Hunt and Moehling’s study of help-wanted advertisements in the US in 1950 and 1960 provides evidence that female-owned employment agencies expanded opportunities for women, from Jennifer Hunt and Carolyn Moehling nber.org/papers/w32383

A theoretical and empirical guide to the emerging literature on social protection systems in low- and middle-income countries, from Abhijit Banerjee, Rema Hanna, @ben_olken, and Diana Sverdlin nber.org/papers/w32382

Using large language models both as an experimental subject but also as a scientist, from Benjamin Manning, Kehang Zhu, and John Horton nber.org/papers/w32381

Lump sum pension withdrawals make formal sector work more attractive and encourage early retirement, from @carlamorenoecon and @sita.slavov nber.org/papers/w32380

Featured in the latest Bulletin on Entrepreneurship: 'Immigration Policy and Entrepreneurs' Choice of Startup Location'
nber.org/be/20241/immig…

Documenting novel survey-based facts on preferred long-run inflation rates among US consumers find consumers on average prefer a 0.20 percent annual inflation rate, from Hassan Afrouzi, Alexander Dietrich, Kristian Myrseth, Romanos Priftis, and Raphael Schoenle nber.org/papers/w32379

Parents value transparent school choice mechanisms, but parents also value accurate information about schools in their choice set, from Derek Neal and Joseph Root nber.org/papers/w32378

Export activity is disproportionately concentrated in larger cities – even more so than overall economic activity, from Jan David Bakker, Alvaro Garcia, Andrei V. Potlogea, Nico Voigtländer, and Yang Yang nber.org/papers/w32377

Estimating the effect of local governments in China issuing digital coupons to stimulate spending in targeted categories such as restaurants and supermarkets, from Jing Ding, Lei Jiang, @lucillemsall, and @profnoto nber.org/papers/w32376

Featured in the latest Digest: 'Firm Responses to the EU's Data Privacy Requirements'
nber.org/digest/202405/…

Labor markets in higher-income countries are more meritocratic, meaning there is more skill-based sorting between workers and jobs. This matters for development in subtle ways, from Oriana Bandiera, Kotia, Lindenlaub, Chris Moser, and Andrea Prat nber.org/papers/w32375

A study of 34 countries finds that, culture — in particular individualism — is the biggest factor explaining international differences in working from home, from Pablo Zarate, Dolls, Davis, Nick Bloom, Jose Maria Barrero, and Cevat Giray Aksoy nber.org/papers/w32374

A new method for using individual-level race probabilities to estimate differences in outcomes by race, from Cory McCartan, Robin Fisher, Jacob Goldin, Daniel E. Ho, and Kosuke Imai nber.org/papers/w32373

When potential college applicants may be poorly informed about their admission chances, transparency in college admissions can increase diversity and raise grades and persistence, from Adam Kapor nber.org/papers/w32372

Pre-retirement employment protection legislation generates limited negative externalities on employment of soon to be covered workers, from Paweł Chrostek, Krzysztof Karbownik, and Michał Myck nber.org/papers/w32371

Using Markov Chain methods to study post-bellum occupational dynamics. Despite reductions for the 1940-1950 cohort, Black-White differences do not self-correct over the long run, from Steven N. Durlauf, Gueyon Kim, Dohyeon Lee, and Xi Song nber.org/papers/w32370

Featured in the latest Digest: 'When Central Bankers' Words Spoke Louder than Their Action' nber.org/digest/202404/…

Analyzing a mechanism for assigning CPS investigators to child maltreatment cases finds that the mechanism can reduce prediction mistakes by up to 10 percent, in a revenue-neutral way, from Jason Baron, Lombardo, Ryan, Suh, and Valenzuela-Stookey nber.org/papers/w32369

The increased share of reporting self-employment in US tax data post-2000 is not due to the rise of platform gig work. Rather, more taxpayers report self earnings to benefit from the Earned Income Tax Credit, from Andy Garin, Emilie Jackson, and Dmitri Koustas nber.org/papers/w32368