NBER-土地制度和分配不当对农业生产力的影响（英文）-2020.5-36页.pdf

Reporter Online at:www.nber.org/reporterProgram ReportNATIONAL BUREAU OF ECONOMIC RESEARCHNBER ReporterALSO IN THIS ISSUEA quarterly summary of NBER researchProbability of an Economic Disaster Source:J.A.Wachter,NBER Working Paper No 1438602468101214%Probability of disaster implied by the historical price-to-earnings ratio of the S&P 500 1890191019301950197019902010AverageNo.1,March 2020*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 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 encourages and facilitates randomized evaluations of important domestic policy issues.Rare Events and Financial Markets 7 The Impact of Land Institutions and Misallocation on Agricultural Productivity 11 Firm-Level Risk,Lifetime Earnings Uncertainty,and Household Savings 15 The Benefits of Rehabilitative Incarceration 18 NBER News 22 Conferences 25 Program and Working Group Meetings 29 NBER Books 34Public Economics Raj Chetty and Amy Finkelstein*Public 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 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 these 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.Much of this work has been fueled by the availability of new data sources that permit 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 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 recent work.All of the recent working papers by program affiliates may be found here:conference.nber.org/papersbyprog/PE.html.NBERReporter The National Bureau of Economic Research is a private,nonprofit research orga-nization founded in 1920 and devoted to objective quantitative analysis of the American 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.HornVice Chair John LipskyTreasurer Robert MednickDIRECTORS AT LARGEDIRECTORS BY UNIVERSITY APPOINTMENTDIRECTORS BY APPOINTMENT OF OTHER ORGANIZATIONSTimothy Beatty,Agricultural and Applied Economics AssociationMartin Gruber,American Finance AssociationPhilip Hoffman,Economic History AssociationArthur Kennickell,American Statistical AssociationJack Kleinhenz,National Association for Business EconomicsRobert Mednick,American Institute of Certified Public AccountantsPeter L.Rousseau,American Economic AssociationGregor W.Smith,Canadian Economics AssociationWilliam Spriggs,American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial OrganizationsBart van Ark,The Conference BoardThe NBER depends on funding from individuals,corporations,and private foundations to maintain its independence and its flexibility in choosing its research activities.Inquiries concerning contributions may be addressed to James M.Poterba,President&CEO,NBER,1050 Massachusetts Avenue,Cambridge,MA 02138-5398.All contributions to the NBER are tax-deductible.The Reporter is issued for informational 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 address,and cancellations should be sent to Reporter,National Bureau of Economic Research,Inc.,1050 Massachusetts Avenue,Cambridge,MA 02138-5398(please include the current mailing label),or by email to subsnber.org.Print copies of the Reporter are only mailed to subscribers in the U.S.and Canada;those in other nations may request electronic subscriptions at www.nber.org/drsubscribe/.2 NBER Reporter No.1,March 2020Peter AldrichElizabeth E.BaileySusan M.CollinsKathleen B.CooperCharles H.DallaraGeorge C.EadsJessica P.Einhorn Mohamed El-ErianDiana FarrellJacob A.FrenkelRobert S.HamadaPeter Blair HenryKaren N.HornLisa JordanJohn LipskyLaurence H.MeyerKaren MillsMichael H.MoskowAlicia H.MunnellRobert T.ParryDouglas PetersonJames M.PoterbaJohn S.ReedMark WeinbergerMartin B.ZimmermanTimothy Bresnahan,StanfordPierre-Andr Chiappori,ColumbiaMaureen Cropper,MarylandAlan V.Deardorff,MichiganGraham Elliott,California,San DiegoEdward Foster,MinnesotaJohn P.Gould,ChicagoBruce Hansen,Wisconsin-MadisonBenjamin Hermalin,California,BerkeleySamuel Kortum,YaleGeorge Mailath,PennsylvaniaJoel Mokyr,NorthwesternCecilia Elena Rouse,PrincetonRichard L.Schmalensee,MITIngo Walter,New YorkDavid B.Yoffie,HarvardTake-up and Targeting of Government ProgramsA natural assumption when designing govern-ment programs one made in much of the theoret-ical literature in public finance for decades is that everyone who is eligible for the program in question participates.But enrollment in social safety net pro-grams is typically not automatic: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 hypotheses for this“incomplete take-up puzzle”include lack of information about eligibility,transaction costs associated with enroll-ment,and stigma associated with applying for or enrolling 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,known as the“targeting”property of the barrier.Economists have posited very different hypotheses for what kinds of eligible individuals are deterred from enrolling.Drawing on neoclassical theory,some 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 