编者按：美国全国经济研究所（NBER）是美国最大的经济学研究组织，其发布的工作论文代表着经济学研究最新的成果，每周一发布新论文。本周（1.20-1.26）共发布 20 篇新工作论文，本期将会推送前 7 篇论文的题目与摘要，供读者学习。
学术财经研究团队翻译。
问答能促进互动吗？美国和加纳的健康信息传播实验
Erika Kirgios, Susan Athey, Angela L. Duckworth, Dean Karlan, Michael Luca, Katherine L. Milkman, and Molly Offer-Westort #33294
Abstract: Effective information sharing is critical for the success of organizations and governments. Because information that is easy to access is more likely to be adopted, leaders often minimize friction in information delivery. However, one type of friction may increase engagement: piquing curiosity by posing relevant questions prior to sharing information. To test this, we shared identical information about COVID-19 in either question-and-answer format or via direct statements across two preregistered field experiments in Ghana and Michigan (total N=49,395). Q&A-style communication increased information seeking about directly related topics (e.g., how to wear a mask properly) by 1.0 percentage-point (216%) in Ghana and by 1.1 percentage-points (19%) in Michigan (p’s<0.001), and increased self-reported behavior change by 1.3 percentage-points (4%) in Michigan (p=0.002). However, sharing information in Q&A format did not increase interest in general COVID-19 information in either setting, suggesting that the impact of Q&A-style messaging on information seeking may be issue-specific. In Michigan, both Q&A-style and direct statement messaging produced less information-seeking than sending no informational messages, likely due to differential attrition: the more texts participants received, the more likely they were to opt out of receiving messages, which made it impossible for them to seek more information via text. In a follow-up implementation experiment with social media ads (a messaging strategy without attrition challenges) Q&A-style ads generated 9-11% more unique clicks to the CDC website per dollar spent than ads that directly stated information about vaccines (p<0.001). We speculate that Q&A-style information delivery may stimulate curiosity, driving its benefits.
摘要：有效的信息共享对组织和政府的成功至关重要。因为容易访问的信息更容易被采纳，领导者通常会减少信息传递中的摩擦。然而，一种摩擦可能会增加参与度：通过在分享信息之前提出相关问题来激发好奇心。为了验证这一点，我们通过两项预注册的实地实验，在加纳和密歇根州分别以问答格式或直接陈述的方式分享了关于COVID-19的相同信息（总样本量N=49,395）。问答式沟通在加纳提高了关于直接相关主题（例如如何正确佩戴口罩）的信息搜索1.0个百分点（216%），在密歇根提高了1.1个百分点（19%）（p<0.001），并在密歇根增加了自我报告的行为改变1.3个百分点（4%）（p=0.002）。然而，使用问答格式分享信息并没有在任何一个地方增加对一般COVID-19信息的兴趣，这表明问答式信息传递对信息搜索的影响可能是特定于问题的。在密歇根，问答式和直接陈述式信息传递都比不发送信息更少地引发信息搜索，这可能是由于不同的流失率：参与者收到的短信越多，他们越可能选择退出接收信息，这使得他们无法通过短信寻求更多信息。在一次后续的社交媒体广告实施实验中（这种信息传递策略没有流失问题），问答式广告每花费一美元带来的独立点击率比直接陈述疫苗信息的广告高出9-11%（p<0.001）。我们推测，问答式信息传递可能激发好奇心，从而带来其好处。
AI驱动的（金融）奖学金
Robert Novy-Marx and Mihail Z. Velikov #33363
Abstract: This paper describes a process for automatically generating academic finance papers using large language models (LLMs). It demonstrates the process’ efficacy by producing hundreds of complete papers on stock return predictability, a topic particularly well-suited for our illustration. We first mine over 30,000 potential stock return predictor signals from accounting data, and apply the Novy-Marx and Velikov (2024) “Assaying Anomalies” protocol to generate standardized “template reports” for 96 signals that pass the protocol’s rigorous criteria. Each report details a signal’s performance predicting stock returns using a wide array of tests and benchmarks it to more than 200 other known anomalies. Finally, we use state-of-the-art LLMs to generate three distinct complete versions of academic papers for each signal. The different versions include creative names for the signals, contain custom introductions providing different theoretical justifications for the observed predictability patterns, and incorporate citations to existing (and, on occasion, imagined) literature supporting their respective claims. This experiment illustrates AI’s potential for enhancing financial research efficiency, but also serves as a cautionary tale, illustrating how it can be abused to industrialize HARKing (Hypothesizing After Results are Known).
