1.钱俊杰（复旦大学经济学院）
Bunten D. Is the Rent Too High? Aggregate Implications of Local Land-Use Regulation[R]. UCLA Working Paper, 2015.
Highly productive U.S. cities are characterized by high housing prices, low housing stock growth, and restrictive land-use regulations (e.g., San Francisco). While new residents would benefit from housing stock growth due to higher incomes or shorter commutes, existing residents justify strict local land-use regulations on the grounds of congestion and other costs of further development. This paper assesses the welfare implications of these local regulations for income, congestion, and urban sprawl within a general equilibrium model with endogenous regulation. In the model, households choose from locations that vary exogenously by productivity and endogenously according to local externalities of congestion and sharing. Existing residents address these externalities by voting for regulations that limit local housing density. In equilibrium, these regulations bind and house prices compensate for differences across locations. Relative to the planner’s optimum, the decentralized model generates spatial misallocation whereby high-productivity locations are settled at too-low densities. The model admits a straightforward calibration based on observed population density, expenditure shares on consumption and local services, and local incomes. Welfare and GDP would be 1.4% and 2.1% higher, respectively, under the planner’s allocation. Abolishing zoning regulations entirely would increase GDP by 6%, but lower welfare by 5.9% due to greater congestion.
2.吴辉航（上海财经大学）
La Ferrara E, Chong A, Duryea S. Soap operas and fertility: Evidence from Brazil[J]. American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, 2012, 4(4): 1-31.
We estimate the effect of television on fertility in Brazil, where soap operas portray small families. We exploit differences in the timing of entry into different markets of Globo, the main novela producer. Women living in areas covered by Globo have significantly lower fertility. The effect is strongest for women of lower socioeconomic status and in the central and late phases of fertility, consistent with stopping behavior. The result does not appear to be driven by selection in Globo entry. We provide evidence that novelas, and not just television, affected individual choices, based on children's naming patterns and novela content.
3.张翕（上海交通大学）
Hornbeck R, Keniston D. Creative Destruction: Barriers to Urban Growth and the Great Boston Fire of 1872[R]. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2014.
Abstract: Historical city growth, in the United States and worldwide, has required remarkable transformation of outdated durable buildings. Private land-use decisions may generate inefficiencies, however, due to externalities and various rigidities. This paper analyzes new plot-level data in the aftermath of the Great Boston Fire of 1872, estimating substantial economic gains from the created opportunity for widespread reconstruction. An important mechanism appears to be positive externalities from neighbors' reconstruction. Strikingly, gains from this opportunity for urban redevelopment were sufficiently large that increases in land values were comparable to the previous value of all buildings burned.
4.邓东升（复旦大学经济学院）
Munshi K, Rosenzweig M. Networks and misallocation: Insurance, migration, and the rural-urban wage gap[J]. The American Economic Review, 2016, 106(1): 46-98.
Abstract: We provide an explanation for large spatial wage disparities and low male migration in India that is based on the trade-off between consumption-smoothing, provided by caste-based rural insurance networks, and the income-gains from migration. Our theory generates two key predictions, which we verify empirically: (i) relatively wealthy households within the caste who benefit less from the redistributive (surplus-maximizing) network will be more likely to have migrant members, and (ii) households facing greater rural income-risk (who benefit more from the insurance network) are less likely to have migrant members. Structural estimates of the model show that even small improvements in formal insurance decrease the spatial misallocation of labor by substantially increasing migration.
5.赵婷（复旦大学经济学院）
Asher S, Novosad P. Market Access and Structural Transformation: Evidence from Rural Roads in India[J]. Manuscript: Department of Economics, University of Oxford, 2016.
More than one billion people worldwide live in rural areas without access to the paved road network. How does the lack of such infrastructure affect rural employment and economic outcomes? We construct a comprehensive, high spatial resolution dataset of 825 million individuals in rural India to estimate the impact of a national rural road construction program that has built paved roads to over 100,000 villages since 2000. Program rules provide discontinuities in the probability of treatment at multiple village population thresholds, which we exploit using a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. Road construction to previously unconnected villages leads to a 10 percentage point reduction in the share of households and workers in agriculture, with an equivalent increase in wage labor market participation. This sectoral reallocation is concentrated among males and households with low levels of land, precisely those groups who have the lowest costs and highest returns to sectoral reallocation. Labor reallocation to wage labor is strongest in locations close to major cities, suggesting the importance of access to urban markets in the process of structural transformation. Rather than facilitating growth of nonfarm firms in treated villages, rural roads enable workers to access external labor markets. We also provide evidence for gains to multiple measures of economic outcomes. Our results suggest that poor rural transportation infrastructure is a major constraint on the sectoral allocation of labor in low income countries.
6.唐俊超（复旦大学社政学院社会学系）
Satyanath S, Voigtländer N, Voth H J. Bowling for fascism: social capital and the rise of the Nazi Party[R]. National Bureau of Economic Research, 2013.
Abstract: Social capital is often associated with desirable political and economic outcomes. This paper contributes to the literature exploring the “dark side” of social capital, examining the downfall of democracy in interwar Germany. We collect new data on the density of associations in 229 German towns and cities. Denser networks of clubs and societies went hand-in-hand with a more rapid rise of the Nazi Party. Towns with one standard deviation higher association density saw at least 15% faster Nazi Party entry. All types of societies – from veteran associations to animal breeders, chess clubs and choirs – positively predict NS Party entry. Party membership, in turn, is correlated with electoral success. These results suggest that social capital aided the rise of the Nazi movement that ultimately destroyed Germany’s first democracy. Crucially, we examine the question when a vibrant civic society can have corrosive effects. We show that the effects of social capital depended on the political context – in federal states with more stable governments, higher association density was not associated with faster Nazi Party entry.
7.曹晖（上海大学）
Dell M. Trafficking networks and the Mexican drug war[J]. The American Economic Review, 2015, 105(6): 1738-1779.
Drug trade-related violence has escalated dramatically in Mexico since 2007, and recent years have also witnessed large-scale efforts to combat trafficking, spearheaded by Mexico's conservative PAN party. This study examines the direct and spillover effects of Mexican policy toward the drug trade. Regression discontinuity estimates show that drug-related violence increases substantially after close elections of PAN mayors. Empirical evidence suggests that the violence reflects rival traffickers' attempts to usurp territories after crackdowns have weakened incumbent criminals. Moreover, the study uses a network model of trafficking routes to show that PAN victories divert drug traffic, increasing violence along alternative drug routes.
