We calculate the social return on algorithmic interventions (specifically their Marginal Value of Public Funds) across multiple domains of interest to economists--regulation, criminal justice, medicine, and education. Though these algorithms are different, the results are similar and striking....

This paper explores how different margins of market share are related to markups. Using merged microdata on producers and consumers, we document that a firm's market share is mainly related to its number of customers, while its price-cost markup is associated only with its average sales per...

This paper uses the Kaldor-Hicks compensation principle to compute the present value (PV) of a non-marginal future event. Three theoretical results stand out: First, decreasing returns to capital create a wedge between the PV of future generations' willingness to pay (WTP) and the PV of their...

This article explores subjects in optimal income taxation characterized by recent research interest, practical importance in light of concerns about inequality, potential for misunderstanding, and prospects for advancement. Throughout, the analysis highlights paths for further investigation....

We include initial holdings in the jungle economy of Piccione and Rubinstein (Economic Journal, 2007) and relax the assumptions on consumption sets and preferences. We show that initial holdings are irrelevant for lexicographic welfare maximization. Equilibria other than such maximizers can be...

We develop and estimate a life-cycle consumption savings model in which observed genetic variation is allowed to affect wealth accumulation through several distinct channels. We focus on genetic markers that predict educational attainment, aggregated into a predictive index called a polygenic...

Fiscal policy in the U.S. and other countries renders intertemporal budgets non-differentiable, nonconvex, and discontinuous. Consequently, assessing work and saving responses to policy requires global optimization. This paper develops the Global Life-Cycle Optimizer (GLO), a stochastic...