Research

We characterize the revenue-maximizing information structure in the second price auction. The seller faces a classic economic trade-o§: providing more information improves the e¢ - ciency of the allocation but also creates higher information rents for bidders. The information disclosure policy that maximizes the revenue of the seller is to fully reveal low values (where competition will be high) but to pool high values (where competition will be low). The size of the pool is determined by a critical quantile that is independent of the distribution of values and only dependent on the number of bidders. We discuss how this policy provides a rationale for conáation in digital advertising.

The relationship between the use of nonpharmaceutical interventions and COVID-19 vaccination among U.S. child care providers remains unknown. If unvaccinated child care providers are also less likely to employ nonpharmaceutical interventions, then a vaccine mandate across child care programs may have larger health and safety benefits. To assess and quantify the relationship between the use of nonpharmaceutical interventions and COVID-19 vaccination among U.S. child care providers, we conducted a prospective cohort study of child care providers (N = 20,013) from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Child care providers were asked to complete a self-administered email survey in May-June 2020 assessing the use of nonpharmaceutical interventions (predictors) and a follow-up survey in May-June 2021 assessing COVID-19 vaccination (outcome). Nonpharmaceutical interventions were dichotomized as personal mitigation measures (e.g., masking, social distancing, handwashing) and classroom mitigation measures (e.g., temperature checks of staff/children, symptom screening for staff/children, cohorting).

For each unendorsed personal mitigation measure during 2020, the likelihood of vaccination in 2021 decreased by 7% (Risk Ratio = 0.93 [95% 0.93 – 0.95]). No significant association was found between classroom mitigation measures and child care provider vaccination (Risk Ratio = 1.01 [95% CI 1.00-1.01]).

Child care providers who used less personal mitigation measures were also less likely to get vaccinated for COVID-19 as an alternative form of protection. The combined nonadherence to multiple types of preventative health behaviors, that is, both nonpharmaceutical interventions and vaccination, among some child care providers may support a role for mandatory vaccination to achieve pandemic control.

Widespread vaccination remains the best option for controlling the spread of COVID-19 and ending the pandemic. Despite the considerable disruption the virus has caused to people’s lives, many people are still hesitant to receive a vaccine. Without high rates of uptake, however, the pandemic is likely to be prolonged. Here we use two survey experiments to study how persuasive messaging affects COVID-19 vaccine uptake intentions. In the first experiment, we test a large number of treatment messages. One subgroup of messages draws on the idea that mass vaccination is a collective action problem and highlighting the prosocial benefit of vaccination or the reputational costs that one might incur if one chooses not to vaccinate. Another subgroup of messages built on contemporary concerns about the pandemic, like issues of restricting personal freedom or economic security. We find that persuasive messaging that invokes prosocial vaccination and social image concerns is effective at increasing intended uptake and also the willingness to persuade others and judgments of non-vaccinators. We replicate this result on a nationally representative sample of Americans and observe that prosocial messaging is robust across subgroups, including those who are most hesitant about vaccines generally. The experiments demonstrate how persuasive messaging can induce individuals to be more likely to vaccinate and also create spillover effects to persuade others to do so as well.

 

This article tests the impact of Walmart's corporate decisions to end the sale of handguns at its stores in 1994 and to discontinue the sale of all firearms at approximately 59% of its stores in 2006 before resuming firearms sales at some of those stores in 2011. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we find that that from 1994 to 2005 counties with Walmarts robustly experienced a reduction in the suicide rate and experienced no change in the homicide rate. These models suggest that Walmart's policy change caused a 3.3 to 7.5% reduction in the suicide rate within affected counties, which represents an estimated 5,104 to 11,970 lives saved over the studied period (425-998 per year). In contrast, Walmart's 2006 and 2011 decisions to discontinue and subsequently resume the sale of rifles and shotguns in many of its stores was not associated with a robustly measured effect on homicide or suicide rates. We do find evidence that Walmart's 2006 decision to reduce the number of its stores that sold firearms caused a statistically significant reduction in the suicide rate for counties in which Walmart did not subsequently resume firearms sales.

We analyzed Wisconsin court records from the period 2001–18 to document trends in hospital lawsuits to recover patients’ unpaid medical bills. These lawsuits increased 37 percent during this period, from 1.12 per 1,000 residents in 2001 to 1.53 per 1,000 residents in 2018, with lawsuits being disproportionately directed at Black patients and patients living in poorer and less densely populated counties.

