Credit scores are a primary screening device for the allocation of credit, housing, and sometimes even employment. In the data, credit scores grow and fan out with age; at the same time, income and ...

We present a new model of competition between digital media platforms with targeted advertising. The model adds new insights around how user heterogeneity and overlap, along with user and advertiser ...

Does industrial concentration shape the life and death of cities? We identify settlements from historical maps of England and Wales (1790–1820), isolate exogenous variation in their late 19th-century ...

We then document robust evidence consistent with two patenting strategies that may block biosimilar competition: thicketing and evergreening, whereby firms supplement primary patents with a dense web ...

We conducted a large-scale field experiment in Granada, Spain, to assess the motivating effect on blood donation of matching each attempt to donate with a charitable contribution pledge for children ...

We analyze the effect of California's $20 fast food minimum wage, which was enacted in September 2023 and went into effect in April 2024, on employment in the fast food sector. In unadjusted data from ...

Steve Jobs described computers as “bicycles for the mind,” a tool that allowed people to dramatically leverage their capabilities. This paper presents a formal model of cognitive tools and ...

In contracting out, monitoring is an important policy tool to extract information on firm quality and incentivize quality provision. This paper examines a central quality inspection of nursing homes, ...

We study the effects of state hospital regulations intended to increase breastfeeding by requiring certain care standards during the postpartum hospital stay. Policy adoption increased breastfeeding ...

During academic year 2024-25, the NBER is providing fellowship support for graduate students studying the economics of aging and health, behavioral macroeconomics, and consumer financial management.

We study the welfare consequences of choice architecture for online privacy using a field experiment that randomizes cookie consent banners. We study three ways in which firms or policymakers can ...

Optimizing state and regional physician labor supply has been an important policy issue in healthcare in the United States. One of the proposed solutions has been the universal licensing recognition ...