Skip to main content

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

- Working Paper
This study examines “tunneling” practices through which health care providers covertly extract profit by making...
- Working Paper
The COVID-19 pandemic initiated a trend in “work-from-home (WFH),” but workers need reliable and fast internet...
- Working Paper
A brief historical overview of the household equipment revolution and the women who transformed the home in Germany...
- Working Paper
The U.S. regulation of high-voltage transmission is highly complex and, as a result, generally poorly understood. The...
- Working Paper
We analyze how output and wages behave under different scenarios for technological progress that may culminate in...
Keep Track of New NBER Working Papers with New This Week

The Digest

The Digest is a free monthly publication featuring non-technical summaries of research on topics of broad public interest.

Subscribe to the Free Digest

    War Bonds, Postwar Inflation, and Voter Sentiment
    Article
    During World War II, the US government, under Democratic Party leadership, encouraged citizens to invest in savings bonds, and over 85 million Americans subscribed. But high post-war inflation diminished the value of these bonds. The Republican Party criticized Democrats for the poor returns earned by bondholders. Running on a platform that promised to control inflation, the Republicans won the presidency in 1952, ending two decades of Democratic dominance. In Inflation, War...
    Measuring the Informal Economy, with a Literary Twist figure
    Article
    Novelist Victor Hugo offered insightful analysis of the underground economy in his 1862 novel Les Misérables: “when work is lacking, when the trade is nil, the taxpayer resists the tax by shortage, exhausts and exceeds the deadlines, and the State spends a lot of money in duress and enforcement fees. When work abounds … the tax is easily paid.” In Rethinking the Informal Economy and the Hugo Effect (NBER Working Paper 31963), Francesco Pappadà and Kenneth S. Rogoff develop a...

The Reporter

The Reporter is a free quarterly publication featuring program updates, affiliates writing about their research, and news about the NBER.

Subscribe to the Free Reporter

    FowlieKnittel_Figure1_Final-01
    Article
    Launched in 2007, the NBER’s Environment and Energy Economics (EEE) Program brings together scholars working on environmental, energy, and natural resource economics. The EEE Program now has 126 affiliated researchers, 53 of whom share an appointment in another NBER program. EEE researchers have produced 740 working papers since the last program report in June of 2016. The EEE Program holds two regular annual meetings and several specialized meetings throughout the year....
    Chyn_Haggag_Figure1_Final-01
    Article
    Author(s): Eric Chyn & Kareem Haggag
    Segregation based on race and income is a defining feature of cities and schools across the United States. While Black Americans make up less than 14 percent of the overall population, the typical Black child lives in a neighborhood where Black families make up the majority of residents and attends a school where at least half their peers are also Black.1 These neighborhoods and schools also tend to have relatively high rates of poverty. Theory posits that segregation in...

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.

Subscribe to the Free Bulletin on Retirement & Disability

    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...
    Inter-state Variation in Disability Applications during the Pandemic figure
    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...

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.

Subscribe to the Free Bulletin on Health

    How Informative Are Risk-Adjusted Hospital Quality Measures? Figure
    Article
    Hospital quality indicators are intended to provide public information about differences in the quality of care across hospitals. The measures — such as 30-day mortality rates and 30-day hospitalization costs for admitted patients — are adjusted for the characteristics of each hospital’s patient population. In principle, these risk-adjusted indicators are not affected if a hospital treats especially unhealthy patients. If the risk adjustment is inadequate, however, the...
    w31871_BH_figure_Final_updated-01
    Article
    Cesarean section (C-section) is the most common surgical procedure performed in the United States. Sarah Robinson, Heather Royer, and David Silver report that C-section rates for first-time, singleton births increased from 24 percent to 32 percent between 1989 and 2017 alongside significant changes in medical practices during this period. In 2001, for example, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists began recommending C-sections for breech...

The Bulletin on Entrepreneurship

Introducing recent NBER entrepreneurship research and the scholars who conduct it

Subscribe to the Free Bulletin on Entrepreneurship

    Striking a Balance between Entrepreneurs and Investors figure
    Article
    In Do Entrepreneurs Want Control? And Should They Get What They Want? A Historical and Theoretical Exploration (NBER Working Paper 31106), Naomi R. Lamoreaux and Jean-Laurent Rosenthal develop a model of startup financing in which founders and outside investors compete for control of the firm. They apply their framework to study how companies’ outcomes, in particular subsequent innovations, are influenced by which group has the upper hand. The researchers find that no...
    C-Suite Differences: Public versus Privately Held Firms figure
    Article
    Private equity (PE) firms’ business model is to acquire privately held companies, to change their strategy and operations with the goal of improving profitability and growth, and ultimately to sell the companies for a profit. The senior management team is replaced at a majority of private equity acquisitions. More than 40 percent of PE firms report that this is a key way to improve their acquisitions’ success. In The Market for CEOs: Evidence from Private Equity (NBER...
Explore NBER-Based Research Projects
Learn about NBER Affiliated Scholars