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Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy and the Economy, volume 4
news article
Benjamin Jones and Josh Lerner, editors.
Entrepreneurship and Innovation Policy and the Economy, volume 4 synthesizes key findings about entrepreneurial and innovative activity in many sectors of the economy, conveying insights on contemporary challenges and seeking to inform policy. Several research papers address issues related to artificial intelligence (AI).
In the first paper, Pierre Azoulay, Joshua Krieger, and Abhishek Nagaraj examine the future evolution of AI and potential effects on...
A research summary from the monthly NBER Digest

The Stagnation of US Construction Productivity
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Local land use and state and federal environmental regulations proliferated in the early 1970s. About this time, US residential construction productivity began to decline; today, it is close to the level of the 1930s. In contrast, manufacturing productivity has risen for many decades. In the auto industry, for example, it has risen from 4.8 cars per employee per year in 1939 to around 25 per employee per year by 2020.
In Why Has Construction Productivity Stagnated? The Role of Land-Use Regulation (NBER Working Paper 33188), Leonardo D’Amico, Edward L. Glaeser, Joseph Gyourko, William R. Kerr, and Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto investigate the relationship...
From the NBER Reporter: Research, program, and conference summaries

Working Group Report: Market Design
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The Market Design Working Group, established in 2009 under the leadership of Susan Athey and Parag Pathak, is a preeminent research forum in the field of market design. The working group meets annually, alternating between Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Palo Alto, California, to present research that bridges theoretical economics and practical applications, all focused on what The Economist aptly characterized as “an intelligently designed invisible hand.” Research in market design has been celebrated in academic circles, as evidenced by recognitions like the 2012 Nobel Prize for work on matching markets and the 2020 Nobel Prize for auction theory, and has also been instrumental in catalyzing tangible reforms in real-world institutions and markets.
One feature that sets market design apart…
From the NBER Bulletin on Retirement and Disability

Health Inequality and Economic Disparities by Race, Ethnicity, and Gender
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In Health Inequality and Economic Disparities by Race, Ethnicity, and Gender (NBER Working Paper 32971 an earlier version, NBER RDRC Paper NB23-11), Nicolò Russo, Rory McGee, Mariacristina De Nardi, Margherita Borella, and Ross Abram use data from the Health and Retirement Study over the period 1996–2018 to evaluate measures of health inequality in middle age and the consequences of such health disparities.
They consider two health measures: self-reported health status, measured by the response to a survey question that asks individuals to rate their health as excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor, and...
From the NBER Bulletin on Health

Digital Health Technology and Patient Outcomes
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Digital health technologies, such as remote monitoring devices and telemedicine services, have attracted considerable interest due to their potential to reduce healthcare costs and improve patient outcomes. These innovations could, however, exacerbate health disparities if adoption rates are lower among underserved communities.
In Equity and Efficiency in Technology Adoption: Evidence from Digital Health (NBER Working Paper 32992), researchers Itzik Fadlon, Parag Agnihotri, Christopher Longhurst, and Ming Tai-Seale analyze a remote...
From the NBER Bulletin on Entrepreneurship

“Third Places” Boost Local Economic Activity
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Sociologists have argued that “third places” like cafés, which provide opportunities for individuals to socialize and exchange ideas outside of home and work, improve neighborhood life. But what about the relationship between such places and economic activity? In Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés (NBER Working Paper 32604), researchers Jinkyong Choi, Jorge Guzman, and Mario L. Small use data on US business registrations between 1990 and 2022 from the Startup Cartography Project to examine whether the opening of a Starbucks in a neighborhood with no previous cafés affects local entrepreneurship...
Featured Working Papers
In a study of US labor markets, David J. Deming, Christopher Ong, and Lawrence H. Summers find that the 1990–2017 period experienced less technological disruption than any prior period since 1880. They conjecture that AI could turn out to be as disruptive as innovations such as steam power and electricity.
In the currency wars that broke out during the Great Depression, over 70 countries devalued their currency relative to the price of gold, leading to an average 21 percent reduction in trade, Kris James Mitchener and Kirsten Wandschneider find.
Using Danish administrative data, Janet Currie, N. Meltem Daysal, Mette Gørtz, and Jonas Cuzulan Hirani find that in households with three children, when the third child has a disability, second-born children are 11 percent more likely than first-born children to use mental health services.
Non-profit hospitals’ prices, operating margins, and CEO pay are higher when the hospitals’ CEOs are on the board, Daniel Kessler and William Wygal find.
Geoffrey Gee, Jacob Goldin, Joseph Gray-Hancuch, Ithai Lurie, and Vedant Vohra
estimate that about 95 percent of US children who are covered by health insurance, and between 88 and 97 percent of all US children, are claimed on tax returns. Children who are not claimed are concentrated in lower income households.
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