Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Economics, 2016. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 139-144). / This dissertation addresses three questions related to the economics of renewable energy. Chapter 1 studies learning-by-doing during the generation process at wind and solar farms in the United States. While this phenomenon is often cited as a rationale for subsidizing renewable electricity, there is relatively little project-level evidence on how knowledge is accrued. Using detailed atmospheric data to account for potential output, I study whether generation and installation experience leads to increased productivity for solar and wind projects. I further assess the appropriability of experience by considering the transfer of knowledge within and across firms. Results suggest that generation experience on a particular project leads to higher productivity at that project but not at other sites. Installation experience appears to lead to higher output on subsequent projects, and exhibits spillovers across owners with proximate installation sites for wind farms. Chapter 2, co-authored with Michael Greenstone, studies the impact of Renewable Portfolio Standards, which mandate electricity sales from renewable sources, on electricity markets. Despite their prevalence and scope, the cost-effectiveness of these policies is currently poorly understood. Using panel data on program characteristics, electricity prices, generation, and employment, we find that portfolio standards have been successful at increasing regional renewable generation, with marginal compliance coming almost entirely from wind energy. However, costs to consumers are large, with retail electricity rates increasing by 9-15% five years after adoption. Based on our estimates, the cost of carbon abatement from these programs is substantial, and well above conventional estimates of the social cost of emissions. In the third chapter, I examine the extent to which electricity prices influence household purchases of Energy Star appliances. I combine a large cross-sectional survey dataset on appliance ownership and household characteristics with data on local electricity prices. Across three different appliance types, I find an elasticity of Energy Star ownership to retail electricity price of 0.58 to 0.66. In line with the "landlord-tenant" problem discussed in the energy efficiency literature, both ownership rates and responsiveness tp prices are substanitally lower for rented properties, particularly those with lower income tenants. / by Richard McDowell. / Ph. D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references. / This thesis is composed of three chapters, each includes one paper. The first chapter includes a paper that analyses the impact of terror on consumption and investment. This paper provides evidence on how consumers and investors react to terror attacks based on a new database from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. An increase in terror casualties triggers households to alter their perceived personal security and expected future income. Only ex-post do households distinguish a temporary from a permanent increase in terror casualties. A temporary increase in the number of terror casualties causes a bust-boom cycle of durables consumption and irreversible investment; nondurables are affected less. A permanent increase in the number of terror casualties causes a one-time drop in consumption. This is in line with the theory on irreversible investment and durables consumption: terror generates temporary uncertainty about personal security and future income, which in turn causes a bust-boom cycle of durables due to bunching of purchases in later periods. A permanent increase in terror causes neither bunching nor boom. Similar results are obtained for the effect of terror casualties on fixed capital. The second chapter includes a paper titled: "Arbitrage Tests of Israel's Currency Options Markets." The aims of this study are threefold. First, we test the validity of the Black and Scholes (B-S) model as a naive option-pricing model for the case of an exchange-rate target zone. We find that although we cannot reject the weakly efficient market hypothesis (except for very-near-maturity deep-ITM options), we can reject the strongly efficient market and/or the B-S model validity hypotheses. / (cont.) The banking sector could have utilized arbitrage opportunities, notably for out-of-the-money, at-the-money, and far-from-maturity options, especially when employing inter-temporal weighted-average implied standard deviation. Second, we estimate the liquidity premium for currency options by using a unique data set that allows us to comparing tradable and non-tradable options. The liquidity premium, though positive in average, is found to be negative for some options. This is an indication that there could have been arbitrage opportunities, especially for the banking sector. Third, we examine the null hypothesis that the Israeli currency options market is efficient, an issue that has not been investigated. Ex-post tests of arbitrage and dominance conditions do not permit rejection of the null hypothesis, except for very-near maturity, deep-in-the-money (ITM) options. The paper enhances the literature by using a unique database from the Israeli currency options market, which includes currency options traded on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange and (non-tradable) Bank of Israel currency options. In addition, this paper examines B-S when the exchange rate is confined to a target zone. The third chapter includes a paper that analyses the robustness of exchange rate models, unit roots and cointegration. Three basic models have been proposed to explain the exchange rate: Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), the Balassa-Samuelson model and the random walk model. The robustness of these models is not merely a statistical curiosity but has important implications in many economic and financial models. During the last two decades ... / by Samer Haj-Yehia. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2010. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 151-160). / This dissertation analyzes different aspects of the globalization process. In recent years we witnessed an increasing role of emerging economies in world capital markets. Moreover, there has been a large reduction in trade costs which has allowed production to be offshored to less developed economies. Both elements are part of the globalization process but they have different effects within and between countries. The first essay studies the relationship between globalization and the appearance of rational bubbles. It shows that bubbles cannot appear in a financially developed economy in autarky. In contrast, as globalization progresses, more financially underdeveloped economies have access to world capital markets and the possibility of having a bubble in the financially developed country increases. It also shows that, conditional on having a bubble, globalization raises house prices only when the bubble is attached to houses. The second essay, co-authored with Marti Mestieri, analyzes the distributional effects of two waves of globalization. A First Globalization characterized by trade liberalizations and a Second Globalization characterized by reductions in communication costs. It shows that wage inequality always rises in the South. However, wage polarization emerges in the North during the Second Globalization. Moreover, there exists a complementarity between both globalizations. Wage polarization is delayed by the extent of trade in the First Globalization. It also shows that heterogeneous participation in Second Globalization trade generates a discontinuous pattern of specialization. The third essay studies how financial institution differences affect the offshoring choice of firms. It shows that financial institution differences affect the optimal contract offered to the supplier and are enough to generate a product cycle. Production is kept in North when the good is new and it is shifted to the South as it becomes more standardized. / Ph.D.

