Finance & Economy
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UberPool vs. Public Transit: The Race Is On
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In the last decade, transportation network companies (TNCs) such as Uber and Lyft have significantly disrupted urban mobility. Commonly known as “ride-sharing,” TNCs’ app-based services provide millions of customers an alternative to traditional transportation modes such as public transit. A subset of these services is “ride-splitting,” such as UberPool, which…
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Permafrost Thaw and Backwards Arctic Incentives Could Add Trillions to Climate Costs
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Surrounding the Arctic Ocean, lying along a nearly continuous 10,000 mile (16,000 km) ring of inhospitable tundra, one of Earth’s most important environmental assets is beginning to collapse. Permafrost — perennially frozen soil and rock — may not look like much, but estimates suggest that vast tracts of icy ground…
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Drug Prices Do Not Always Decrease After Decriminalization
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The challenges of illegal drug use in the United States and around the world have been addressed in many ways over the past decades, from harsh sentencing guidelines to anti-trafficking activities. Decriminalization, or the legalization of drugs, is an approach that has gained popularity, despite the argument that removing the…
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How Inequality in the US Follows Racial Lines
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“There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America—there’s the United States of America.” – Barack Obama, 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address The 2004 Democratic National Convention keynote address, which helped launch then Illinois State Senator Barack Obama into the spotlight, was…
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The Myth of Lower Prices: Do Multinationals Save Us Money?
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The most commonly cited argument in favor of the expansion of multinational retailers is one of costs and benefits. Proponents argue that the cost of the proliferation of multinational corporations—displacing local retailers who create more employment per dollar of sales—are outweighed by the benefit of lower retail prices. However, the…
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Is the gender wage gap explained by differences in productivity? An interview with Professor Yana Gallen
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A vast literature has been developed on gender discrimination in the labor market. In 2018, women in the United States earned 80.5 cents for every dollar earned by men, according to the Census Bureau. In that regard, Dr. Yana Gallen published a paper titled “Motherhood and the Gender Productivity Gap,”…
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In Small-Business Lending, Technology Hasn’t Replaced Face-to-Face Contact
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Technological advances in information processing have dramatically transformed consumer banking. Americans today can apply for home mortgages, credit cards and bank accounts without ever stepping foot in a bank branch. Indeed, these advances have rendered the local bank branch obsolete for many, with in-branch visits accounting for only a small…
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Default Risk Dangers: The Effect of Downgrades in Public Credit on the Economy
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Declining trust in a government’s fiscal health and a negative economic outlook often go hand in hand. It is generally accepted that the effects of a declining economy, such as an eroding tax base and an increasing need for public services, can strain a government’s budget. A new study, however,…
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The Impact of Machine Learning on Economics: What Machine Learning Can (and Cannot) Do for Economic Research
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Machine learning (ML) is most commonly understood as a set of computational techniques applied to big datasets in order to make granular predictions for businesses, from advertising to fraud detection to user recommendations. Yet another, perhaps less appreciated, application comes from academia, where social scientists have slowly but steadily begun…
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What Are the Drivers of Anti-Immigration Sentiment?
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In Western countries, anti-immigration sentiment is becoming more and more widespread. In the United States, President Trump has issued executive orders imposing severe restrictions on arrivals, while in the European Union, the Syrian refugee crisis has sown division among member states. The free movement of persons may be at risk…
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The Hidden Relationship Between Housing, Migration, and Inequality
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In the November issue of the Journal of Urban Economics, Peter Ganong of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy and Daniel Shoag of the Harvard Kennedy School investigate a troubling question: “Why has regional income convergence in the U.S. declined?” In economics, convergence—or the “catch-up effect”—is the hypothesis that per…