A June 2026 NBER working paper examines whether employee reviews can reveal information about product and service quality before problems become visible externally. Wei Cai, Dennis Campbell, Yaxuan Chen, Yufei Chen and Andrea Prat use more than 4.3 million Glassdoor reviews to construct firm-level quality measures for S&P 1500 companies covering 2008 to 2023. The authors train machine-learning models using customer satisfaction information for a subset of firms and

An NBER working paper circulated in the newsletter received on 15 June 2026 examines a monthly office day for remote customer-service employees. Researchers randomly assigned 248 employees at a large multinational to remain fully remote or meet at the office together one day each month. The study reports higher productivity and lower attrition in the treatment group. The experiment offers evidence about a defined arrangement in a particular workplace.

Alex Chan’s working paper, Optimal Medical Liability for AI, is dated 9 June 2026 in the Harvard Business School version and was circulated by NBER in June 2026. The paper develops a theoretical framework for situations where AI acts as a doctor rather than only assisting a clinician. It examines how the available medical record affects the incentives and responsibilities that a liability arrangement can create. The argument is

The version of NBER Working Paper 35275 circulated in the newsletter received on 1 June 2026 studies AI coding tools using data on more than 100,000 GitHub developers and their tool usage. Its matched event-study analysis finds substantial increases in coding activity, with smaller gains as the outcome moves from commits to projects and actual releases. This article concerns that archived version. The NBER page subsequently lists a September

NBER Working Paper 35265, issued in May 2026 and circulated in the newsletter received on 1 June 2026, revisits the employer size wage effect. Using linked German data on firms, establishments and employees, the researchers find that the usual relationship between establishment size and wages disappears across establishments within the same large firm after controlling for the firm. The result distinguishes two comparisons that can otherwise be confused: employees

Management of Health Care Facilities and Patient Attendance during Major Disruptions: Evidence from Kenya, NBER Working Paper 35223, links a management survey with administrative data. The May 2026 study covers 429 primary healthcare facilities and 73 hospitals and examines outpatient attendance during disruption that included COVID-19 and a public health workers’ strike. The authors report that attendance fell overall. Private facilities experienced a smaller decline than public facilities, consistent

Preference for Explainable AI, NBER Working Paper 35240 by Alex Chan, studies participants acting as loan officers on real $10,000 loans from a US lender. The May 2026 paper finds that explanations revealing demographic penalties made participants more likely to override the AI recommendation. When bonuses depended on repayment, participants sought predictions but avoided explanations under some experimental conditions. A secondary experiment examines difficulty recognising when explanations improve decisions.

Endogenous Task Bundling, Skills and Automation, NBER Working Paper 35211 by Joshua S. Gans, examines how firms recombine activities after automation. The May 2026 paper argues that holding the pre-automation task bundle fixed can obscure which remaining human skills are rewarded. Its model shows that a wage regression based on a fixed bundle can misidentify the sign of an AI-exposure effect. This is a theoretical result, not a measured

The May 2026 NBER Digest presents Firm Data on AI, Working Paper 34836. The research draws on a survey of nearly 6,000 executives in four countries and examines AI use, reported effects and expectations. The paper was issued in February and revised in March; the Digest provides the May summary. Adoption and realised effects are distinct. Expectations about productivity or employment differ from reported changes over a past period.

The May 2026 NBER Digest discusses Competition and Fraud in Health Care, Working Paper 34802, issued in February. The study examines Medicare procurement of durable medical equipment after a move from administered prices to competitive bidding. The authors find that fraudulent firms gained market share as legitimate providers exited, reflecting a cost advantage for fraudulent operators. The findings concern a specific setting. They do not establish the same outcome

An NBER working paper by Joseph S. Briggs, Ciaran Rogers and Christopher Tonetti examines demand for saving, life insurance, annuities and long-term care insurance. Its survey evidence documents perceived risk that insurers may not pay, and those beliefs predict insurance ownership. The authors incorporate the elicited beliefs and other insurance features into a structural life-cycle model. Their counterfactual results concern outcomes generated by that model. They are not observed

Michelle Yin, Hoa Vu and Claudia Persico’s NBER working paper examines the stability of occupational exposure scores produced by large language models. The April 2026 abstract reports a 3.6-fold difference in mean exposure when three models apply the same rubric to identical tasks, with agreement as low as 57%. The abstract also reports that changing the annotator changes downstream empirical estimates. The study therefore concerns measurement reliability as well

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has advanced dramatically in recent years, with impacts that are already reshaping society, business, and individual lives. Yet many of these implications remain poorly understood and unevenly shared. Focusing on the economic dimension, the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) published in September 2025 a working paper by Erik Brynjolfsson, Anton Korinek, and Ajay K. Agrawal: “A Research Agenda for the Economics of Transformative AI.”

In the ever-evolving landscape of global economics, the concept of wealth distribution has taken center stage. One policy that has garnered attention is profit-sharing, especially in its mandatory form. The research paper titled “The Effects of Mandatory Profit-Sharing on Workers and Firms: Evidence from France” by Elio Nimier-David, David Sraer, and David Thesmar offers a deep dive into this subject. Let’s unpack their findings. Historical Background of Profit-Sharing in

Introduction In the complex domain of health insurance, adverse selection persistently surfaces as a critical issue, influencing pricing and product allocation among consumers. The research paper, “The Incidence of Adverse Selection: Theory and Evidence from Health Insurance Choices,” authored by Michael Geruso, Timothy Layton, and Adam Leive, meticulously explores the multifaceted implications of adverse selection, particularly its impact on pricing and product allocation among consumers, and its distributional consequences.

In a world where financial boundaries are constantly blurring, understanding the nuances of global capital allocation has never been more critical. The recent NBER research report by Sergio Florez-Orrego, Matteo Maggiori, Jesse Schreger, Ziwen Sun, and Serdil Tinda sheds light on this intricate landscape, offering a road map for future research and policy implications. Let’s delve into the key takeaways from this comprehensive study. The Surge in Cross-Border Investments

Seasonal allergies, a common adversary for many, have far-reaching implications that extend beyond sneezes and itchy eyes. A groundbreaking study titled “Invisible Killer: Seasonal Allergies and Accidents” by Mika Akesaka and Hitoshi Shigeoka delves deep into the unseen repercussions of pollen exposure, unveiling a peril that is more significant than previously perceived. The Underestimated Impact of Pollen Traditionally, the societal cost of pollen exposure has been measured in terms

September 9, 2023 – In a thought-provoking research paper titled “Retirement Consumption and Pension Design,” the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) delves into the intricacies of retirement planning and pension structures. This study, authored by Jonas Kolsrud, Camille Landais, Daniel Reck & Johannes Spinnewijn, offers valuable insights into how individuals’ retirement consumption patterns are influenced by the design of pension systems. The Research Paper The full research paper can be accessed here,

Insurance and Propagation in Village Networks, NBER working paper: non-insured events have a lasting impact on the entire supply chain.

The Washington, D.C.-based National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) in September 2019 published a working paper, The Impact of Brexit on UK Firms, authored by Nicholas Bloom, Philip Bunn, Scarlet Chen, Paul Mizen, Pawel Smietanka, and Gregory Thwaites. The authors identify three key results from a survey of UK firms, the Decision Maker Panel. According to the abstract of the 59-page article: “First, the UK’s decision to leave the