National Bureau of Economic Research

About: National Bureau of Economic Research is a nonprofit organization based out in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Monetary policy & Population. The organization has 2626 authors who have published 34177 publications receiving 2818124 citations. The organization is also known as: NBER & The National Bureau of Economic Research.

The Growth of Nations

Abstract: AVERAGE INCOMES in the world's richest countries are more than ten times as high as in the world's poorest countries. It is apparent to anyone who travels the world that these large differences in income lead to large differences in the quality of life. Less apparent are the reasons for these differences. What is it about the United States, Japan, and Germany that makes these countries so much richer than India, Indonesia, and Nigeria? How can the rich countries be sure to maintain their high standard of living? What can the poor countries do to join the club? After many years of neglect, these questions are again at the center of macroeconomic research and teaching. Long-run growth is now widely viewed to be at least as important as short-run fluctuations. Moreover, growth is not just important. It is also a topic about which macroeconomists, with their crude aggregate models, have something useful to say. My goal here is to assess what we now know about economic growth. The scope of this paper is selective and, to some extent, idiosyncratic. The study of growth has itself grown so rapidly in recent years that it would take an entire book to discuss the field thoroughly.' In this paper, I do not try to lay out the many different views in the large literature on economic growth. Instead, I try to present my own views, as cogently as I can, on what we know about the growth of nations.

Measuring the Macroeconomic Impact of Monetary Policy at the Zero Lower Bound

Abstract: This paper employs an approximation that makes a nonlinear term structure model extremely tractable for analysis of an economy operating near the zero lower bound for interest rates. We show that such a model offers an excellent description of the data compared to the benchmark model and can be used to summarize the macroeconomic effects of unconventional monetary policy. Our estimates imply that the efforts by the Federal Reserve to stimulate the economy since July 2009 succeeded in making the unemployment rate in December 2013 1% lower, which is 0.13% more compared to the historical behavior of the Fed.

Does Public Insurance Crowd out Private Insurance

Abstract: The cost of expanding public sector health programs depends critically on the extent to which public eligibility will cover just the uninsured, or will crowd out existing private insurance coverage. We estimate the extent of crowd-out arising from the expansions of Medicaid to pregnant women and children over the 1987–1992 period. We estimate that approximately 50 percent of the increase in Medicaid coverage was associated with a reduction in private insurance coverage. This occurred largely because employees took up employer-based insurance less frequently. There is also some evidence that employers contributed less for insurance and that workers dropped coverage of dependents.

Does Head Start Make a Difference

Abstract: Data from a national sample of children are used to investigate the effects of participation in Head Start on a range of child outcomes. In order to control for selection into the program comparisons are drawn between siblings and also between the relative benefits associated with attending Head Start on one hand and other preschools on the other. There are large and significant gains associated with attending Head Start as measured by test scores. This is true relative to children who attend no preschool and also relative to those who attend other preschools. There are also important racial differences in these benefits. Both Whites and African-Americans experience initial gains in test scores as a result of participation in Head Start. But among African-Americans the gains are quickly lost whereas for Whites the gains persist well into adulthood. As a result perhaps Head Start significantly reduces the probability that a White child will repeat a grade but has no effect on grade repetition among African-American children. In contrast relative to children who attend no preschool both Whites and African-Americans gain greater access to preventive health services as measured by immunization rates although children who attend other preschools enjoy similar benefits. (authors)

Putting Patents in Context: Exploring Knowledge Transfer from MIT

Abstract: In this paper we explore the degree to which patents are representative of the magnitude, direction, and impact of the knowledge spilling out of the university by focusing on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and in particular, on the Departments of Mechanical and Electrical Engineering. Drawing on both qualitative and quantitative data, we show that patenting is a minority activity: a majority of the faculty in our sample never patent, and publication rates far outstrip patenting rates. Most faculty members estimate that patents account for less than 10% of the knowledge that transfers from their labs. Our results also suggest that in two important ways patenting is not representative of the patterns of knowledge generation and transfer from MIT: patent volume does not predict publication volume, and those firms that cite MIT papers are in general not the same firms as those that cite MIT patents. However, patent volume is positively correlated with paper citations, suggesting that patent counts may be reasonable measures of research impact. We close by speculating on the implications of our results for the difficult but important question of whether, in this setting, patenting acts as a substitute or a complement to the process of fundamental research.