This paper uses machine learning (ML) to estimate hedonic price indices at scale from item-level transaction and product characteristics. The procedure uses state-of-the-art approaches from hedonic econometrics and implements them with a neural network ML approach. Applying the methodology to...

For those who think of Cleveland as a decaying rustbelt city, it may seem difficult to believe that this northern Ohio port was once a hotbed of high-tech startups, much like Silicon Valley today. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Cleveland played a leading role in the...

We examine the possible effects of private international cartels on developing countries by looking in detail at three recent cartel cases, as well as at a broader cross-section of 42 recently prosecuted international cartels. We discuss the indirect effects on developing country producers,...

From 1885 to 1902 manufacturers and distributors in the American bromine industry cooperated to increase prices and profits. Like many sectors of the American economy at the time, the bromine industry was made up a large number of small manufacturers and a small number of national distributors....

Bromine producers colluded to raise prices and profits during most of the period between 1885 and 1914. Collusion was punctuated by price wars in which prices fell sharply. The characteristics of these price wars are compared with those in the Green-Porter and Abreu- Pearce-Stachetti models....

Using comprehensive account records, this paper examines how individuals respond to a temporary drop in income following the 2013 U.S. Federal Government shutdown. Affected employees saw their income decline by 40% on average, which was recovered within two weeks. Despite having no effect on...

Older wealthholders spend down assets slowly. To study this pattern, the paper introduces health dependent utility into a model in which different preferences for bequests, expenditures when in need of long-term care (LTC), and ordinary consumption combine with health and longevity uncertainty...

This paper introduces the Vanguard Research Initiative (VRI), a new panel survey of wealthholders designed to yield high-quality measurements of a large sample of older Americans who arrive at retirement with significant financial assets. The VRI links survey data with a variety of...

This paper asks whether the slow recovery of the US economy from the trough of the Great Recession was anticipated, and identifies some of the factors that contributed to surprises in the course of the recovery. It constructs a narrative using news reports and government announcements to...