There is widespread consensus that US infrastructure quality has been on the decline. In response, politicians across the ideological spectrum have called for increased infrastructure spending. Although the cost of infrastructure determines how much physical output each dollar of spending yields, we know surprisingly little about these costs across time and place. We help to fill this gap by using data we digitized on the Interstate highway system—one of the nation’s most valuable infrastructure assets—to document spending per mile over the history of its construction.

We make two main contributions. First, we find that real spending per mile on Interstate construction increased more than three-fold from the 1960s to the 1980s. The increase does not appear to come from states building “easy” miles first, since the increase is roughly unchanged conditional on pre-existing observable geographic cost determinants. Second, we provide suggestive evidence of the determinants of the increase in spending per mile. Increases in per -unit labor or materials prices are inconsistent with the pattern of the increase. But increases in income and housing prices explain about half of the increase in spending per mile. We find suggestive evidence that the rise of “citizen voice” in government decision-making caused increased expenditure per mile.

To determine which states had issued legislative and/or regulatory directives requiring vaccination of childcare and/or school personnel (as of November 1, 2021), we reviewed official archives of executive orders for all 50 states and the District of Columbia (DC) and COVID-19 state databases maintained by the National Conference of State Legislatures and the National Academy for State Health Policy. For each state with legislative or regulatory directives, we collected information on issue date and compliance deadline, type (e.g., executive order, public health order), issuer (e.g., governor, public health officer), availability of vaccine exemptions and testing alternatives, and acceptable proofs of vaccination.

While ten states (including DC) have issued directives requiring either COVID-19 vaccination or routine testing among school teachers, only half include childcare providers. This emerging trend suggests an unwarranted disparity between childcare and school settings in states’ efforts to promote vaccination, as the argument in favor of vaccinating the former is at least as strong as that of the latter for several reasons. First, both staff and children in childcare programs may be at higher risk for contracting COVID-19 than those in schools, given the congregation of infants and young children who are both ineligible for vaccination and possibly less effectively adherent to nonpharmaceutical interventions (e.g., masking, social distancing, handwashing). Second, childcare providers have a lower COVID-19 vaccine uptake compared to school teachers (78% versus 90% as of late Spring 2021). Finally, childcare providers skew more heavily minority, and therefore may be at greater risk for COVID-19-related morbidity and mortality (17.3 and 19.3 percent of childcare personnel are Black and Hispanic versus 12.1 and 13.0 percent of school personnel, respectively). To ensure equitable consideration for the health and safety of childcare providers and school teachers alike, states should consider expanding directives to include childcare providers—as has been done by both New Jersey and Illinois—to bridge the COVID-19 vaccination gap between childcare providers and school teachers.

We derive the optimal unilateral policy in a general equilibrium model of trade and climate change where one region of the world imposes a climate policy and the rest of the world does not. A climate policy in one region shifts activities—extraction, production, and consumption—in the other region. The optimal policy trades off the costs of these distortions. The optimal policy can be implemented through: (i) a nominal tax on extraction at a rate equal to the global marginal harm from emissions, (ii) a tax on imports of energy and goods, and a rebate of taxes on exports of energy but not goods, both at a lower rate than the extraction tax rate, and (iii) a goods-specific export subsidy. The policy controls leakage by combining supply-side and demand-side taxes to control the price of energy in the non-taxing region. It exploits international trade to expand the reach of the climate policy. We calibrate and simulate the model to illustrate how the optimal policy compares to more traditional policies such as extraction, production, and consumption taxes and combinations of those taxes. The simulations show that combinations of supply-side and demand-side taxes are much better than simpler policies and can perform nearly as well as the optimal policy.

To characterize vaccine uptake among US child care providers, we conducted a multistate cross-sectional survey of the child care workforce. Providers were identified through various national databases and state registries. A link to the survey was sent via e-mail between May 26 and June 23, 2021. A 37.8% response yielded 21 663 respondents, with 20 013 satisfying inclusion criteria. Overall COVID-19 vaccine uptake among US child care providers (78.2%, 90% confidence interval: 77.5% to 78.9%) was higher than the US general adult population (65%). Vaccination rates varied between states from 53.5% to 89.4%. Vaccine uptake among respondents differed significantly (P < .01) based on respondent age (70.0% for ages 25–34, 91.6% for ages 75–84), race (70.0% for Black or African Americans, 92.5% for Asian Americans), annual household income (70.8% for <$35 000, 85.1% for >$75 000), and child care setting (73.0% for home-based, 79.7% for center-based).