLINK /drsubscribe/ /drsubscribe/.2NBER Reporter No. 1, ftarch 2020effect, discouraging precisely those applicants the social planner would most like to enroll.This ambiguity about whether targeting tends to

27、exclude the most or the least needy potential ben- eficiaries has made empirical work on the topic all the more important. ftuch of this empirical work has been conducted in the form of randomized controlled trials of particular interventions, their impact on take-up, and the characteristics of thos

28、e who take up, but there have also been important quasi-experimental papers. We summarize findings from selected papers in what follows. HYPERLINK l _bookmark22 1Reductions in informational barriers have been found to be quantitatively important in generat- ing take-up in some contexts but not in ot

29、hers. In a recent series of randomized interventions aimed at increasing take-up of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) among likely eligible individuals, Dayanand ftanoli and co-authors have found that take-up is highly sensitive to both the frequency and nature of reminder letters sent by the Inte

30、rnal Revenue Service, although the effects of the reminder do not persist into the following year when the indi-viduals would have to sign up again. HYPERLINK l _bookmark23 2 Likewise, Susan Dynarski and col- laborators find that an information interven- tion that informed high- achieving students a

31、bout a tuition-free college scholarship increased enrollment at a flagship state university. HYPERLINK l _bookmark24 3 There is also quasi-experimen- tal evidence that infor- mation is an important barrier to take-up of post-secondary enroll- ment among unemploy- ment insurance recipi- ents. HYPERLI

32、NK l _bookmark25 4 However, Hunt Allcott and ftichael Greenstone find in a randomized evaluationof informationalFigure 1fer program reduces enrollment. HYPERLINK l _bookmark29 8choose health insurance plans which, while more expensive than other options, do not offer any additional coverage. HYPERLI

33、NK l _bookmark30 9 Information about eligi- bility disproportionately encourages enrollment among eligible, relatively higher socioeconomic status applicants in the SNAP program. HYPERLINK l _bookmark31 10Studies have found that making it more burdensome to access benefits that is, imposing transact

34、ion costsincreases target- ing on some but not all dimensions. Alatas et al. find that introducingtransaction costs by requiring individualsinterventions that lack of awareness is not acontributor to low take-up of home energy efficiency audits. HYPERLINK l _bookmark26 5Reductions in transactional b

35、arri- ers have been found to be important for increasing enrollment in several different programs. Amy Finkelstein and ftatthew Notowidigdo find that for elderly individu- als eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), information alone can have an effecton take-up, but that

36、pairing it with assistance doubles the impact. HYPERLINK l _bookmark27 6 ftanasi Deshpande and Yue Li find that the clos- ing of local field offices where Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income applications can be submitted sub- stantially reduces both applications and

37、 enroll- ment. HYPERLINK l _bookmark28 7 Vivi Alatas and co-authors present evi- dence from a random- ized evaluation across Indonesian villages that increasing the transac- tion cost of applying for a conditional cash trans-In addition to investigating how barri-ers to enrollment affect take-up rat

38、es, recent research has focused on how these barri- ers may affect the characteristics of appli- cants and enrollees. From information inter- ventions, there is evidence that complexity disproportionately deters EITC enrollment of lower-income potential recipients, and that, due at least in part to

39、a lack of insur- ance literacy, some lower-income employeesFigure 2to apply for a conditional cash transfer inIndonesian villages rather than have the gov- ernment automatically screen the individuals for eligibility improves targeting; specifically, it results in enrolling substantially poorer peop

40、le. HYPERLINK l _bookmark32 11 However, marginally increasing the transaction costs does not further affect the characteristics of enrollees. Deshpande and Li find that increasing the transaction costs associated with US disability pro-grams worsens target- ing among applicants, as evidenced by an i

41、ncrease in the share of appli- cants with only moder- ately severe disabilities, but improves target- ing among enrollees, as evidenced by a decrease in the share of enrollees with the least severe disabilities (conditional on being severe enough to be eligible). HYPERLINK l _bookmark33 12 However,

42、they also find that the increased transac- tion costs reduce the share of enrollees with low education levels and low pre-applica- tion earnings, suggest-NBER Reporter No. 1, ftarch 20203ing a reduction in targeting. Finkelstein and Notowidigdo, in contrast, find that reducing transaction costs decr

