Research
The NBER conducts and disseminates independent, cutting-edge, non-partisan research that advances economic knowledge and informs policy makers and the business community.
New NBER Papers
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Working Paper
The philanthropic sector is highly consequential, particularly in the United States, and the most important policies...
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Working Paper
We show how firms scheduled to roll over debt in a crisis strategically reduce operations, regardless of their...
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Working Paper
There is a consensus among economists that a carbon tax is the best approach for addressing the effects of CO2...
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Working Paper
This paper rethinks the design of the income tax by assuming that the objective of the tax is not to redistribute from...
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Working Paper
We study the role of physicians in driving geographic variation of US healthcare utilization. We estimate a model that...
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The Digest
The Digest is a free monthly publication featuring non-technical summaries of research on topics of broad public interest.
Article
Two landmark pieces of federal legislation in the early 1960s targeted pay discrimination against women. In How the 1963 Equal Pay Act and 1964 Civil Rights Act Shaped the Gender Gap in Pay (NBER Working Paper 31332), Martha J. Bailey, Thomas E. Helgerman, and Bryan A. Stuart present new estimates of how these bills affected gender-based pay disparities.
The study analyzes data from the 1950–60 Census and the 1962–75 Annual Social and...
Article
“Mega firms,” defined as the 50 publicly traded firms in the US with the highest annual sales, hold a disproportionate share of novel patents and may play a key part in spreading innovative ideas to smaller firms, Serguey Braguinsky, Joonkyu Choi, Yuheng Ding, Karam Jo, and Seula Kim found in Mega Firms and Recent Trends in the US Innovation: Empirical Evidence from the US Patent Data (NBER Working Paper 31460).
The researchers...
The Reporter
The Reporter is a free quarterly publication featuring program updates, affiliates writing about their research, and news about the NBER.
Article
Author(s):
The International Trade and Investment (ITI) Program holds three regular meetings annually, in winter, spring, and at the NBER Summer Institute. The ITI Program has 85 research associates, 11 faculty research fellows, two research economists, and 34 members with primary affiliations in other NBER programs, making a total of 132 members. Research within the group covers a wide range of topics, such as explaining patterns of international trade and foreign direct investment,...
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Author(s):
Economic crises bring questions about the design and implications of fiscal systems to the forefront. In the United States, state and local governments employ roughly one in seven workers and spend an amount equivalent to one-fifth of GDP. Because many of these entities operate with balanced budget requirements, downturns create pressure because declines in revenue coincide with a rise in demand for public services. These pressures come with some urgency, as state and local...
The Bulletin on Retirement & Disability
The Bulletin on Retirement and Disability summarizes research in the NBER's Retirement and Disabiy Research Center. A quarterly, it is distributed digitally and is free.
Article
The Social Security Administration (SSA) convened its 2023 Retirement and Disability Research Consortium (RDRC) Meeting virtually on August 3–4. The meeting featured research funded through the NBER RDRC as well as through other RDRC centers based at Boston College, the University of Michigan, and the University of Wisconsin.
Kilolo Kijakazi, Acting Commissioner of the SSA, provided welcoming remarks. She began by remembering Dr. William Spriggs, chair of the Department...
Article
The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated health and economic burdens have unfolded quite differently across states in the US. These differences are due to a variety of factors, including population density, socioeconomic status, health, and state policies. Variation across states in the timing and magnitude of the pandemic as well as in state characteristics and policies may have affected the dynamics of federal disability applications during this period.
In Inter-State...
The Bulletin on Health
The Bulletin on Health summarizes recent NBER Working Papers pertaining to health topics. It is distributed digitally three times a year and is free.
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A sharp increase in “deaths of despair” — deaths from poisonings, suicides, and alcoholic liver disease — occurred in the US in the early 2000s, but the initial rise began a decade earlier for middle-aged Whites. These developments are studied in Opiates of the Masses? Deaths of Despair and the Decline of American Religion (NBER Working Paper 30840). In this paper, Tyler Giles, Daniel M. Hungerman, and Tamar Oostrom examine the relationship between the increase in such...
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Falling birth rates in the US and other advanced economies have raised questions about the links between economic conditions, government safety nets, and fertility and infant health. In The Cyclicality of Births and Babies’ Health, Revisited: Evidence from Unemployment Insurance (NBER Working Paper 30937), Lisa Dettling and Melissa Kearney find that fertility rates and infant health are influenced by the mother’s financial circumstances during economic downturns....
The Bulletin on Entrepreneurship
Introducing recent NBER entrepreneurship research and the scholars who conduct it
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Article
Startups have more incentive than incumbent firms to engage in potentially disruptive R&D because large, established firms have more to lose from the discovery of new technologies that replace traditional ways of doing things. With no existing operations, startups have nothing to lose and much to gain from disruptive innovation.
In Of Academics and Creative Destruction: Startup Advantage in the Process of Innovation (NBER Working Paper 30362), Julian Kolev, Alexis...
Article
Depending on the data source, 12 and 28 percent of high-growth startups are run by women, although women make up 45 percent of the overall labor force. Fewer than 10 percent of entrepreneurs are Black. In Race and Gender in Entrepreneurial Finance (NBER Working Paper 30444), Michael Ewens surveys available data and presents a framework for assessing gender and race gaps in startup founding, financing, and growth.
The startup path is complex: individual...
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