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Discussion papers

Findings from CEP's academic research are first published in our open-access discussion paper series.

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Government contracting and living wages > minimum wages

CEP authors examine the impact of local government adoption of living wage policies on low-wage workers.

Photograph of Climate activist
Global warming cools voters down: How climate concerns affect policy preferences

CEP authors examine how abnormally high temperatures correlate with an individual's political leanings, climate concerns and attitudes towards offset policies.

Latest Discussion papers

CEP discussion paper
Trade and the end of antiquity

What caused the end of antiquity, the shift of economic activity away from the Mediterranean towards northern Europe? We assemble a large database of coin flows between the 4th and 10th century and use it to document the...Read more...

Johannes Boehm and Thomas Chaney

5 September 2024

CEP discussion paper
Learning about women's competence: The dynamic response of political parties to gender quotes in South Korea

We study the dynamic responses of political parties to gender quotas in South Korean municipal councils, a setting with nearly zero women pre-quota. We exploit two unique institutional features: the quota intensity is di...Read more...

Jay Euijung Lee and Martina Zanella

3 September 2024

CEP discussion paper
Asymmetric pass-through and competition

We study the retail price pass-through of four major tax changes in petroleum products using daily pricing data from gas stations on small Greek islands. We find that (i) the pass-through of the tax hikes is five times h...Read more...

Christos Genakos, Blair Yuan Lyu and Mario Pagliero

30 August 2024

CEP discussion paper
Evaluating the impact of export finance support on firm-level export performance: Evidence from Pakistan

This paper evaluates the impact of two large export finance support schemes on firm-level export performance. The Export Finance Scheme (EFS) and the Long-Term Finance Facility for Plant & Machinery (LTFF), provide loans...Read more...

Fabrice Defever, Alejandro Riano and Gonzalo Varela

30 August 2024

CEP discussion paper
Elite universities and the intergenerational transmission of human and social capital

Do elite colleges help talented students join the social elite, or help incumbent elites retain their positions? We combine intergenerationally-linked data from Chile with a regression discontinuity design to show that, ...Read more...

Andrés Barrios Fernández, Christopher Neilson and Seth Zimmerman

28 August 2024

CEP discussion paper
Brexit and investment

In 2016, the UK voted to leave the European Union and growth in UK manufacturing investment ground to a halt. This paper uses administrative trade data to investigate the causal relationship between these events. We expl...Read more...

Agnes Norris Keiller

5 August 2024

CEP discussion paper
Paternity leave and child development

We study the effect of paternity leave on early child development. We collect survey data on 5,000 children under age six in Spain and exploit several extensions of paternity leave that took place between 2017 and 2021. ...Read more...

Lidia Farre, Libertad Gonzalez, Claudia Hupkau and Jenifer Ruiz-Valenzuela

31 July 2024

CEP discussion paper
Housing-consumption channel of mortgage demand

We quantify the housing-consumption channel in mortgage demand according to which households borrow more following house-price increases since housing and non-housing consumption are imperfect substitutes. To identify th...Read more...

Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt, Nikodem Szumilo and Jagdish Tripathy

29 July 2024

CEP discussion paper
When trade drives markup divergence: An application to auto markets

When firms sell in multiple markets, estimates of markups from the demand-side will generally diverge from estimates based on the supply-side (e.g. via production functions). The empirical examination of the importance o...Read more...

Agnes Norris Keiller, Tim Obermeier, Andreas Teichgraeber and John Van Reenen

26 July 2024

CEP discussion paper
Online versus in-person services: Effects on patients and providers

Online delivery of one-to-one services offers potential cost savings and increased convenience, yet relatively little is known about its impacts on providers and consumers. This paper studies the online delivery of healt...Read more...

Amanda Dahlstrand, Nestor Le Nestour and Guy Michaels

26 July 2024

CEP discussion paper
Firm heterogeneity and imperfect competition in global production networks

We study the role of firm heterogeneity and imperfect competition for global production networks and the gains from trade. We develop a quantifiable trade model with two-sided firm heterogeneity, matching frictions, and ...Read more...

Hanwei Huang, Kalina Manova, Oscar Perello and Frank Pisch

24 July 2024

CEP discussion paper
Avenging the tenants: Regulating the middle man's rents

We explore the role of intermediaries in the rental market. Using novel UK data on fees letting agencies charged to both tenants and landlords, combined with a matched property-agency listings dataset, we study the effec...Read more...

Jan David Bakker and Nikhil Datta

12 July 2024

CEP discussion paper
Production function estimation using subjective expectations data

Standard methods for estimating production functions in the Olley and Pakes (1996) tradition require assumptions on input choices. We introduce a new method that exploits (increasingly available) data on a firm's expecta...Read more...

Agnes Norris Keiller, John Van Reenen and Aureo de Paula

11 July 2024

CEP discussion paper
Transition to green technology along the supply chain

We analyze a model of green technological transition along a supply chain. In each layer, a good is produced with a dirty technology, or, if the required "electrification" innovation has occurred, with a clean technology...Read more...

Philippe Aghion, Lint Barrage, David Hemous and Ernest Liu

10 July 2024

CEP discussion paper
Regional and aggregate economic consequences of environmental policy

This paper shows how to combine microeconometric evidence on the effects of environmental policy with a macroeconomic model, accounting for general equilibrium spillovers that have mostly been ignored in the literature. ...Read more...

Italo Colantone, Gianmarco I. P. Ottaviano and Tom Schmitz

9 July 2024

CEP discussion paper
An engine of (pay) growth? Productivity and wages in the UK auto industry

When labour market competition is imperfect, positive industry (and firm) productivity shocks can be passed through to workers in the form of higher wages. We document how the UK auto industry, following a period of decl...Read more...

Agnes Norris Keiller, Tim Obermeier, Andreas Teichgraeber and John Van Reenen

3 July 2024

CEP discussion paper
The wage of temporary agency workers

Using French administrative data, we estimate the wage gap distribution between in-house and temporary agency workers working in the same establishment and the same occupation. The average wage gap is about 3%, but the g...Read more...

Antonin Bergeaud, Pierre Cahuc, Clement Malgouyres, Sara Signorelli and Thomas Zuber

2 July 2024

CEP discussion paper
Identifying agglomeration shadows: Long-run evidence from ancient ports

We examine "agglomeration shadows" that emerge around large cities, which discourage some economic activities in nearby areas. Identifying agglomeration shadows is complicated, however, by endogenous city formation and "...Read more...

Richard Hornbeck, Guy Michaels and Ferdinand Rauch

26 June 2024

CEP discussion paper
Local monopsony power

This paper studies monopsony power in a low pay labour market and explores its determinants. I emphasise the role of the spatial distribution of activity and workers' distaste for commuting in generating imperfect substi...Read more...

Nikhil Datta

25 June 2024

CEP discussion paper
Education, gender and family formation

We study the effect of educational attainment on family formation using regression discontinuity designs generated by centralized admissions processes to both secondary and tertiary education in Finland. Admission to fur...Read more...

Hanna Virtanen, Mikko Silliman, Tiina Kuuppelomaki and Kristiina Huttunen

19 June 2024

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