Working Papers

The interaction between social structure and markets remains a central theme in the social sciences. In some instances, markets can build on and enhance social networks’ economic role; in other contexts, markets appear to be in direct competition with social networks. The impact of markets on inequality and welfare is also varying: while markets can sometimes offer valuable outside options to marginalised individuals, in other situations only well connected and better off individuals can benefit from them.

When the adoption of a new labor‐saving technology increases labor productivity, it is an open question whether the economy adjusts in the medium‐term by decreasing employment or increasing output. This paper studies the effects of cheaper electricity on the labor market during the Great Depression.

Individuals derive benefits from their connections, but these may, at the same time, transmit external threats. Individuals therefore invest in security to protect themselves. However, the incentives to invest in security depend on their network exposures. We study the problem of designing a network that provides the right individual incentives.

It is instructive to view the study of networks in economics as a shift in paradigm, in the sense of Kuhn (1962). This perspective helps us locate the innovation that networks bring to economics, appreciate different strands of the research, assess the current state of the subject and identify the challenges.

Shiller (1981) and others have shown that the quantitative predictions of the REH present-value model are inconsistent with time-series data on stock prices and dividends. In this paper, we assess the empirical relevance of the model without explicitly representing how a rational market participant forecasts dividends and interest rates.

The ongoing explosion of the incomes of the richest households and the erosion of middle-class employment opportunities for most of the rest have become integrally related in the now-normal operation of the U.S. economy.

Recent work has highlighted the need for innovation investments to be understood through a mission oriented approach rather than a market failure one (Foray et al. 2012). However, this work has only focused on state agencies, such as DARPA, overlooking the role of public financial institutions such as state investment banks.

The tension between efficiency and equilibrium is a central feature of economic systems. In many contexts, social networks mediate this trade-off: an individual’s network position determines equilibrium play, and social relations allow coordination on an efficient norm.

The economics of religion is a relatively new field of research in economics. This survey serves two purposes – it is backward-looking in that it traces the historical and sociological origins of this field, and it is forward-looking in that it examines the insights and research themes that are offered by economists to investigate religion globally in the modern world.

This paper examines the effects of intra-financial lending – claims between financial institutions – on aggregate investment and credit to the non-financial sector in the United States.

There is widespread and growing concern about the availability of good jobs in the U.S. economy. Inequality has been growing for thirty years and is now at levels not seen since the 1920s. Stable and remunerative employment has become harder for U.S. workers to find.

This paper examines the evolution of intra-financial sector lending in the United States, 1950- 2012, presenting estimates constructed from the Federal Reserve’s Flow of Funds Accounts.

Rising inequality reduced income growth for the bottom 95 percent of the US personal income distribution beginning about 1980.

Anyone who has spent time in a developing country knows the importance of social connections. Among their many roles, these connections help individuals land jobs, and provide them with credit and other forms of support.