Institutional research & analysis

Source: NBER

RESEARCH

Working PaperMay 15, 2026

Extreme Equilibria: The Benefits of Correlation -- by Kirill Rudov, Fedor Sandomirskiy, Leeat Yariv

Correlated equilibria arise naturally when agents communicate or rely on intermediaries such as recommendation systems. We study when a given Nash equilibrium can be improved within the set of correlated equilibria for general objectives. Our key insight is a detail-free criterion: any Nash equilibrium with three or more randomizing agents is generically improvable. We refine this insight to specific classes of games and objectives, including Pareto and utilitarian welfare, and provide constr...

NBER1 min read

Working PaperMay 15, 2026

Opt In? Opt Out? -- by Alex Chan, Ayush Gupta, Yetong Xu

Cadaveric organ shortages leave thousands without life-saving transplants each year. Countries differ in using opt-in (informed consent) or opt-out (presumed consent) systems for donor registration. Using newly assembled cross-country panel data and an event-study design, this paper provides evidence that presumed-consent laws increase organ donation only when strictly enforced and family veto power is limited; weak opt-out regimes show negligible or even negative effects. A theoretical signa...

NBER1 min read

Working PaperMay 15, 2026

The Postpandemic U.S. Immigration Surge: New Facts and Inflationary Implications -- by Anton Cheremukhin, Sewon Hur, Ronald R. Mau, Karel Mertens, Alexander W. Richter, Xiaoqing Zhou

The U.S. experienced an extraordinary surge in immigration from 2021 to 2024, which triggered widespread discussions about its macroeconomic impact, particularly on inflation. To determine the impact of the immigration surge, we first document the salient features of these new immigrants: they are primarily low-skilled relative to the existing workforce and more likely to be hand-to-mouth consumers. We then incorporate these features into a heterogeneous agent model with capital-skill complem...

NBER1 min read

Working PaperMay 15, 2026

On the Negative Consequences of Low-Wage Offshoring for Innovation -- by Wulong Gu, Alla Lileeva, Daniel Trefler

Conventional wisdom holds that offshoring intermediates to China stimulates innovation. This is not entirely compelling. On the one hand, (a) offshoring lowers marginal costs and expands sales, thereby increasing the returns to innovation, especially for large firms. On the other hand, (b) offshoring low-quality intermediates reduces the costs of older-generation products, thereby reducing the returns to innovating into newer generations. We examine these two opposing forces over 2002-2011 fo...

NBER1 min read

Working PaperMay 15, 2026

Interest Rate Caps, Competition, and Strategic Borrowing: Evidence from Kenya -- by Aroon Narayanan, Tavneet Suri, Prashant Bharadwaj

We study Kenya’s 2016 interest-rate regulation, which capped bank lending rates but left one digital platform, called M-Shwari, exempt on the lending side while imposing a deposit-rate floor across all lenders in the market. Using borrower-level administrative data, survey data, and an RD around the implementation date, we show three main results. First, lending on the exempt platform rose, but with the safest borrowers substituting away toward cheaper capped credit. Second, riskier borrowers...

NBER1 min read

Working PaperMay 15, 2026

Health Inequalities Among Danish Retirees 2004-2022 -- by Paul Bingley, Nabanita Datta Gupta, Malene Kallestrup-Lamb, Alexander O.K. Marin

Using Danish SHARE data from 2004–2022, we examine income gradients in health among retirees ages 60–79 across functional, diagnosed, comprehensive, mental, and cognitive domains. Higher-income retirees are healthier across all dimensions, but the evolution of inequality differs across measures. Functional and comprehensive health gaps narrow over time because lower-income retirees improve, whereas mental health gaps remain large and persistent. Diagnosed and cognitive health show smaller, le...

NBER1 min read

Working PaperMay 15, 2026

Building Opportunity: The Intergenerational Effects of Chilean School Construction -- by Adrienne Lucas, Patrick McEwan

In 1965–1966, Chile built and staffed thousands of new primary classrooms in supply-constrained communities. Using a quasi-experimental design and large census samples, we show that childhood exposure to school construction substantially improved the schooling and labor market outcomes of adults and closed a persistent female disadvantage in school attainment. Women’s exposure to the policy had large intergenerational spillovers on their children’s on-time grade progression and completed scho...

NBER1 min read