Results

CEP discussion paper

A network approach to geopolitics

We develop a tractable framework for analyzing geopolitics as a network of coordination and strategic influence. Countries choose geopolitical actions that trade off domestic interests against incentives to align with co...Read more...

Journal article

Review of Economic Studies:

Temporal-difference estimation of dynamic discrete choice models

We study the use of Temporal-Difference learning for estimating the structural parameters in dynamic discrete choice models. Our algorithms are based on the conditional choice probability approach but use functional appr...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

New dawn fades: Trade, labour and the Brexit exchange rate depreciation

This paper studies consequences of the large exchange rate depreciation occurring when the UK electorate unexpectedly voted to leave the European Union. Sterling plummeted, recording the biggest one-day depreciation of a...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

New dawn fades: trade, labour and the Brexit exchange rate depreciation

This paper studies consequences of the very large exchange rate depreciation occurring in June 2016 due to the UK electorate unexpectedly voting to leave the European Union. As news of a leave vote came in, the value of ...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of the European Economic Association:

Vehicle currency pricing and exchange rate pass-through

Using detailed firm-level transactions data for UK imports, we find that invoicing in a vehicle currency is pervasive, with more than half of the transactions in our sample invoiced in neither sterling nor the exporter?s...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics:

Faster, higher, stronger? and happier? Relative achievement and marginal rank effects

Most prior research on the relationship between relative attainment and subjective wellbeing focuses on relative income. The direction of this relationship may, however, be positive or negative. Defining the target compa...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Exchange rates and consumer prices: evidence from Brexit

This paper studies how the depreciation of sterling following the Brexit referendum affected consumer prices in the United Kingdom. Our identification strategy uses input-output linkages to account for heterogeneity in e...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Public Economics:

Quantifying the intangible impact of the Olympics using subjective well-being data

Hosting the Olympic Games costs billions of taxpayer dollars. Following a quasi-experimental setting, this paper assesses the intangible impact of the London 2012 Olympics, using a novel panel of 26,000 residents in Lond...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Quantifying the intangible impact of the Olympics using subjective well-being data

Hosting the Olympic Games costs billions of taxpayer dollars. Following a quasi-experimental setting, this paper assesses the intangible impact of the London 2012 Olympics, using a novel panel of 26,000 residents in Lond...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Vehicle currency pricing and exchange rate pass-through

Using detailed firm-level transactions data for UK imports, we find that invoicing in a vehicle currency is pervasive, with more than half of transactions in our sample invoiced in neither sterling nor the exporter's cur...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Trade and worker deskilling

This paper presents new evidence on international trade and worker outcomes. It examines a big world event that produced an unprecedentedly large shock to the UK exchange rate. In the 24 hours in June 2016 during which t...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of International Economics:

The price of development: The Penn?Balassa?Samuelson effect revisited

The Penn?Balassa?Samuelson effect is the stylized fact about the positive correlation between cross-country price level and per-capita income. This paper provides evidence that the price?income relation is actually non-l...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The host with the most? The effects of the Olympic Games on happiness

We show that hosting the Olympic Games in 2012 had a positive impact on the life satisfaction and happiness of Londoners during the Games, compared to residents of Paris and Berlin. Notwithstanding issues of causal infer...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Without my medal on my mind: counterfactual thinking and other determinants of athlete emotions

How achievement makes people feel depends upon counterfactual thoughts about what could have been. One body of evidence for this comes from studies of observer ratings of Olympians' happiness, which suggests that categor...Read more...

Journal article

The Review of Economics and Statistics:

Intermediaries in international trade: products and destinations

This paper examines the factors that give rise to intermediaries in exporting and explores the implications for trade volumes. Export intermediaries such as wholesalers serve different markets and export different produc...Read more...

