The use of grouped data results in a downward bias in estimates of inequality because grouping omits intra-group inequality. This note shows that using grouped data may not lead to similar difficulties when estimating statistics such as the Gini income elasticity, which provides information on the impact on inequality of a marginal change in an income source, tax, or transfer.

The Dollar-Kraay result (that the income elasticity of the lowest quintile’s income is essentially one) is identified as a statistical artifact related to the irregular sampling intervals in their data. Corrected results suggest an asymmetric response to growth versus decline.

Health expenditures as a share of GDP in the United States have more than tripled over the past half-century. A common conjecture is that this is a consequence of rising income. We investigate this hypothesis by instrumenting for local area income with time series variation in oil prices interacted with local oil reserves. This strategy enables us to capture both partial equilibrium and local g...

This paper exploits a temporary shock to distance, the closing of Suez canal in 1967 and its reopening 1975, examine effect distance on trade income. Time series variation sea allows for inclusion pair effects which account static differences tastes culture between countries. Distance is found have significant impact with an elasticity that about half as large estimates from typical cross secti...

We study the impact of widespread adoption work-from-home (WFH) technology using an equilibrium model where people choose to live, how allocate their time between working at home and office, much space use in production. A key parameter is elasticity substitution office that we estimate cross-sectional time-use data. The indicates pandemic induced a large change relative productivity which will...

In this paper we examine the effect of the income tax on charitable giving. An important challenge in this literature has been to estimate the long-run response of giving to a persistent change in tax-price, which can be difficult to distinguish from intertemporal substitution arising from differences between current and expected future tax prices, arising for example due to transitory fluctuat...

Health expenditures as a share of GDP in the United States have more than tripled over the past half-century. A common conjecture is that this is a consequence of rising income. We investigate this hypothesis by instrumenting for local area income with time series variation in oil prices interacted with local oil reserves. This strategy enables us to capture both partial equilibrium and local g...