The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI) serves as a hub for cutting-edge analysis and research across the entire University of Chicago economics community, uniting researchers from the Booth School of Business, the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics, the...
Inspired by our namesakes, Nobel Laureates Gary Becker and Milton Friedman, who believed that economics research could help improve the world, BFI works with the Chicago Economics community to turn its evidence-based research into real-world impact.
The Predoctoral Research in Economics Program (PREP) is intended to serve as a bridge between college and graduate school for students interested in empirical economics. The program offers unique research and professional training opportunities at the University of Chicago.
Expanding Diversity in Economics+ (EDE+) brings together a diverse group of early undergraduate students to hone their research abilities and technical skills.
Ozan Candogan, Michael D. König, Kieran Marray, and Frank W. Takes
We study disease spread on a social network where individuals adjust contacts to avoid infection. Susceptible individuals rewire links from infectious individuals to other susceptibles, reducing infections and causing the disease to only become endemic at higher infection rates. We...
Because neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) afflict the world’s poorest people and can cause decades-long health problems, combating them could reduce inequality, the intergenerational transmission of poverty, and burdens on healthcare systems in developing economies. We show that these novel benefits...
We study the extension of Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits to groups of workers typically excluded from the UI system—new entrants, the self-employed, and gig workers—implemented as part of the United States policy response to the 2020 COVID-19 crisis. Although enacted...
We build a model of firm-level innovation, productivity growth and reallocation featuring endogenous entry and exit. A new and central economic force is the selection between high and low-type firms, which differ in terms of their innovative capacity. We estimate the parameters of the model using US Census micro data on firm-level output, R&D and patenting. The model provides a good fit to the dynamics of firm entry and exit, output and R&D. Taxing the continued operation of incumbents can lead to sizable gains (of the order of 1.4% improvement in welfare) by encouraging exit of less productive firms and freeing up skilled labor to be used for R&D by high-type incumbents. Subsidies to the R&D of incumbents do not achieve this objective because they encourage the survival and expansion of low-type firms.
The Becker Friedman Institute for Economics (BFI) serves as a hub for cutting-edge analysis and research across the entire University of Chicago economics community, uniting researchers from the Booth School of Business, the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics, the...
Inspired by our namesakes, Nobel Laureates Gary Becker and Milton Friedman, who believed that economics research could help improve the world, BFI works with the Chicago Economics community to turn its evidence-based research into real-world impact.
The Predoctoral Research in Economics Program (PREP) is intended to serve as a bridge between college and graduate school for students interested in empirical economics. The program offers unique research and professional training opportunities at the University of Chicago.
Expanding Diversity in Economics+ (EDE+) brings together a diverse group of early undergraduate students to hone their research abilities and technical skills.
Ozan Candogan, Michael D. König, Kieran Marray, and Frank W. Takes
We study disease spread on a social network where individuals adjust contacts to avoid infection. Susceptible individuals rewire links from infectious individuals to other susceptibles, reducing infections and causing the disease to only become endemic at higher infection rates. We...
Because neglected tropical diseases (NTDs) afflict the world’s poorest people and can cause decades-long health problems, combating them could reduce inequality, the intergenerational transmission of poverty, and burdens on healthcare systems in developing economies. We show that these novel benefits...
We study the extension of Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits to groups of workers typically excluded from the UI system—new entrants, the self-employed, and gig workers—implemented as part of the United States policy response to the 2020 COVID-19 crisis. Although enacted...