Thesis: S.M., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Economics, 2014. / "June 2014." Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 42-44). / Workers in similar occupations cluster, much like firms in similar industries. This may be due to firm clustering, but I propose a supply-side mechanism that may also provide an explanation. When workers face a risk of separation from a particular job, they will consider the other jobs available in a particular area in their location decision. Based on this theory I make three predictions. Workers will tend to cluster in areas where their skills are in high demand. They will be paid less in these areas, ceteris paribus. And demand shocks will affect workers' wages less, and employment more, in areas where their skills are in high demand. I test this mechanism using data from the decennial U.S. Census. I use O*NET data on occupational tasks to construct a measure of occupational distance. I then estimate labor supply curves to determine to test the predictions of the theory. I do not find substantial evidence for this mechanism. / by Henry Spencer Swift. / S.M.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 143-145). / by Maha Saleh Ibrahim. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, February 2008. / "October 2007." / Includes bibliographical references. / This dissertation is a collection of three essays exploring the impact of incentives on participation in public education and health programs. The first two essays analyze the demand for Special Education (a program for disabled children) in the U.S., while the third essay explores the demand for subsidized anti-malaria products in Kenya. The first chapter attempts to estimate the direct impact of Special Education (SE) placement on students' social and academic outcomes. Despite the fact that one out of every seven U.S. public school students receives SE services, little is known about the impact of this program on future outcomes. I exploit the strategic incentive to increase SE enrollment induced by a 1996 accountability policy in Chicago Public Schools to identify the impact of SE placement on high school completion, absenteeism and GPA. Pre-accountability performance characteristics of the school determined to what extent sanctions could be avoided by increasing SE placement, since SE students' scores were excluded from accountability measures. I construct an instrument that captures the strength of strategic incentives, and show that low-achieving students in high-incentive schools experienced the largest increase in SE placement. Using instrumental variables analysis and a panel of student data from Chicago Public Schools, I find that SE placement in elementary school reduces the probability of dropping out of high school and absenteeism for the marginal low-achieving student, while results on GPA are inconclusive. I provide evidence that these results are not driven by other changes taking place at high-incentive schools. The results suggest that low-achieving students benefit from SE placement for mild mental disabilities. / (cont.) While the first chapter explores school-level incentives to increase SE enrollment, the second chapter analyzes the impact of financial incentives on parental demand for SE placement. A number of studies have shown the importance of school-based incentives on the supply of SE services made available to students. However, the extent to which parental demand for SE services responds to incentives, and how much of the variation in SE enrollment can be explained by these incentives, is unknown. The 1990 Supreme Court Zebley decision led to a substantial widening of child eligibility criteria for SSI. I use this legislative change, in combination with cross-state variation in the financial gain to enrolling in SSI, as an instrument for child SSI enrollment. This estimation strategy allows me to isolate the direct impact of shifts in SSI benefit supply on SE enrollment. I find that the financial incentives brought on by the Zebley decision led to a 15 percent increase in SE enrollment. I also estimate that a modest 1.5 percent of the cross-state variation in SE enrollment can be explained by differences in financial incentives to enroll in SSI. These results suggest that parents respond to incentives to have their child screened for a disability and placed in SE. The third chapter in this series of essays is joint with Pascaline Dupas and explores how variation in the level of subsidy of health goods impacts the ability of public health campaigns to target vulnerable populations. It is widely believed that cost-sharing-charging a subsidized, positive price-for a health product is necessary to avoid wasting resources on those who will not use the product. We explore this argument in the context of a field experiment in Kenya, in which we randomized the price at which pregnant women could buy anti-malarial insecticide-treated nets (ITNs) at prenatal clinics. / (cont.) We find no evidence that cost-sharing reduces wastage on those that will not use the good: women who received free nets are not less likely to use them than those who paid subsidized positive prices. Cost-sharing does, however, considerably dampen demand. We find that uptake drops by 75 percent when the price of ITNs increases from zero to 75 cents, the price at which ITNs are currently socialmarketed. When the price is between 15 and 30 cents, we observe that pregnant women who purchase an ITN are, on average, in poorer health than those who receive a free ITN. However, in absolute terms, the number of sick women getting access to an ITN at these prices is roughly the same as under free distribution, and the number of sick women getting access to an ITN at the current cost-sharing price is at least 47 percent lower than under free distribution. We use these estimates in a cost-effectiveness analysis of ITN prices on infant mortality that incorporates both private and social returns of ITN usage. Overall, given the large positive externality associated with widespread usage of insecticide-treated nets, our results suggest that free distribution is both more effective and more cost-effective than cost-sharing. / by Jessica Lee Cohen. