Evaluating Economic Impacts of Electrification in Zambia
By Aashna Aggarwal Energy poverty is prevalent in Zambia. It is one of the world’s least electrified nations with 69% of its citizens living in darkness, without access to grid electricity. Zambian government has a goal to achieve universal electricity access in urban areas and increase rural electrification to 51% by 2030. With its main […]
Sister competition and birth order effects among marriage-aged girls: Evidence from a field experiment in rural Bangladesh
By Stephanie Zhong Early marriage before the age of 18 is prevalent among adolescent girls in Bangladesh, but the timing of marriage is not uniform across daughters within a household, with some sisters marrying earlier than others. Using survey data from a novel field experiment from rural Bangladesh, I find that girls ages 10-21 with […]
Endogeneity in the Decision to Migrate: Changes in the Self-Selection of Puerto Rican Migrants before, during, and after the Great Recession
By Aasha Reddy Migrants self-select on characteristics such as income. We use the U.S. Census’ ACS and PRCS to study changes in selection patterns of Puerto Rican migrants to the to the U.S. mainland (50 states) before, during, and after the Great Recession (2005 to 2016). We construct counterfactual income densities to compare incomes of […]
Evaluating The Forward Citations-Patent Value Relationship: The Role Of Competition
By Neelesh T. Moorthy I assess whether forward citations—how often patents are cited by subsequent patents—reliably capture patent quality. A high-quality invention might lack forward citations if there are no competing, patenting firms. This introduces measurement error in using citations to measure patent value. I test whether greater competition makes forward citations better measures of […]
The Impact of a Fixed Exchange Rate Regime on Growth and Volatility in an Oil-‐‑dependent Economy
By Shihab Osman Malik and Faisal Bandar Alsaadi This study examines the relationship between the fixed exchange rate regime, economic growth, and output volatility in oil-‐‑producing Saudi Arabia over the post-‐‑Bretton Woods period (1973–2016). We assess the implications of the current exchange rate regime on macroeconomic and growth performance, and evaluate its sustainability in the […]
Evaluation of the Impact of New Rules in FCC’s Spectrum Incentive Auction
By Elizabeth Lim, Akshaya Trivedi and Frances Mitchell On March 29, 2016, the FCC initiated its first ever two-sided spectrum auction. The auction closed approximately one year later, having repurposed a total of 84 megahertz (MHz) of spectrum. The “Incentive Auction” included three primary components: (1) a reverse auction where broadcasters bid on the price […]
Entrepreneurial Attractiveness: Amazon, Google, and the Search for Innovative Hot Spots
By Anna Katherine Kropf Recent economic literature suggests that entrepreneurship in technological fields can spur economic growth, making it a popular topic for city development officials. Yet, this increasingly popular phenomenon is met by many economic questions. One of those questions is which characteristics of metropolitan areas are attractive to entrepreneurs. To answer the question […]
What Fosters Innovation? A CrossSectional Panel Approach to Assessing the Impact of Cross Border Investment and Globalization on Patenting Across Global Economies
By Michael Dessau and Nicholas Vega This study considers the impact of foreign direct investment (FDI) on innovation in high income, uppermiddle income and lowermiddle income countries. Innovation matters because it is a critical factor for economic growth. In a panel setting, this study assesses the degree to which FDI functions as a vehicle for […]
Deciphering Chinese Financing To African Countries
By Gwen Geng The paper considers what attracts Chinese aid and Chinese investment to African countries and what kinds of Chinese financing projects are more likely to have unrevealed financing amount. The main database used is AidData: China’s Official Finance to Africa 2000-2012. It contains 2356 Chinese financing projects to 50 African countries. The results […]
Protecting Long Term Human Capital in a Financial Crisis: Evidence from the Indonesian Family Life Survey
by Sachet Bangia Abstract The East Asian Financial crisis of the late nineties made its way to Indonesia in January 1998. Using longitudinal data from the Indonesian Family Life Survey (1993-2015), this paper studies the impact of the crisis on education attainment. In the midst of economic upheaval, households with liquid assets at hand, particularly […]
