infonet-economy

This paper proposes bootstrap tests for the validity of instrumental variables (IV) in just identified treatment effect models with endogeneity. We demonstrate that the IV assumptions required for the identification of the local average treatment effect (LATE) allow us to both point identify and bound the mean potential outcomes (i) of the always takers (those treated irrespective...

The surge in international asset trade since the early 1990s has lead to renewed interest in models with international portfolio choice. We develop the implications of portfolio choice for both gross and net international capital flows in the context of a simple two-country dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. We focus on the time-variation in portfolio allocation...

Nervous systems must encode information about the identity of expected outcomes to make adaptive decisions. However, the neural mechanisms underlying identity-specific value signaling remain poorly understood. By manipulating the value and identity of appetizing food odors in a pattern-based imaging paradigm of human classical conditioning, we were able to identify dissociable...

Does the economy influence the way people bring up their children? How can we determine and measure a child’s utility? How can parenting styles be categorized in an economic model? These are the questions that Professor Fabricio Zilibotti of the University of Zurich addressed in his honorary lecture ‘Parenting with Style’, which he delivered at the April International Academic...

This paper analyzes responsibility attributions for outcomes of collective decision making processes. In particular, we ask if decision makers are blamed for being pivotal if they implement an unpopular outcome in a sequential voting process. We conduct an experimental voting game in which decision makers vote about the allocation of money between themselves and recipients without...

This paper provides evidence that learning about demand is an important driver of firms' dynamics. We present a simple model with Bayesian learning in which firms are uncertain about their idiosyncratic demand parameter in each of the markets they serve, and update their beliefs as noisy information arrives in each period. The model predicts that firms update more their beliefs...

A growing share of the world population is getting access to a formal bank account. This allows a move from cash to account based payments. Grounding our hypothesis in behavioral economics, we conjecture that being paid on an account instead of in cash can play a major role in encouraging savings. When paid on the account, the money is saved by default, while - as long as payments...

In the wake of the Alstom restructuring, the French government indicated that current merger control rules do not allow for the development of European champions and called for a change in the rules. This paper argues that such a move may be not be advisable but that enforcement of the current rules should be improved, in particular regarding the assessment of efficiencies and the...