How do political preferences shape transportation policy? We study this question in the context of California’s High-Speed Rail (CHSR). Combining geographic data on votes in a referendum on the CHSR with a model of its ...

What is the sectoral composition of the market for safety, and does it matter for economic stability? To address these questions, we construct a novel dataset of sectoral safe asset positions in 24 advanced economies since ...

This paper shows that social capital increases economic growth by raising government investment in human capital through better political incentives and selection. We provide empirical evidence that a greater share of ...

We develop a general theory of state-dependent fiscal multipliers in a framework featuring two empirically relevant frictions: idle capacity and unsatisfied demand. Our key novel finding is that the source of fluctuations ...

Trade barriers cause substantial deadweight losses, yet they enjoy surprising voter support. We develop an electoral model that accounts for this puzzling popularity of protectionism. Producers have incentives to acquire ...

We study how changes in the steady-state real interest rate (henceforth, r*) affect the optimal inflation target in a New Keynesian DSGE model with trend inflation and a lower bound on the nominal interest rate. In this ...

We study the effects of supply disruptions - for instance due to energy price shocks or the emergence of a pandemic - in an economy with Keynesian unemployment and endogenous productivity growth. By temporarily disrupting ...

We develop a theory of endogenous uncertainty and business cycles in which short-lived shocks can generate long-lasting recessions. In the model, higher uncertainty about fundamentals discourages investment. Since agents ...