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Working Paper
Matching externalities and inventive productivity
This paper generalizes and extends the labor market search and matching model of Berliant, Reed, and Wang (2006). In this model, the density of cities is determined endogenously, but the matching process becomes more efficient as density increases. As a result, workers become more selective in their matches, and this raises average productivity (the intensive margin). Despite being more selective, the search process is more rapid so that workers spend more time in productive matches (the extensive margin). The effect of an exogenous increase in land area on productivity depends on the ...
Working Paper
The Agglomeration of American Research and Development Labs
We employ a unique data set to examine the spatial clustering of about 1,700 private research and development (R&D) labs in California and across the Northeast corridor of the United States. Using these data, which contain the R&D labs? complete addresses, we are able to more precisely locate innovative activity than with patent data, which only contain zip codes for inventors? residential addresses. We avoid the problems of scale and borders associated with using fixed spatial boundaries, such as zip codes, by developing a new point pattern procedure. Our multiscale core-cluster approach ...
Working Paper
Localized Knowledge Spillovers: Evidence from the Spatial Clustering of R&D Labs and Patent Citations
Patent citations are a commonly used indicator of knowledge spillovers among inventors, while clusters of research and development labs are locations in which knowledge spillovers are particularly likely to occur. In this paper, we assign patents and citations to newly defined clusters of American R&D labs to capture the geographic extent of knowledge spillovers. Our tests show that the localization of knowledge spillovers, as measured via patent citations, is strongest at small spatial scales and diminishes rapidly with distance. On average, patents within a cluster are about three to six ...
Working Paper
The development and regulation of consumer credit reporting in America
In the United States today, there is at least one credit bureau file, and probably three, for every credit-using individual in the country. Over 2 billion items of information are added to these files every month, and over 2 million credit reports are issued every day. Real-time access to credit bureau information has reduced the time required to approve a loan from a few weeks to just a few minutes. But credit bureaus have also been criticized for furnishing erroneous information and for compromising privacy. The result has been 30 years of regulation at the state and federal levels. ; This ...
Working Paper
LOCALIZED KNOWLEDGE SPILLOVERS: EVIDENCE FROM THE AGGLOMERATION OF AMERICAN R&D LABS AND PATENT DATA
Supercedes 15-03 We employ a unique data set to examine the spatial clustering of private R&D labs. Instead of using fixed spatial boundaries, we develop a new procedure for identifying the location and size of specific R&D clusters. Thus, we are better able to identify the spatial locations of clusters at various scales, such as a half mile, 1 mile, 5 miles, and more. Assigning patents and citations to these clusters, we capture the geographic extent of knowledge spillovers within them. Our tests show that the localization of knowledge spillovers, as measured via patent citations, is ...
Working Paper
Dynamic Pricing of Credit Cards and the Effects of Regulation
We construct a two-period model of revolving credit with asymmetric information and adverse selection.In the second period, lenders exploit an informational advantage with respect to their own customers. Those rents stimulate competition for customers in the first period. The informational advantage the current lender enjoys relative to its competitors determines interest rates, credit supply, and switching behavior. We evaluate the consequences of limiting the repricing of existing balances as implemented by recent legislation. Such restrictions increase deadweight losses and reduce ex ante ...
Working Paper
Discouraging Federal actions that reduce the value of private property: evaluating procedural and financial approaches
A regulatory taking occurs when a court concludes that a government action has taken private property for a public use without paying just compensation to the owner--a violation of the fifth amendment. Often, the remedy is a monetary award whose value is determined by the court. ; In recent years there has been considerable interest in creating a statutory complement to the constitutional law of takings. Some believe that a statutory scheme, using procedural financial approaches, would discourage federal regulatory activities that reduce the value of privately owned property. The procedural ...
Discussion Paper
Residential Migration, Entry, and Exit as Seen Through the Lens of Credit Bureau Data
We analyze a large, nationally representative anonymized data set of consumers with a credit report from 2002 to 2010. This is a period that encompasses a boom and bust in consumer credit. Using census data, we classify consumers into four categories of relative neighborhood income and find that, over time, the number and proportion of consumers with a credit report fell in low- and moderate-income neighborhoods and rose in higher-income neighborhoods. Population trends evident from census data explain only a portion of these changes in the location of the credit bureau population. In most ...
Working Paper
What \"triggers\" mortgage default?
This paper assesses the relative importance of two key drivers of mortgage default: negative equity and illiquidity. To do so, the authors combine loan-level mortgage data with detailed credit bureau information about the borrower's broader balance sheet. This gives them a direct way to measure illiquid borrowers: those with high credit card utilization rates. The authors find that both negative equity and illiquidity are significantly associated with mortgage default, with comparably sized marginal effects. Moreover, these two factors interact with each other: The effect of illiquidity on ...
Working Paper
Financial Consequences of Identity Theft
We examine how a negative shock from identity theft affects consumer credit market behavior. We show that the immediate effects of fraud on credit files are typically negative, small, and transitory. After those immediate effects fade, identity theft victims experience persistent increases in credit scores and declines in reported delinquencies, with a significant proportion of affected consumers transitioning from subprime-to-prime credit scores. Those consumers take advantage of their improved creditworthiness to obtain additional credit, including auto loans and mortgages. Despite having ...