Abstract：We test whether wage growth slows following employer consolidation by examining hospital mergers. We find evidence of reduced wage growth in cases where both (i) the increase in concentration induced by the merger is large and (ii) workers' skills are industry-specific. In all other cases, we fail to reject zero wage effects. We consider alternative explanations and find that the observed patterns are unlikely to be explained by merger-related changes besides labor market power. Wage growth slowdowns are attenuated in markets with strong labor unions, and wage growth does not decline after out-of-market mergers that leave local employer concentration unchanged.
参考文献：Prager, Elena, and Matt Schmitt. 2021. "Employer Consolidation and Wages: Evidence from Hospitals." American Economic Review, 111 (2): 397-427.
Abstract：Using administrative payroll data from the largest US payroll processing company, we measure the extent of nominal wage rigidity in the United States. The data allow us to define a worker's per-period base contract wage separately from other forms of compensation such as overtime premiums and bonuses. We provide evidence that firms use base wages to cyclically adjust the marginal cost of their workers. Nominal base wage declines are much rarer than previously thought with only 2 percent of job-stayers receiving a nominal base wage cut during a given year. Approximately 35 percent of workers receive no base wage change year over year. We document strong evidence of both time and state dependence in nominal base wage adjustments. In addition, we provide evidence that the flexibility of new hire base wages is similar to that of existing workers. Collectively, our results can be used to discipline models of nominal wage rigidity.
参考文献：Grigsby, John, Erik Hurst, and Ahu Yildirmaz. 2021. "Aggregate Nominal Wage Adjustments: New Evidence from Administrative Payroll Data." American Economic Review, 111 (2): 428-71.
Abstract：This paper studies the role of leaders in the social movement against slavery that culminated in the US Civil War. Our analysis is organized around a natural experiment: leaders of the failed German revolution of 1848–1849 were expelled to the United States and became antislavery campaigners who helped mobilize Union Army volunteers. Towns where Forty-Eighters settled show two-thirds higher Union Army enlistments. Their influence worked through local newspapers and social clubs. Going beyond enlistment decisions, Forty-Eighters reduced their companies' desertion rate during the war. In the long run, Forty-Eighter towns were more likely to form a local chapter of the NAACP.
参考文献：Dippel, Christian, and Stephan Heblich. 2021. "Leadership in Social Movements: Evidence from the "Forty-Eighters" in the Civil War." American Economic Review, 111 (2): 472-505.
Abstract：This paper estimates intertemporal labor supply responses to two-year long income tax holidays staggered across Swiss cantons. Cantons shifted from an income tax system based on the previous two years' income to a standard annual pay as you earn system, leaving two years of income untaxed. We find significant but quantitatively very small responses of wage earnings with an intertemporal elasticity of 0.025 overall. High wage income earners and especially the self-employed display larger responses with elasticities around 0.1 and 0.25, respectively, most likely driven by tax avoidance. We find no effects along the extensive margin at all.
参考文献：Martínez, Isabel Z., Emmanuel Saez, and Michael Siegenthaler. 2021. "Intertemporal Labor Supply Substitution? Evidence from the Swiss Income Tax Holidays." American Economic Review, 111 (2): 506-46.
Abstract：About one-half of all startups fail within five years, and those that survive grow at vastly different speeds. Using Census microdata, we estimate that most of these differences are determined by ex ante heterogeneity rather than persistent ex post shocks. Embedding such heterogeneity in a firm dynamics model shows that the presence of ex ante heterogeneity (i) is a key determinant of the firm size distribution and firm dynamics, (ii) can strongly affect the macroeconomic effects of firm-level frictions, and (iii) helps understand the recently documented decline in business dynamism by showing a disappearance of high-growth startups ("gazelles") since the mid-1980s.
参考文献：Sterk, Vincent ⓡ Petr Sedláček ⓡ Benjamin Pugsley. 2021. "The Nature of Firm Growth." American Economic Review, 111 (2): 547-79.
Abstract：Using millions of father-son pairs spanning more than 100 years of US history, we find that children of immigrants from nearly every sending country have higher rates of upward mobility than children of the US-born. Immigrants' advantage is similar historically and today despite dramatic shifts in sending countries and US immigration policy. Immigrants achieve this advantage in part by choosing to settle in locations that offer better prospects for their children.
参考文献：Abramitzky, Ran, Leah Boustan, Elisa Jacome, and Santiago Perez. 2021. "Intergenerational Mobility of Immigrants in the United States over Two Centuries." American Economic Review, 111 (2): 580-608.
Abstract：Historical anecdotes abound of new investors being drawn into a booming asset market, only to suffer when the market turns. While the role of investor contagion in asset bubbles has been explored extensively in the theoretical literature, causal empirical evidence on the topic is much rarer. This paper studies the recent boom and bust in the US housing market and establishes that many novice investors entered the market as a direct result of observing investing activity of multiple forms in their own neighborhoods and that "infected" investors performed poorly relative to other investors along several dimensions.
参考文献：Bayer, Patrick, Kyle Mangum, and James W. Roberts. 2021. "Speculative Fever: Investor Contagion in the Housing Bubble." American Economic Review, 111 (2): 609-51.
Abstract：We dissect the impact of a large and sudden exchange rate appreciation on Swiss border import prices, retail prices, and consumer expenditures on domestic and imported nondurable goods, following the removal of the EUR/CHF floor in January 2015. Cross-sectional variation in border price changes by currency of invoicing carries over to consumer prices and allocations, impacting retail prices of imports and competing domestic goods, as well as import expenditures. We provide measures of the sensitivity of retail import prices to border prices and the sensitivity of import shares to relative prices, which is higher when using retail prices than border prices.
参考文献：Auer, Raphael, Ariel Burstein, and Sarah M. Lein. 2021. "Exchange Rates and Prices: Evidence from the 2015 Swiss Franc Appreciation." American Economic Review, 111 (2): 652-86.
Abstract：We leverage a large-scale incentivized survey eliciting behaviors from (almost) an entire undergraduate university student population, a representative sample of the US population, and Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) to address concerns about the external validity of experiments with student participants. Behavior in the student population offers bounds on behaviors in other populations, and correlations between behaviors are similar across samples. Furthermore, non-student samples exhibit higher levels of noise. Adding historical lab participation data, we find a small set of attributes over which lab participants differ from non-lab participants. An additional set of lab experiments shows no evidence of observer effects.
参考文献：Snowberg, Erik, and Leeat Yariv. 2021. "Testing the Waters: Behavior across Participant Pools." American Economic Review, 111 (2): 687-719.
Abstract：We propose and develop a dynamic theory of endogenous preference formation in which people adopt worldviews that shape their judgments about their experiences. The framework highlights the role of mindset flexibility, a trait that determines the relative weights the decision-maker places on her current and anticipated worldviews when evaluating future outcomes. The theory generates rich behavioral dynamics, thereby illuminating a wide range of applications and providing potential explanations for a variety of observed phenomena.