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 1983. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND DEWEY / Vita. / Includes bibliographical references. / by Yasuo Usami. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 2012. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 157-164). / Chapter 1 contains a theory of misallocation. In contrast to a recent literature where misallocation stems from imperfect input markets, I study an economy with non-competitive output markets. This change of focus has two implications. In the cross-section of firms, static misallocation, i.e. the dispersion of marginal products, is not driven by constraints limiting expansion possibilities, but reflects the distribution of mark-ups. Dynamically, the distribution of mark-ups and the economy-wide rate of productivity growth are jointly determined by firms' innovation and entry incentives. The observed cross-country variation in the degree of misallocation might therefore be a symptom of more fundamental differences in the innovation environment. Using firm-level data from Indonesia, I present both reduced form evidence for this mechanism and estimate the models' structural parameters. In chapter 2, I study the interaction between migration and firms' technology choices. If firms can adapt their production technology, changes in labor supply will induce biased technological adoption. I test this hypothesis using data from one of the largest population transfer programs of the 20th century. After WW2, Germany lost part of its Eastern Territories. Within 2 years, more than 8m people were expelled and transferred to Western Germany. Using individual-level data of the 1960s and 70s I show that refugees experienced substantial reallocation into unskilled occupations, that refugee-rich counties have higher employment shares in occupations which require little formal human capital and that wages in those occupations are especially high in refugee-rich counties. In chapter 3, which is joint work with Joaquin Blaum and Claire Lelarge, we use a comprehensive dataset of French manufacturing firms to study firms' import behavior. We first document a new fact on the extensive margin of international trade: most firms source only few differentiated varieties of a given product internationally. We then build a simple model based on productivity differences across firms and show that in contrast to the literature on exports, more productive firms do not necessarily source their products from more countries. On the intensive margin, the theory has one robust implication: expenditure shares across varieties should be equalized in the cross-section of firms. While the data is supportive of this prediction across foreign varieties, more productive firms are subject to "home-bias" in that they spend too much on domestic inputs. / by Michael Peters. / Ph.D.

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Economics, 2018. / Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. / Includes bibliographical references (pages 139-152). / This thesis considers three ways research on cognition can be used to improve our understanding of development economics. The first chapter explores whether cognitive science research on the development of mathematical abilities can be used to design interventions to improve learning in resource-poor contexts. We developed a series of games designed to train children's intuitive concepts of number and geometry and evaluated their effectiveness with a randomized field experiment in Delhi, India. We found that the intervention produced enduring improvements in the exercised abilities, but that these improvements did not translate into improved formal mathematics skills. The second chapter asks whether the omnipresent noise in developing contexts reduces worker productivity by impairing cognitive function. Using a pair of randomized field experiments, I found that noise substantially reduces productivity, that this appears to occur through the proposed cognitive mechanisms, and that workers do not seem aware of these effects. The final chapter evaluates whether there is scope for cognitive biases to affect the adoption of energy efficient technologies in developing contexts. To do so, we elicited respondents' willingness to pay for an insulated cookstove and used random variation in ownership to estimate the causal effect of ownership on energy savings. We found that savings are quite large, willingness to pay is low and that household demand and realized savings are uncorrelated, which suggests biases may play a significant role in adoption decisions. / by Joshua T. Dean. / Ph. D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Economics, 1997. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 138-143). / by Andres Conesa-Labastida. / Ph.D.