ABSTRACT The World Bank's Doing Business (DB) project had measured the regulatory burden facing private businesses around the world since 2004. After the cancellation of the DB project in 2021, the World Bank announced that they would be creating a new project called Business Ready (B‐READY) to replace the DB project. The purpose of this study is to compare and contrast the two sets of data. Our preliminary conclusion is that while B‐READY is likely to be a valuable dataset, it is not going to be a seamless replacement for DB.

ABSTRACT I provide evidence that decreased efficiency in the appointment process to the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve has resulted in an increase in the number of average vacancies. I then estimate whether this increase in vacancies is costly for the economy. I find little evidence to suggest that this is the case: monetary policy, uncertainty about the future path of interest rates, and the Board of Governor's ability to supervise and communicate have been largely unaffected by the number of absences.

ABSTRACT Taylor Swift's Eras Tour is the highest‐grossing concert tour in history, with the average attendance of each concert exceeding that of the Super Bowl. While host cities largely welcome the economic activity that accompanies these events, a noted potential drawback is the effect on local air quality. This paper uses air quality data from the Environmental Protection Agency to analyze the impact of concerts on ozone and PM2.5 concentrations within 10 miles of concert venues. We find that, relative to baseline levels, Eras Tour concerts were associated with statistically and economically significant increases in ozone and PM2.5 concentrations that began before and persisted after the concert day. Air quality on concert days is also found to be twice as likely to be categorized as “unhealthy for sensitive populations,” a category that includes children. The increase in pollution associated with these events exceeds, on average that of any documented large‐scale sporting event. This finding contributes to the growing recognition of the broader environmental externalities associated with large public gatherings.

ABSTRACT This paper introduces a novel method to estimate the marginal abatement cost of SO 2 in Chinese manufacturing using a by‐production (BP) approach. We simultaneously model desirable and undesirable outputs within a unified production system, providing insights into production technology and firm‐level efficiency in pollution abatement. To address endogeneity, we apply a two‐step dynamic panel approach, identifying the marginal abatement cost from the first‐order condition of profit maximization. Using firm‐level production and emissions data from 1998 to 2007 in China's chemical and non‐metallic mineral industries, we find that pollution treatment facilities effectively reduce SO 2 emissions. The average estimated marginal abatement cost is 6532 yuan per ton in the chemical industry and 5640 yuan per ton in the non‐metallic mineral industry.

ABSTRACT We present a model of corruption involving entrepreneurs with heterogeneous productivities. The model incorporates two types of technologies: a costly “good” technology that generates positive externalities and a “bad” technology that is cheaper to adopt but lacks externalities. Corrupt bureaucrats may accept bribes from entrepreneurs using the bad technology, which the government cannot fully monitor. We show that four distinct equilibrium regimes can arise, and we characterize the conditions‐interpretable as dimensions of state capacity‐under which each regime arises. Our analysis aligns with empirical patterns of regional variation in corruption and productivity and provides testable hypotheses linking state capacity, and corruption.

Abstract College students often struggle to understand the prevalence of asset price bubbles and the difficulty of timing asset purchases and sales. Even economics students are consistently surprised when bubbles burst. These breaks can have real macroeconomic effects, particularly when the price surge is fueled by leverage. This paper describes a web‐based class experiment designed to teach students about how leverage increases the magnitude and ramifications of bubbles. Participant students choose between investing in an asset with risky returns (which can be leveraged) and a safe asset that pays interest. These markets consistently generate prices well above fundamental values. Furthermore, the price bubbles are generally more extreme when credit is easier (low cash down‐payment requirements), when exogenous incomes are higher, and when the duration of the experiment is longer. The class results can be used to draw parallels to examples of leveraged bubbles and their consequences, such as the 2007–2009 Great Recession. This experiment is available for instructors online and is particularly well suited for Principles of Macroeconomics, Money and Banking, and Behavioral Finance classes.