targeting effect,discouraging precisely those applicants the social planner would most like to enroll.This ambiguity about whether targeting tends to exclude the most or the least needy potential ben-eficiaries has made empirical work on the topic all the more important.Much 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 those who take up,but there have also been important quasi-experimental papers.We summarize findings from selected papers in what follows.1Reductions in informational barriers have been found to be quantitatively important in generat-ing take-up in some contexts but not in others.In a recent series of randomized interventions aimed at increasing take-up of the Earned Income Tax Credit(EITC)among likely eligible individuals,Dayanand Manoli and co-authors have found that take-up is highly sensitive to both the frequency and nature of reminder letters sent by the Internal Revenue Service,although the effects of the reminder do not persist into the following year when the indi-NBER Reporter No.1,March 2020 3viduals would have to sign up again.2 Likewise,Susan Dynarski and col-laborators find that an information interven-tion that informed high-achieving students about a tuition-free college scholarship increased enrollment at a flagship state university.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.4 However,Hunt Allcott and Michael Greenstone find in a randomized evaluation of informational interventions that lack of awareness is not a contributor to low take-up of home energy efficiency audits.5Reductions in transactional barri-ers have been found to be important for increasing enrollment in several different programs.Amy Finkelstein and Matthew Notowidigdo find that for elderly individu-als eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program(SNAP),information alone can have an effect on take-up,but that pairing it with assistance doubles the impact.6 Manasi 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 enroll-ment.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-fer program reduces enrollment.8In addition to investigating how barri-ers to enrollment affect take-up rates,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 a lack of insur-ance literacy,some lower-income employees choose health insurance plans which,while more expensive than other options,do not offer any additional coverage.9 Information about eligi-bility disproportionately encourages enrollment among eligible,relatively higher socioeconomic status applicants in the SNAP program.10 Studies have found that making it more burdensome to access benefits that is,imposing transaction costs increases target-ing on some but not all dimensions.Alatas et al.find that introducing transaction costs by requiring individuals to apply for a conditional cash transfer in Indonesian villages rather than have the gov-ernment automatically screen the individuals for eligibility improves targeting;specifically,it results in enrolling substantially poorer people.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 increase 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).12 However,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-Figure 1Figure 24 NBER Reporter No.1,March 2020ing a reduction in targeting.Finkelstein and Notowidigdo,in contrast,find that reducing transaction costs decreases tar-geting on all dimensions,and at all stages(application and enrollment).13 In 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.Although 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 normative 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 PoliciesMuch as there has been great progress in understanding how take-up varies across government programs,the past eight years have seen tremendous prog-ress in understanding program impacts.Much of this work has been fueled by the growing availability of popula-tion-level administra-tive tax data from the Department of the Treasury and the Census Bureau.Over these years,the Public Economics Program has fostered 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 in 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,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.14 However,evidence on whether such tax increases induce“real”changes in aggregate business activity or innova-tion is more limited.Moreover,when inventors and entrepreneurs have strong ties to a research hub in a given area,their responsiveness to tax changes becomes much smaller.15In 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 are 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.16 Some well-designed affordable housing 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 McQuade show that the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit,a subsidy given to developers of affordable housing,revitalizes low-income neigh-borhoods by increasing property va