We examine the response of Medicare Advantage contracts to published quality ratings. We identify the effect of star ratings on premiums using a regression discontinuity design that exploits plausibly random variation around rating thresholds. We find that 3, 3.5, and 4-star contracts in 2009...

Using a new daily dataset for all stocks traded on the New York Stock Exchange from 1905 to 1910, we provide the first in-depth, microstructure analysis of the Panic of 1907 - one of the most severe financial crises of the 20th century - and quantify the critical role of asymmetric information...

The increasing rate of obesity in the U.S., particularly among low-income households, necessitates a thorough understanding of the relationship between obesity and in-kind federal benefits such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly the Food Stamp Program. However,...

There is concern that state licensure requirements impede efficient mobility of licensed professionals to areas of high demand. Nursing has not been immune to this criticism, especially in light of persistent nurse shortages and large expected future demand. The Nurse Licensure Compact (NLC) was...

In this paper, I estimate the labor market outcomes of two types of hospital consolidation: mergers and system-joinings. The effects of hospital consolidation on prices have received much attention from researchers over the past 25 years. These studies, however, largely ignore the possible...

This paper extends the partially linear varying coefficient model to contain time trend and nonstationary variables as regressors. We use the profile likelihood method to estimate both time trend coefficient in the linear component and the functional coefficients in the nonlinear component and...

This paper is addressed to an explanation of the food share paradoxencountered in (Deaton and Paxson 1998),and suggests a proposal to resolveit. The paper examines the effect of family size on the demand for food, acommodity group believed to be particularly responsive to changes ineconomies...

In this paper, we explore the relationship between ethnic fractionalization and social capital. First, we test for time differences in the impact of ethnic fractionalization on social capital using U.S. data from 1990, 1997, and 2005. Subsequently, we examine the data for evidence of the con...

This paper elucidates the key debates surrounding the optimal design of financial systems and institutions: bank-based versus market-based; universal versus specialized banking; relationship versus arms-length banking. The paper also examines the historical pattern of financial system...

Investment banking taken generally to mean the financing of long-term capital needs, came into being with the merchants of medieval trade routes. In almost all developed economies of the world, even those developing late in the 19th century, investment bankers emerged from merchant roots. The...