摘要：本文描述了一个使用大语言模型（LLMs）自动生成学术金融论文的过程。通过生成数百篇关于股票收益可预测性的完整论文，展示了该过程的有效性，这一主题特别适合我们的示范。我们首先从会计数据中挖掘了超过30,000个潜在的股票收益预测信号，并应用Novy-Marx和Velikov（2024）的“异常检验”协议，生成了96个通过该协议严格标准的信号的标准化“模板报告”。每份报告详细描述了信号使用广泛的测试预测股票收益的表现，并将其与200多个已知的异常进行基准对比。最后，我们使用最先进的LLMs为每个信号生成三种不同版本的完整学术论文。这些不同的版本包括为信号起的创意名称，包含为观察到的可预测性模式提供不同理论依据的自定义介绍，并结合对现有（有时是想象的）文献的引用，以支持它们各自的论点。这个实验展示了AI在提升金融研究效率方面的潜力，同时也作为一个警示故事，展示了它如何被滥用来工业化HARKing（在结果已知后提出假设）。
我们不再处于高斯世界：对官方外汇资产构成的影响
José Andrée Camarena, Juan Pablo Medina, Daniel Riera-Crichton, Carlos A. Vegh, and Guillermo Vuletin #33366
Abstract: In the aftermath of the 1997-98 Asian crises, many emerging markets self-insured by accumulating international reserves (i.e., non-contingent assets) in excess of what many models predicted, while relying relatively little on state-contingent assets. This apparent over-reliance on self-insurance has been viewed as a puzzle in search of an explanation. A related, and still outstanding, puzzle is why the benefits of financial liberalization appear to be quite small and, yet, financial globalization has been unprecedented in recent decades. We show that these two puzzles can be solved by incorporating rare macroeconomic disasters in income risk. To this effect, we first fit a fat-tailed distribution to long output time series for 156 countries. We then develop a theoretical framework to quantify (i) the increase in welfare gains of financial integration and (ii) how the composition of official reserves (non-contingent and contingent) responds to bigger shocks. Our results show that fat tails lead to a sharp increase in both the gains of financial integration and self-insurance for standard values of the coefficient of risk aversion.
摘要：在1997-98年亚洲金融危机之后，许多新兴市场通过积累国际储备（即非或有资产）来进行自我保险，储备量超过了许多模型的预测，同时相对较少依赖于国家或有资产。这种明显过度依赖自我保险的现象被视为一个待解的难题。一个相关的、仍未解答的难题是，为什么金融自由化的好处似乎相当有限，但金融全球化在近年来却前所未有地迅猛发展。我们表明，通过将罕见的宏观经济灾难纳入收入风险模型，这两个难题可以得到解决。为此，我们首先为156个国家的长期产出时间序列拟合了一个厚尾分布。然后，我们发展了一个理论框架来量化（i）金融一体化福利增益的提高，以及（ii）官方储备（非或有资产和或有资产）的构成如何响应更大冲击。我们的研究结果显示，厚尾分布导致金融一体化和自我保险的增益在风险厌恶系数的标准值下急剧增加。
自然丧失与气候变化：双重危机乘数
Stefano Giglio, Theresa Kuchler, Johannes Stroebel, and Olivier Wang #33361
Abstract: We study the economic effects of the interaction of nature loss and climate change in a model that incorporates important aspects of both processes. We capture the distinct ways in which they affect economic activity—with nature constituting a key factor of production and climate change destroying parts of output—but also the ways in which they interact: climate change causes nature loss, and nature provides both a carbon sink and adaptation tools to reduce climate damages. Our analysis of these feedback loops reveals a novel amplification channel—the Twin-Crises Multiplier—that systematically affects optimal climate and nature conservation policies.
摘要：我们研究了自然丧失与气候变化相互作用的经济影响，建立了一个同时涵盖这两个过程重要方面的模型。我们捕捉了它们对经济活动的不同影响方式——自然作为关键生产要素，气候变化破坏部分产出——以及它们相互作用的方式：气候变化导致自然丧失，而自然既是碳汇，又是减少气候损害的适应工具。我们对这些反馈循环的分析揭示了一个新的放大渠道——双重危机乘数——它系统地影响着最佳气候与自然保护政策。
一个不同的世界：学校种族隔离废除对意识形态和态度的持久影响
Ethan Kaplan, Jorg L. Spenkuch, and Cody Tuttle #33365
Abstract: In 1975, a federal court ordered the desegregation of public schools in Jefferson County, KY. In order to approximately equalize the share of minorities across schools, students were assigned to a busing schedule that depended on the first letter of their last name. We use the resulting quasi-random variation to estimate the long-run impact of attending an inner-city school on political participation and preferences among whites. Drawing on administrative voter registration records and an original survey, we find that being bused to an inner-city school significantly increases support for the Democratic Party and its candidates more than forty years later. Consistent with the idea that exposure to an inner-city environment causes a permanent change in ideological outlook, we also find evidence that bused individuals are much less likely to believe in a "just world" (i.e., that success is earned rather than attributable to luck) and, more tentatively, that they become more supportive of some forms of redistribution. Taken together, our findings point to a poverty-centered version of the contact hypothesis, whereby witnessing economic deprivation durably sensitizes individuals to issues of inequality and fairness.
