NBER

Most US nonprofit endowments underperform benchmarks. Strong governance helps, but small, self-managed funds often overpay for poor returns, from Andrew W. Lo, Egor V. Matveyev, and Stefan Zeume https://www.nber.org/papers/w34078

Exploring how changing incentives—shaped by environment, history, information, and policy—drive cultural change, with a focus on gender roles and economic outcomes, from Raquel Fernández https://www.nber.org/papers/w34077

Micro evidence on firms' opting out of rigid collective bargaining in Italy finds that opting out reduces wages but increases workers' employment and retention within firms, from Dustmann, Giannetto, Incoronato, Lacava, Pezone, Saggio, and Schoefer https://www.nber.org/papers/w34076

A new theory on how regional shocks affect aggregate welfare—applied to US highway network improvements—unpacking how and why it deviates from the Fogel/Hulten characterization, from Eric Donald, Masao Fukui, and Yuhei Miyauchi https://www.nber.org/papers/w34075

A gamified fintech app turned low-carbon actions into virtual points redeemable for real tree planting, mobilizing 700M users and leading to the planting of 500M trees across China, from Jiayin Hu, Shang-Jin Wei, Jianwei Xing, and Eric Zou https://www.nber.org/papers/w34074

Featured in the final edition of the Bulletin on Retirement and Disability: COVID-19's Fiscal Impact on Social Security: Mortality Effects and Survivors' Benefits

https://www.nber.org/brd/20251/covid-19s-fiscal-impact-social-security-mortality-effects-and-survivors-benefits

Studying what management consulting does by using direct empirical evidence from the universe of business-to-business data in Belgium, from Gert Bijnens, Simon Jäger, and Benjamin Schoefer https://www.nber.org/papers/w34072

Pricing algorithms that provide a speed advantage and commitment can be worse for consumers than full collusion, from Zach Y. Brown and Alexander MacKay https://www.nber.org/papers/w34070

Watch the 2025 Summer Institute Economics of Social Security Panel, Challenges of Long-Term Social Security Forecasting. https://www.nber.org/research/videos/2025-economics-social-security-panel-challenges-long-term-social-security-forecasting

Whilst the relationship between mental despair and age has always been downward sloping among workers, this relationship has become more pronounced due to a rise in mental despair among young workers, from David G. Blanchflower and Alex Bryson https://www.nber.org/papers/w34071

People with a physical disability do fewer different activities, in data for the US, Poland, and 5 other countries. The lost variety costs more than twice average annual income, from Daniel S. Hamermesh and Michał Myck https://www.nber.org/papers/w34068

This survey bridges economics and finance to explain why multinationals go abroad—and why they choose mergers over greenfield investment, from Kenneth R. Ahern https://www.nber.org/papers/w34067

Open call for papers, Economic Analysis of Business Taxation. Conference to be held in Cambridge, MA on October 24, 2025. Submit applications by 11:59pm EDT on September 10, 2025. More information: https://www.nber.org/calls-papers-and-proposals/economic-analysis-business-taxation

Developing a multicountry model to quantify the impact of the potential expansion of the digital economy, from Marina Azzimonti and Vincenzo Quadrini https://www.nber.org/papers/w34066

Flexible data centers lower grid costs but may raise emissions, depending on regional power mix and renewable availability, from Christopher R. Knittel, Juan Ramon L. Senga, and Shen Wang https://www.nber.org/papers/w34065

Watch the 2025 Summer Institute Methods Lectures, Uncovering Causal Mechanisms: Mediation Analysis and Surrogate Indices. https://www.nber.org/research/videos/2025-methods-lecture-raj-chetty-uncovering-causal-mechanisms-mediation-analysis-and-surrogate

Having a child with Down syndrome increases the likelihood of parental co-habitation and subsequent child-bearing, from Liran Einav, Amy Finkelstein, and Petra Persson https://www.nber.org/papers/w34064

Fiscal policy was at the heart of many of the UK's problems during the Great Inflation; instead of being used to stabilize the public finances, it was used for political ends, from Michael D. Bordo, Oliver Bush, and Ryland Thomas https://www.nber.org/papers/w34063

Governments commonly use coarse proxies to assess the property tax base. But the resulting misclassification of taxpayers creates inequity that strongly reduces tax compliance, from Best, Caloi, Gerard, Plous Kresch, Naritomi, and Zoratto https://www.nber.org/papers/w34062

Characterizing how earnings per share maximizing mangers make capital-budgeting decisions, from Itzhak Ben-David and @alexchinco.bsky.social https://www.nber.org/papers/w34061

Evaluating Laffer curves produced by reforms to nonlinear income taxes, focusing on individual taxpayers, from Ana Gamarra Rondinel, James R. Hines Jr., and José F. Sanz-Sanz https://www.nber.org/papers/w34059

Using retrospective survey data from 66 countries to reconstruct a century of religious-service attendance reveals a global North–South divergence and shows how major events influenced religious participation, from Robert J. Barro, Edgard Dewitte, and Laurence I... https://www.nber.org/papers/w34060

Studying the role of job transitions and firm pay policies in the US Black-White earnings gap, from Itzik Fadlon, Briana Sullivan, and @vedantvohra.bsky.social‬ https://www.nber.org/papers/w34058

Frontline Union Army captains cut desertions and boosted cohesion through leading by example, earning postwar-wage gains and greater recognition, from @andyferrara.bsky.social, Christian Dippel, and Stephan Heblich https://www.nber.org/papers/w34057

Wholesale funding boosts monetary policy transmission in China, but also increases systemic risk during economic downturns, from Kaiji Chen, Yiqing Xiao, and Tao Zha https://www.nber.org/papers/w34056

How ignoring behavioral and migration responses in air transport models can lead to inaccurate predictions of the distributional impacts of environmental regulations, from Jamie Hansen-Lewis and Michelle M. Marcus https://www.nber.org/papers/w34055

AI-powered speculators sustain collusive profits without communication or intent, undermining market efficiency and liquidity. Identifying two algorithmic mechanisms and when each arises, from Winston Wei Dou, Itay Goldstein, and Yan Ji https://www.nber.org/papers/w34054

Constructing new population-level linked administrative data to study households' access to credit in the US, from Trevor J. Bakker, Stefanie DeLuca, Eric A. English, James S. Fogel, Nathaniel Hendren, and Daniel Herbst https://www.nber.org/papers/w34053

Implementing a uniform volume equivalent tariff index consistent with WTO market access exchange principles. The index equals the product of buyer and seller incidence of tariffs, from James E. Anderson and Yoto V. Yotov https://www.nber.org/papers/w34052

Documenting labor market expectations before graduation, and realized outcomes in the year that follows for university students in Pakistan, from Oriana Bandiera, Amen Jalal, and Nina Roussille https://www.nber.org/papers/w34051