PARETO IMPROVING MINIMUM WAGE LAWS

By increasing the expected wage in low skill jobs, a minimum wage law can reduce the incentive for low skill workers to imitate high skill workers in the signalling process. The gain from reduced investment in the signal can more than offset the loss from unemployment among low skill workers so that total output increases. Moreover, with an appropriate poll tax on workers to compensate owners of capital, the law can make all workers and owners of capital better off.     

ANALYZING RENT CONTROL: THE CASE OF LOS ANGELES

An accurate assessment of the economic effects of a rent control law requires that both the specific provisions of the ordinance and the characteristics of the local housing market be considered. Examining the case of Los Angeles we conclude: First, most of the transfers from landlords to tenants were realized early in the law's life, while most of the economic cost of rent control was incurred later. Second, ordinance provisions aimed at increasing landlords' incentives to maintain rent-controlled dwellings also markedly reduce the size of the transfers to tenants. These results, we think, will apply to other jurisdictions.     

The role of physical contact in childcare

SUMMARY. There is a risk that recent concern over child sexual abuse will inhibit those working with children from having appropriate physical contact with the children. The author discusses the importance of touch in children's experience, outlines some dilemmas facing the childcare worker, and suggests a number of specific and general ways in which workers may resolve these difficulties, with special reference to residential childcare     

DO HIGHER TOBACCO TAXES REDUCE ADULT SMOKING? NEW EVIDENCE OF THE EFFECT OF RECENT CIGARETTE TAX INCREASES ON ADULT SMOKING

There is a general consensus among policymakers that raising tobacco taxes reduces cigarette consumption. However, evidence that tobacco taxes reduce adult smoking is relatively sparse. In this paper, we extend the literature in two ways: using data from the Current Population Survey Tobacco Use Supplements we focus on recent, large tax changes, which provide the best opportunity to empirically observe a response in cigarette consumption, and employ a novel paired difference‐in‐differences technique to estimate the association between tax increases and cigarette consumption. Estimates indicate that, for adults, the association between cigarette taxes and either smoking participation or smoking intensity is negative, small, and not usually statistically significant. Our evidence suggests that increases in cigarette taxes are associated with small decreases in cigarette consumption and that it will take sizable tax increases, on the order of 100%, to decrease smoking by as much as 5%. (JEL I18, I12)     

CARBON GEOGRAPHY: THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF CONGRESSIONAL SUPPORT FOR LEGISLATION INTENDED TO MITIGATE GREENHOUSE GAS PRODUCTION

Over the last 5 years, the U.S. Congress has voted on several pieces of legislation intended to sharply reduce the nation's greenhouse gas emissions. Given that climate change is a world public bad, standard economic logic would predict that the United States would “free ride” and wait for other nations to reduce their emissions. Within the Congress, there are clear patterns to who votes in favor of mitigating greenhouse gas emissions. This paper presents a political economy analysis of the determinants of “pro‐green” votes on such legislation. Conservatives consistently vote against such legislation. Controlling for a representative's ideology, representatives from richer districts and districts with a lower per‐capita carbon dioxide footprint are more likely to vote in favor of climate change mitigation legislation. Representatives from districts where industrial emissions represent a larger share of greenhouse gas emissions are more likely to vote no. (JEL Q54, Q58, R50)     

更新信号的阶段性融资效应:基于众筹市场的跨类别实证研究

在众筹项目融资过程中,融资人面对两难选择：一是尽可能详细宣传项目以吸引投资者,同时又担心创意泄露,不会一次性把所有的信息公之于众。通常,融资人会选择合适的时间通过众筹平台将项目创意和进展分阶段地发布给投资者。为此,本文研究了众筹项目的阶段性文本更新对融资成功率的影响,采用来自Kickstarter上的243,730条更新文本作为研究数据。首先,对更新信息进行预处理,采用文本层次聚类对更新文本进行主题识别,得到6类信号更新主题：进度汇报、内容更新、回报有关、时间提醒、表示感谢、社会化推广。随后,针对三个不同的融资阶段（前期、中期和后期）,探究不同的信息更新主题在不同阶段对成功融资的影响。对于不同的项目类别,投资者关注的重点存在差异,为此研究了不同项目类别中的各个融资阶段应该突出的信号主题,同时还检验了内部信号主题与外部信号主题对融资影响的差异。总体而言,频繁的信号更新有助于项目融资成功,而且在中后期的更新可以更加有效的提高融资绩效。对于信号更新主题,表示感谢、进度汇报和时间提醒等外部信号更新的效果比另外三类效果好得多,不同项目类别之间的信号更新策略存在显著差异,生活类项目与体验类项目的信号更新策略基本一致,而艺术类项目则显著不同于其他类别的项目。本文丰富了我们对更新信号的阶段性融资效应的理解,为互联网金融研究以及用户行为模式研究提供新视角。     

DIFFICULTIES WITH TESTING FOR CAUSATION*

This paper examines the use of econometric tests for causality that are based on the work of Granger and Sims. The main conclusion is that it is not possible to infer the direction of causation from observed correlations. There are two reasons why the causality tests cannot reveal the direction of causation from observed correlations. First, the null hypothesis tested is necessary but not sufficient to imply causality. Second, any specification error renders the causality test results uninterpretable.