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The Digest

Prescription Access and Public Health Outcomes
Article
 The hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a major public health concern due to its high infection and mortality rates. Recent pharmaceutical innovations known as direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) have the potential to cure HCV and can also generate positive health externalities through reduced transmission. However, the high cost of these drugs—with a sticker price of approximately $84,000 for the course of treatment when initially introduced in 2013—creates substantial obstacles...

Credit Cards and the Financing of Small Businesses
Article
 Borrowing on credit cards is an important source of finance for many small businesses. In Credit Card Entrepreneurs (NBER Working Paper 33618), Ufuk Akcigit, Raman Singh Chhina, Seyit M. Cilasun, Javier Miranda, and Nicolas Serrano-Velarde study the experiences of small US businesses during the monetary policy tightening of 2022–23 to shed light on this important financing channel.When the banks that issue credit cards used by small businesses cut back...

The Reporter

Program Report: Development of the American Economy
Article
Author(s): Leah Platt Boustan & William J. Collins
The Development of the American Economy (DAE) program was one of the first research programs launched by Martin Feldstein in 1978 when he formalized the modern structure of the NBER.The mission of the program is to research historical aspects of the American economy. Its members are economic historians whose specific interests span many subfields within economics, including macroeconomics, labor economics, finance, political economy, trade, and industrial organization....

Collusion in Public Procurement
Article
Author(s): Sylvain Chassang & Kei Kawai
In both developed and developing countries, annual spending on public procurement averages about 12 percent of national GDP. The efficiency of public procurement can have a long-run impact on the growth and productivity of countries. A major challenge in achieving efficiency, however, is the possibility of collusion among suppliers. Collusive agreements increase prices, leading to wasted tax dollars or, in the case of developing countries, wasted foreign aid. These...

The Bulletin on Retirement & Disability

Health Inequality and Economic Disparities by Race, Ethnicity, and Gender
Article
In Health Inequality and Economic Disparities by Race, Ethnicity, and Gender (NBER Working Paper 32971 an earlier version, NBER RDRC Paper NB23-11), Nicolò Russo, Rory McGee, Mariacristina De Nardi, Margherita Borella, and Ross Abram use data from the Health and Retirement Study over the period 1996–2018 to evaluate measures of health inequality in middle age and the consequences of such health disparities. At age 55, Black men and women...

Disability Benefits, Aggregate Economic Conditions, and Earnings
Article
In How Do Economic Conditions Affect Earnings and Return to Disability Programs for Beneficiaries Whose Benefits Were Terminated? (NBER RDRC Paper NB22-03), Jeffrey Hemmeter, Kathleen Mullen, and Stephanie Rennane find that individuals whose benefits end due to medical improvement during an economic downturn earn less in the short run and are more likely to reapply for benefits within five years than those whose benefits end during stronger economic...

The Bulletin on Health

Health Status and Work Capacity Remain High at Older Ages, Especially for Educated Adults
Article
Proposed increases in the eligibility age for retirement benefits raise questions about the health status of older adults and their ability to continue working beyond current retirement ages. In Trends in Work Capacity in the US Population: Are Recent Cohorts in Worse Health? (NBER Working Paper 33733), David M. Cutler, Ellen Meara, and Susan Stewart describe the age profile of health status for older adults in the US, how it has changed across cohorts, and how it differs...

Medicaid’s Lifesaving Effects on Low-Income Adults
Article
Lower-income adults in the US are more likely to lack health insurance and to suffer worse health, a correlation that raises the long-standing question of whether health insurance affects health. In Saved by Medicaid: New Evidence on Health Insurance and Mortality from the Universe of Low-Income Adults (NBER Working Paper 33719), Angela Wyse and Bruce D. Meyer present new evidence on this question by evaluating the consequences of recent Medicaid expansions. The largest...

The Bulletin on Entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship as an Alternative to Flexibility at Work
Article
The surge in remote work in recent years has transformed labor markets, with potentially important implications for the interaction between workplace flexibility and entrepreneurship. In Hustling from Home? Work from Home Flexibility and Entrepreneurial Entry (NBER Working Paper 33237), John M. Barrios, Yael Hochberg, and Hanyi (Livia) Yi explore whether the increased flexibility provided by work-from-home (WFH) arrangements has affected entrepreneurial decisions....

The Earnings of Self-Employed Workers
Article
Self-employed workers have significantly higher average incomes and steeper, more persistent income growth profiles than their paid-employed counterparts, according to On the Nature of Entrepreneurship (NBER Working Paper 32948), a study by Anmol Bhandari, Tobey Kass, Thomas J. May, Ellen McGrattan, and Evan Schulz. The researchers analyze a new longitudinal dataset constructed from Internal Revenue Service and Social Security Administration records,...