Journal article

Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics:

Are happier people less judgmental of other people's selfish behaviors? Experimental survey evidence from trust and gift exchange games

What determines people's moral judgments of selfish behaviors? Here we study whether people's normative views in trust and gift exchange games, which underlie many situations of economic and social significance, are them...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Employee stock purchase plans - gift or incentive? Evidence from a multinational corporation

Many large listed firms offer workers the opportunity to buy shares in the firm at discounted rates through employee stock purchase plans (ESPP). The discounted rate creates a gift exchange, where the firm hopes that wor...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Are happier people less judgmental of other people's selfish behaviors? Laboratory evidence from trust and gift exchange games

What determines people?s moral judgments of selfish behaviors? Here we study whether people?s normative views in trust and gift exchange games, which underlie many situations of economic and social significance, are them...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Optimal Policy for Macro-Financial Stability

In this paper we study whether policy makers should wait to intervene until a financial crisis strikes or rather act in a preemptive manner. We study this question in a relatively simple dynamic stochastic general equili...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Capital Controls or Exchange Rate Policy? A Pecuniary Externality Perspective

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, a new policy paradigm has emerged in which old-fashioned policies such as capital controls and other government distortions have become part of the standard policy toolkit...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Intermediaries in International Trade: Direct Versus Indirect Modes of Export

This paper examines the factors that give rise to intermediaries in exporting and explores the implications for trade volumes. Export intermediaries such as wholesalers serve different markets and export different produc...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Market Leadership Through Technology - Backward Compatibility in the U.S. Handheld Video Game Industry

The introduction of a new product generation forces incumbents in network industries to rebuild their installed base to maintain an advantage over potential entrants. We study if backward compatibility moderates this pro...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

The Penn-Belassa-Samuelson Effect in Developing Countries: Price and Income Revisited

It is conventional wisdom that richer countries have a higher price level than poorer countries. This paper provides evidence that the price-income relationship is non-linear and that it turns negative, or at best flat, ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Portfolio Allocation and International Risk Sharing

Recent contributions have shown that it is possible to account for the so-called consumption-real exchange anomaly in models with goods market frictions where international asset trade is limited to a riskless bond. In t...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Communal Responsibility and the Coexistence of Money and Credit Under Anonymous Matching

Communal responsibility, a medieval institution studied by Greif (2006), supported the use of credit among European merchants in the absence of modern enforcement technologies. This paper shows how this mechanism helps t...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Currency Unions in Prospect and Retrospect

We critically review the recent literature on currency unions, and discuss the methodological challenges posed by the empirical assessment of their costs and benefits. In the process, we provide evidence on the economic ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Vulnerability of Currency Pegs: Evidence from Brazil

This paper analyses predictions of a simple model of currency crises in which the peg will be abandoned when the currency overvaluation hits a certain threshold, unknown to the agents. Due to learning about the threshold...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Scylla and Charybdis. The European Economy and Poland's Adherence to Gold, 1928-1936

This paper examines the timing of exit from the gold-exchange standard for European countries based on a panel of monthly observations 1928-1936 for two purposes: first it aims to understand the enormous variation in mon...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Consumption and Real Exchange Rates with Incomplete Markets and Non-Traded Goods

This paper addresses the consumption-real exchange rate anomaly. International real business cycle models based on complete financial markets predict a unitary correlation between the real exchange rate and the ratio of ...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Home Bias, Transactions Costs, and Prospects for the Euro: A More Detailed Analysis

This paper brings together the literature on determination of home bias in equity holdings and the portfolio balance model of exchange rates to consider whether the dollar might be affected by a change in transactions co...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Explaining Currency Crises: A Duration Model Approach

This paper is an empirical investigation into the duration of exchange rate episodes characterized by the absence of speculative attacks. We estimate a duration model for OECD countries during the 1970-1997 period. Speci...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Macroeconomic Policies and Achievements in Transition Economies, 1989-1999

The paper discusses the reasons for the observed variation in the sequencing, speed and content of reform policies, in the 1990s, among 25 post-socialist countries of Central Europe and the Former Soviet Union. It argues...Read more...

CEP discussion paper

Currency Areas, Policy Domains, and the Institutionalization of Fixed Exchange Rates

Emerging-market countries are being urged to choose between freely floating exchange rates and firmly fixed rates supported by strong institutional arrangementsucurrency boards, monetary unions, or formal dollarization. ...Read more...