摘要：1975年，联邦法院命令肯塔基州杰斐逊县的公立学校进行种族隔离废除。为了大致平衡各学校的少数族裔比例，学生们根据姓氏的首字母被分配到不同的校车时间表。我们利用这种准随机的变化来估计上内城区学校对白人政治参与和偏好的长期影响。通过查阅行政选民登记记录和一项原创调查，我们发现，四十多年后，被安排乘校车去内城区学校的学生显著增加了对民主党及其候选人的支持。与暴露于内城区环境会导致意识形态视角的永久变化这一观点一致，我们还发现，被安排乘校车的个体更不可能相信“公正世界”（即成功是通过努力获得的，而非运气），并且，较为谨慎地，我们发现他们变得更加支持某些形式的再分配。综合来看，我们的研究结果表明，一种以贫困为中心的接触假设，即目睹经济贫困能够持久地使个体对不平等和公平问题变得更加敏感。
稳健的财政稳定
Alan J. Auerbach and Danny Yagan #33374
Abstract: Any fiscal path is sustainable if future fiscal policy responds sufficiently to high deficits. Previous work found that Congress reduced the deficit during 1984-2003 when projected deficits rose. We find that this year-to-year feedback has disappeared: Congress on average during 2004-2024 did not respond to the projected deficit. We quantify how strong fiscal feedback needs to be going forward in order to keep the debt-GDP ratio below 250% in one hundred years, taking as given the debt sensitivity of interest rates implicit in official projections. Without fiscal risk, the government can succeed either by modestly and gradually reducing the deficit or by suddenly and permanently reducing the deficit once this century by 1.5% of GDP. When considering large transitory deficit shocks like the COVID-19 pandemic and persistent interest rate shocks, keeping the debt ratio below 250% with 95% probability requires stronger gradual feedback — 0.5%-1.1% of GDP average deficit reduction in the next decade — though less strong than actually observed during 1984-2003. Successful sudden feedback requires being able to undertake 1.5%-of-GDP deficit reductions twice in thirteen-year periods, suggesting that a “wait-and-see” approach to successful deficit reduction sometimes allows little waiting.
摘要：任何财政路径都是可持续的，只要未来的财政政策能够充分应对高额赤字。以往的研究发现，当预测赤字上升时，1984-2003年间美国国会曾采取措施减少赤字。我们发现这种逐年反馈机制已经消失：2004-2024年间，国会平均没有应对预测的赤字。我们量化了未来财政反馈需要多强，才能在一百年内将债务占GDP比率保持在250%以下，同时假设官方预测中隐含的利率对债务的敏感性是给定的。如果没有财政风险，政府可以通过适度且逐步地减少赤字，或者通过在本世纪内一次性并永久性地减少赤字1.5%的GDP来成功实现这一目标。考虑到如COVID-19疫情这样的巨大短期赤字冲击以及持续的利率冲击，要以95%的概率将债务占GDP比率保持在250%以下，需要更强的逐步反馈——即在未来十年内平均减少赤字0.5%-1.1%的GDP——尽管这一反馈力度比1984-2003年间实际观察到的要弱。成功的突发性反馈要求能够在13年周期内两次进行1.5%GDP的赤字削减，这表明，成功的赤字减少有时几乎不允许采取“观望”策略。
枪支政策与钢铁悖论：来自俄勒冈州居民的证据
Katie Bollman, Benjamin Hansen, Edward A. Rubin, and Garrett O. Stanford #33360
Abstract: Using Measure 114’s narrow passage in Oregon as a natural experiment, we study how new gun regulations affect firearm demand. Background checks, a proxy for demand, rose 13.9% in anticipation of the referendum and surged 157% immediately following the election. After judicial intervention halted the law’s enactment, demand returned near pre-election levels. Temporal displacement/harvesting does not explain the demand spike: after eighteen months, we still observe a substantial cumulative increase of 63,000 excess firearm-related background checks. Administrative data reveal significant county-level heterogeneity. This evidence underscores the paradoxical effect of gun-control policies, offering a cautionary lesson to policymakers.
摘要：利用俄勒冈州第114号提案的勉强通过作为自然实验，我们研究了新枪支法规如何影响枪支需求。背景调查作为需求的代理，在公投前增加了13.9%，并在选举后立即激增157%。在司法干预暂停该法律实施后，需求回到了接近选举前的水平。时间位移/采摘效应无法解释需求的激增：经过十八个月后，我们仍然观察到63,000宗超出常规的枪支相关背景调查的累计增加。行政数据揭示了显著的县级异质性。这一证据强调了枪支管制政策的悖论效应，并为决策者提供了警示性的教训。
往期精选：
