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Insights / Research BriefSep 20, 2023

Households’ Response to the Wealth Effects of Inflation

Philip Schnorpfeil, Michael Weber, Andreas Hackethal
While many households know about inflation and its erosive effect on nominal assets, most are unaware of inflation’s erosive impacts on nominal debt. Once they receive information about debt erosion, households update their beliefs about their own real net wealth and even change their consumption choices.
Topics:  Monetary Policy
Insights / Research BriefSep 19, 2023

The Labor Market Returns to Delaying Pregnancy

Yana Gallen, Juanna Schrøter Joensen, Eva Rye Johansen, Gregory F. Veramendi
Unplanned pregnancies halt women’s career progression and result in income losses of 20% five years after an initial contraceptive failure. The detrimental effects of unplanned children are larger for younger women and women enrolled in education. In contrast, planned children have minimal impacts on women’s labor market outcomes.
Topics:  Employment & Wages
Insights / Podcast episodeSep 19, 2023

How Much Would it Cost to Save the Rainforest?

Tess Vigeland, Lars Peter Hansen
As a massive carbon sink, the Brazilian Amazon plays a crucial role in stabilizing the...
Topics:  Energy & Environment
Insights / Research BriefSep 13, 2023

Bottlenecks: Sectoral Imbalances and the US Productivity Slowdown

Daron Acemoglu, David Autor, Christina Patterson
Lagging US productivity growth since the 1970s, despite the rapid pace of innovation in information and communications technologies (ICT) and electronics, is explained in part from an unbalanced sectoral distribution of innovation; that is, technological advances over the last several decades have been unbalanced across sectors and have created endogenous bottlenecks, holding back aggregate productivity.
Topics:  Employment & Wages
Insights / Research BriefSep 11, 2023

A Cognitive View of Policing

Oeindrila Dube, Sandy Jo MacArthur, Anuj K. Shah
Prevailing views suggest that adverse policing outcomes are driven by problematic police officers and deficient policies. This study highlights an overlooked factor – cognitive demands inherent in police work. A training designed to improve officer decision-making under stress and time pressure, two key cognitive demands, lead to 23% fewer uses of force and discretionary arrests, and 11% fewer arrests of Black civilians. The results demonstrate the power of leveraging behavioral science insights to make policing more effective and equitable.
Topics:  Higher Education & Workforce Training
Insights / Research BriefSep 08, 2023

From Retributive to Restorative: An Alternative Approach to Justice

Anjali Adukia, Benjamin Feigenberg, Fatemeh Momeni
The introduction of restorative justice practices in Chicago Public High Schools reduced the number of out-of-school suspension days by 18 percent, and reduced the number of out-of-school arrests by 15 percent, among other positive effects.
Topics:  K-12 Education
Insights / Research BriefSep 07, 2023

An Experimental Evaluation of Deferred Acceptance: Evidence from Over 100 Army Officer Labor Markets

Jonathan M.V. Davis, Kyle Greenberg, Damon Jones
Matching U.S. Army officers to units using deferred acceptance reduced attrition in their first year by 16.7%, but this effect faded in the second year. Matching with deferred acceptance had no impact on performance. Communication and coordination of preferences may limit the benefits of deferred acceptance in some matching markets.
Topics:  Employment & Wages
Insights / Podcast episodeSep 05, 2023

Lessons from Pandemic Unemployment Benefits: When Government Generosity Becomes Necessity

Tess Vigeland, Peter Ganong, Joseph S. Vavra
The U.S. government swung into action when the ranks of the pandemic unemployed swelled almost...
Topics:  Employment & Wages