Most research on the effects of immigration focuses on the effects of immigrants as adding to the supply of labor. By contrast, this paper studies the effects of immigrants on local labor demand, due to the increase in consumer demand for local services created by immigrants. This effect can...

Prior to the 1990s, most electricity customers in the U.S. were served by regulated, vertically-integrated, monopoly utilities that handled electricity generation, transmission, local distribution and billing/collections. Regulators set retail electricity prices to allow the utility to recover...

We empirically examine the order flows spillovers between Nasdaq and the Forex markets in 2008 and 2009. With emphasis on a role of high-frequency traders (HFTs) who aggregate information between the two markets as well as within each market, our results show that HFTs in Nasdaq trade...

We conduct a randomized control trial that generates exogenous variation in the access to foreign markets for rug producers in Egypt. Combined with detailed survey data, we causally identify the impact of exporting on profits and productivity. Treatment firms report 15-25 percent higher profits...

Purchasing power parity exchange rates, or PPPs, are price indexes that summarize prices in each country relative to a numeraire country, typically the United States. These numbers are used to compare living standards across countries, by academics in studies of economic growth, particularly...

We present a simple graphical framework to illustrate the potential welfare gains from a “top-up” health insurance policy requiring patients to pay the incremental price for more expensive treatment options. We apply this framework to breast cancer treatments, where lumpectomy with radiation...

Value and momentum strategies earn persistently large return premia yet are negatively correlated. Why? We show that a quantitatively large fraction of the negative correlation is explained by strong opposite signed exposure of value and momentum portfolios to a single aggregate risk factor...

We use detailed micro data to document a causal response of local retail price to changes in house prices, with elasticities of 15%-20% across housing booms and busts. Notably, these price responses are largest in zip codes with many homeowners, and non-existent in zip codes with mostly renters....