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Measuring the geographic spillovers from an economic shock remains a challenging econometric problem. In Feyrer, Mansur, and Sacerdote (2017) we study the propagation of positive shocks from the recent boom in oil and gas production in the United States. We regress changes in income per capita on new energy production per capita within increasingly larger geographic circles. James and Smith (2020) proposes instead a single regression of county income per capita on energy production from successively larger donuts around the county. This method controls for production outside of the circle of interest and is likely the appropriate estimation method for estimating the impact of within-county production. Their results suggest that FMS overestimates the impact of new production. We show that we can incorporate similar controls using our basic estimation method and that (unlike James and Smith) these controls do not significantly change our results. To explore these differences, we perform simulation exercises which show that the James-Smith estimation method is biased downward with the heterogeneous population distributions across counties that we observe in the data. (JEL E24, E32, J31, Q35, Q43, R11, R23) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We track the geographic and temporal propagation of local economic shocks from new oil and gas production generated by hydrofracturing. Each million dollars of new production produces $80,000 in wage income and $132,000 in royalty and business income within a county. Within 100 miles, one million dollars of new production generates $257,000 in wages and $286,000 in royalty and business income. Roughly two-thirds of the wage income increase persists for two years. Assuming no general equilibrium effects, new extraction increased aggregate US employment by as many as 640,000, and decreased the unemployment rate by 0.43 during the Great Recession. (JEL D86, L14, L81, L82) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2005, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita forced many children to relocate across the Southeast. While schools quickly enrolled evacuees, families in receiving schools worried about the impacts on incumbent students. We find no effect, on average, of the inflow of evacuees on achievement in Houston. In Louisiana we find little impact on average and we reject linear-in-means models. Moreover, we find that student achievement improves with high achieving peers and worsens with low achieving peers. Finally, an increase in the inflow of evacuees raised incumbent absenteeism and disciplinary problems in Houston's secondary schools. (JEL I21, Q54) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the United States, religious attendance rises sharply with education across individuals, but religious attendance declines sharply with education across denominations. This puzzle is explained if education both increases the returns to social connection and reduces the extent of religious belief, and if beliefs are closely linked to denominations. The positive effect of education on social connection is the result of both treatment anti selection: schooling creates social skills and may increase people's utility from engaging in other social activities such as church attendance. The negative effect of education on religious belief occurs because secular education emphasizes secular beliefs that are at odds with many traditional religious views. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

I analyze a new set of data on Korean American adoptees who were quasirandomly assigned to adoptive families. I find large effects on adoptees' education, income, and health from assignment to parents with more education and from assignment to smaller families. Parental education and family size are significantly more correlated with adoptee outcomes than are parental income or neighborhood characteristics. Outcomes such as drinking, smoking, and the selectivity of college attended are more determined by nurture than is educational attainment. Using the standard behavioral genetics variance decomposition, I find that shared family environment explains 14 percent of the variation in educational attainment, 35 percent of the variation in college selectivity, and 33 percent of the variation in drinking behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the differences in work and leisure between the United States and Western Europe. While hours worked per person were about the same between in the United States and Western Europe in the 1970s, today they are almost fifty percent less in Europe than in the U.S. Academics and policymakers have begun to focus on Europe's decline of work hours. Policymakers want to know if the decline has led to a slowdown in growth. The article looks to explore the evolution of working hours while it looks at Edward Prescott's work on labor differences between the U.S. and Europe and examines two different hypotheses for the mismatch between macro and micro labor supply estimates.

This article examines alternative explanations of the greater generosity of social welfare systems in Europe than in the U.S. European governments redistribute income among their citizens on a much larger scale than does the U.S. government. European social programs are more generous and reach a larger share of citizens. European tax systems are more progressive. European regulations designed to protect the poor are more intrusive. Economic, political, and behavioral explanations for the differences between the U.S. and Europe are considered. Economic explanations focus on the variance of income and the skewness of the income distribution before taxes and transfers, the social costs of taxation, the volatility of income, and expected changes in income for the median voter. The paper concludes that most of these theories cannot explain the observed differences. Political explanations for the observed level of redistribution focus on institutions that prevent minorities from gaining political power or that strictly protect individuals' private property. Finally, reciprocal altruism is discussed as a possible behavioral explanation for redistribution. Reciprocal altruism implies that voters will dislike giving money to the poor if, as in the U.S., the poor are perceived as lazy.

This paper provides empirical evidence about the effect of unearned income on earnings, consumption, and savings. Using an original survey of people playing the lottery in Massachusetts in the mid-1980's, we analyze the effects of the magnitude of lottery prizes on economic behavior. The critical assumption is that among lottery winners the magnitude of the prize is randomly assigned. We find that unearned income reduces labor earnings, with a marginal propensity to consume leisure of approximately 11 percent, with larger effects for individuals between 55 and 65 years old. After receiving about half their prize, individuals saved about 16 percent. (JEL C81, D12, E21, J22, J26) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crime rates are much higher in big cities than in either small cities or rural areas. This paper explains this connection by using victimization data, evidence from the NLSY on criminal behavior, and the Uniform Crime Reports. Higher pecuniary benefits for crime in large cities can explain at most one-quarter of the connection between city size and crime rates. Lower probabilities of arrest and a lower probability of recognition are features of urban life, but these factors seem to explain at most one-fifth of the urban crime effect. Between one-third and one-half of the urban effect on crime can be explained by the presence of more female-headed households in cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]