43、eases tar- geting on all dimensions, and at all stages (application and enrollment). HYPERLINK l _bookmark34 13In summary, recent work has uncov- ered evidence not just of the importance of barriers to take-up in general, but on precisely how those barriers may vary across programs and subgroups. Al

44、though there are no universal lessons in terms of the determinants of take-up and target- ing, these studies pave the way for further work that can be conducted by govern- ment agencies and practitioners to under- stand take-up in the context of the par- ticular policy under consideration. The norma

45、tive implications of different tar- geting properties are unclear and also remain an important and likely fruitful topic for further work.Impacts of Government Programs and Tax Policiesftuch as there has been great progress in understanding how take-up varies across government programs, the past eig

46、ht years have seen tremendous prog- ress in understanding program impacts. ftuch of this work has been fueled by the growing availability of popula- tion-level administra- tive tax data from the Department of theTreasury and the Census Bureau. Over these years, the Public Economics Program has foste

47、red collaborative research between members of the group and members of government agencies such as the Office of Tax Analysis, the IRS, the Census Bureau, and others through an annual meeting on research using administrative tax data. Here, we summarize some examples of progress that has been made i

48、n understand- ing the causal effects of government pro- grams using such data.Several studies have analyzed how changes in tax incentives affect the behav- ior of individuals and corporations. For example, researchers have analyzed how local income and estate taxes affect the location of inventors,

49、entrepreneurs, and wealthy individuals using modern admin- istrative data sources. These studies have found that increases in top income tax rates and wealth taxes on the very wealthy induce significant migratory responses between states and even across coun- tries. HYPERLINK l _bookmark35 14 Howeve

50、r, evidence on whether such tax increases induce “real” changes in aggregate business activity or innova- tion is more limited. ftoreover, when inventors and entrepreneurs have strong ties to a research hub in a given area, their responsiveness to tax changes becomes much smaller. HYPERLINK l _bookm

51、ark36 15Figure 3In a different vein, a series of stud- ies have examined how affordable hous- ing programs implemented by the govern- ment affect behavior and outcomes. Using methods ranging from randomized exper- iments to estimation of structural models, a series of studies have shown that there a

52、re large search frictions a lack of infor- mation and support in the housing search process that hamper low-income fami- lies ability to find affordable housing in neighborhoods that provide good oppor-tunities for upward income mobility. HYPERLINK l _bookmark37 16 Some well-designed affordable hous

53、ing programs, in particular, those that pro- vide customized search assistance, can be highly effective in helping families move to higher-opportunity neighborhoods. Focusing on a different program, Rebecca Diamond and Timothy ftcQuade show that the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, a subsidy given to

54、developers of affordable housing, revitalizes low-income neigh- borhoods by increasing property values and reducing crime rates, but has more negative effects in higher-income areas. HYPERLINK l _bookmark38 17 Finally, a third strand of research using administrative tax data has focused on improving

55、 measures of income, taking into account tax and transfer programs. Bruce fteyer and collaborators con- ducted a series of studies linking admin-istrative data to survey data to show that sur- veys often understate income at the bottom of the income distribu- tion because of under- reporting of tran

56、sfers, leading to an overstate- ment of the number of households living in extreme poverty. HYPERLINK l _bookmark39 18 At the other end of the income distribution, recent studies have provided a more com- prehensive picture of top income and wealth inequality, showing for instance that much of the w

57、ealth being accrued at the top comes from humancapital rather than financial capital. HYPERLINK l _bookmark40 19Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman look across the entire income distribution and construct distri- butional national accounts that allocate GDP to income groups. HYPERLINK

58、l _bookmark41 20 These studies all examine income distributions at a sin- gle point in time. The growing availability of panel data has also enabled researchers to make progress in the measurement of income dynamics over time, document- ing, for instance, that rates of intergener-4NBER Reporter No.

59、1, ftarch 2020 ational mobility vary sharply across geo- graphic areas. HYPERLINK l _bookmark42 21 These studies pave the way for further work understanding why income levels and mobility vary so sharply across areas and how government policies can influence mobility and growth.No single unifying re

60、sult about the causal effects of government pro- grams emerges from these studies. Some tax policies induce large behavioral responses; others do not. In some cases, the same program has very different effects in different settings, depending upon how it is implemented. HYPERLINK l _bookmark43 22Per