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 Discovery in Economics+ (EDE+) brings together a diverse group of early undergraduate students to hone their research abilities and technical skills.
Klaus Desmet, Dávid Krisztián Nagy, and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg
This paper studies how human capital shapes the economic geography of development. We develop a model in which the cost of acquiring human capital varies across space, and regions with higher human capital innovate more. Locations are spatially connected through...
John Y. Campbell, Carolin Pflueger, and Luis M. Viceira
This paper documents that during the late 20th Century, nominal government bonds and stocks tended to comove positively, whereas during the first quarter of the 21st Century they have tended to comove negatively. A similar sign switch is observable for...
José María Barrero, Nicholas Bloom, Kathryn Bonney, Cory Breaux, Catherine Buffington, Steven J. Davis, Lucia Foster, Brian McKenzie, Keith Savage, and Cristina Tello-Trillo
The Business Trends and Outlook Survey collected detailed data on work from home (WFH) practices at more than 150,000 American firms from November 2024 to January 2025. These data fill a key gap by providing timely business-level measures of WFH...
Captivating and informative videos on the latest insights and trends as well as the tested stock of knowledge in economics from leaders in academia, policy, business, and the media.
Over 2 billion people lack clean drinking water. Existing solutions face high costs (piped water) or low demand (point-of-use chlorine). Using a 60,000 household cluster-randomized experiment we test an increasingly popular alternative: decentralized treatment and home delivery of clean water to the rural poor. At low prices, take-up exceeds 90 percent, sustained throughout the experiment. High prices reduce take-up but are privately profitable. Self-reported health measures improve. We experimentally recover revealed-preference measures of valuation. Willingness-to-pay is several times higher than prior indirect estimates; willingness-to-accept is larger and exceeds marginal cost. On a cost-per-disability-adjusted-life-year basis, free water delivery regimes appear highly cost-effective.
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 Discovery in Economics+ (EDE+) brings together a diverse group of early undergraduate students to hone their research abilities and technical skills.
Klaus Desmet, Dávid Krisztián Nagy, and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg
This paper studies how human capital shapes the economic geography of development. We develop a model in which the cost of acquiring human capital varies across space, and regions with higher human capital innovate more. Locations are spatially connected through...
John Y. Campbell, Carolin Pflueger, and Luis M. Viceira
This paper documents that during the late 20th Century, nominal government bonds and stocks tended to comove positively, whereas during the first quarter of the 21st Century they have tended to comove negatively. A similar sign switch is observable for...
José María Barrero, Nicholas Bloom, Kathryn Bonney, Cory Breaux, Catherine Buffington, Steven J. Davis, Lucia Foster, Brian McKenzie, Keith Savage, and Cristina Tello-Trillo
The Business Trends and Outlook Survey collected detailed data on work from home (WFH) practices at more than 150,000 American firms from November 2024 to January 2025. These data fill a key gap by providing timely business-level measures of WFH...
Captivating and informative videos on the latest insights and trends as well as the tested stock of knowledge in economics from leaders in academia, policy, business, and the media.
