Key Highlights
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This study examines how GDP per head varied across different regions within China from 1080 to 1850. Mapping these within-country differences matters because it informs the wider “great divergence” debate about when and where economic gaps between world regions emerged.
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The authors propose a “money-metric” measure of social welfare for discrete choices that allows for unrestricted differences across people and for income effects. This matters because they show its distribution can be identified nonparametrically from a closed-form function of average structural demand for the outside option, making it practical for cost-benefit analysis and targeting policies.
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Using more than two decades of returns from 100 U.S. stocks (2002–2023), this paper finds the simple EWMA volatility filter is not consistently beaten by more complex high-frequency-based multivariate volatility models at daily and weekly horizons in a global minimum-variance portfolio exercise. This matters because EWMA can even deliver significant utility gains when transaction costs are included, thanks to a favorable tradeoff between portfolio turnover and realized volatility.
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This paper uses a quantitative trade model to compare how countries respond to U.S. tariffs—retaliatory tariffs, subsidies/industrial policy, or signing trade agreements for new market access—and evaluates the trade and welfare effects of each. This matters because it finds global and liberalizing-country real income is higher when partners choose deeper integration, even when U.S. tariffs are in place.
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Using Afrobarometer wave 9 data covering 39 African countries, this study finds an individual’s poverty status is significantly associated with lower reported quality of healthcare in government hospitals, including issues like medical supplies, staff presence, waiting times, facility quality, and respectful treatment. This matters because the results suggest that improving economic conditions alongside service delivery could jointly strengthen health outcomes and broader economic well-being.
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