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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Economics

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

2017

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Articles 1 - 4 of 4

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Economic Shocks And Crime: Evidence From The Brazilian Trade Liberalization, Rafael Dix-Carneiro, Rodrigo R. Soares, Gabriel Ulyssea Jul 2017

Economic Shocks And Crime: Evidence From The Brazilian Trade Liberalization, Rafael Dix-Carneiro, Rodrigo R. Soares, Gabriel Ulyssea

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper studies the effect of changes in economic conditions on crime. We exploit the 1990s trade liberalization in Brazil as a natural experiment generating exogenous shocks to local economies. We document that regions exposed to larger tariff reductions experienced a temporary increase in crime following liberalization. Next, we investigate through what channels the trade-induced economic shocks may have affected crime. We show that the shocks had significant effects on potential determinants of crime, such as labor market conditions, public goods provision, and income inequality. We propose a novel framework exploiting the distinct dynamic responses of these variables to obtain …


New Evidence On State Fiscal Multipliers: Implications For State Policies, Timothy J. Bartik Jul 2017

New Evidence On State Fiscal Multipliers: Implications For State Policies, Timothy J. Bartik

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

When state and local governments engage in balanced budget changes in taxes and spending, what fiscal multiplier effects do such policies have on creating local jobs? Traditionally, the view has been that possible job-creation effects of such state and local “demand-side” policies are smaller, second-order effects. Such effects might be worthwhile to take into consideration when a state or local government balances its budget during a recession, but the effects were believed to be of modest magnitude, and not of major importance for more general state and local public policies. However, recent estimates of fiscal multiplier effects of state and …


Dynamic Responses To Labor Demand Shocks: Evidence From The Financial Industry In Delaware, Russell Weinstein May 2017

Dynamic Responses To Labor Demand Shocks: Evidence From The Financial Industry In Delaware, Russell Weinstein

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

This paper analyzes an important shock to local labor demand in the financial services sector: firm relocation to Delaware following a Supreme Court ruling and state legislation in the 1980s. Using synthetic controls and bordering states, I find significant effects on employment growth, the unemployment rate, and participation in the first decade. Employment spillovers to the nontradable sector and migration appear larger than estimates from shocks to the tradable sector. Effects persist for 10 to 20 years after Delaware loses its original policy-induced advantage. The shift towards a low unemployment sector explains this persistence, rather than direct productivity effects or …


Valuing Public Goods More Generally: The Case Of Infrastructure, David Albouy, Arash Farahani Mar 2017

Valuing Public Goods More Generally: The Case Of Infrastructure, David Albouy, Arash Farahani

Upjohn Institute Working Papers

We examine the relationship between local public goods, prices, wages, and population in an equilibrium inter-city model. Non-traded production, federal taxes, and imperfect mobility all affect how public goods (or “amenities” more broadly) should be valued from data. Reinterpreting the estimated effects of public infrastructure on prices and wages in Haughwout (2002), we find infrastructure over twice as valuable with our more general model. New estimates based on more years, cities, and data-sets indicate stronger wage and positive population effects of infrastructure. These imply higher values of infrastructure to firms, and also to households if moving costs are substantial.