Innovation policy involves trading off monopoly output and pricing in the short run in exchange for incentives for firms to develop new products in the future. While existing research demonstrates that expected profits fuel R&D investments, little is known about the novelty of the projects funded by these investments. Relying on data that describe the scientific approaches used by a large sample of experimental drug projects, we expand on this literature by examining the scientific novelty of pharmaceutical R&D investments following the creation of the Medicare Part D program. We find little evidence that the positive demand shock implied by this program prompted firms to undertake scientifically novel R&D activity, as measured by whether the specific scientific approach had been used before. However, we find some evidence that firms invested in products involving novel combinations of scientific approaches. These estimates can inform economists and policymakers assessing the tradeoffs associated with marginal changes in commercial returns from newly developed pharmaceutical products.

This paper proposes a new methodology for estimating teacher value-added. Rather than imposing a normality assumption on unobserved teacher quality (as in the standard empirical Bayes approach), our nonparametric estimator permits the underlying distribution to be estimated directly and in a computationally feasible way. The resulting estimates fit the unobserved distribution very well regardless of the form it takes, as we show in Monte Carlo simulations. Implementing the nonparametric approach in practice using two separate large-scale administrative data sets, we find the estimated teacher value-added distributions depart from normality and differ from each other. To draw out the policy implications of our method, we first consider a widely-discussed policy to release teachers at the bottom of the value-added distribution, comparing predicted test score gains under our nonparametric approach with those using parametric empirical Bayes. Here the parametric method predicts similar policy gains in one data set while overestimating those in the other by a substantial margin. We also show the predicted gains from teacher retention policies can be underestimated significantly based on the parametric method. In general, the results highlight the benefit of our nonparametric empirical Bayes approach, given that the unobserved distribution of value-added is likely to be context-specific.

Recent research has highlighted unequal treatment for women in academic economics along several different dimensions, including promotion, hiring, credit for co-authorship, and standards for publication in professional journals. Can the source of these differences lie in biases against women that are pervasive in the discipline, even among students in the earliest stages of their training? In this paper, we provide evidence on the importance of explicit and implicit biases against women among students in economics relative to other fields. We conducted a large scale survey among undergraduate students in Chilean universities, among both entering first-year students and students in years 2 and above. On a wide battery of measures, economics students are more biased than students in other fields. Economics students are somewhat more biased already upon entry, before exposure to any economics classes. The gap is more pronounced among students in years 2 and above, in particular for male students. We also find an increase in bias in a sample of students that we follow longitudinally. Differences in political ideology explain essentially all the gap at entry, but none of the increase in the gap with exposure. Exposure to female students and faculty attenuates some of the bias.

A member of the U.S. Navy who serves as one of President Trump’s personal valets has tested positive for coronavirus.

Elon Musk is cruising toward another major payday.

Conservative firebrand Dennis Prager has taken a break from pushing hydroxychloroquine and calling lockdowns “the greatest mistake” in history to rail against the loss of racist language.

The claim seeks damages in connection with the release of cellphone pictures taken by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies at the scene of the Jan. 26 tragedy in Calabasas.

The desperate search for two teens who vanished while tubing in Utah continued on Saturday, days after the pair were swept up in an intense storm.

The claim seeks damages in connection with the release of cellphone pictures taken by Los Angeles County Sheriff’s deputies at the scene of the Jan. 26 tragedy in Calabasas.

Lysacek, originally from Naperville, took a loss on the two-bedroom condo.

A private island in Islamorada on the Florida Keys is for sale for $17 million. The island is called Terra's Key, after its owner John Terra, and has historical significance dating back to the 1800s.

Looking for a house? Well, there’s a free one in New Jersey if you want it. You just need to come and get it. Literally.

Jay Cutler and Kristin Cavalarri have chopped the price of their Tennnessee mansion to $4.95 million.

Sporting events in the Netherlands will have to take place without fans in attendance until there is a vaccine for coronavirus, Health Minister Hugo de Jonge said.

We show a causal impact of immigration on innovation and dynamism in US counties. To identify the causal impact of immigration, we use 130 years of detailed data on migrations from foreign countries to US counties to isolate quasi-random variation in the ancestry composition of US counties that results purely from the interaction of two historical forces: (i) changes over time in the relative attractiveness of different destinations within the US to the average migrant arriving at the time and (ii) the staggered timing of the arrival of migrants from different origin countries. We then use this plausibly exogenous variation in ancestry composition to predict the total number of migrants flowing into each US county in recent decades. We show four main results. First, immigration has a positive impact on innovation, measured by the patenting of local firms. Second, immigration has a positive impact on measures of local economic dynamism. Third, the positive impact of immigration on innovation percolates over space, but spatial spillovers quickly die out with distance. Fourth, the impact of immigration on innovation is stronger for more educated migrants.

Creepy video of an intruder with a knife roaming through a sleeping man’s kitchen in Brooklyn was released by police Sunday night.

“Those people shot him to kill him. It’s a miracle that my son is alive,” Carmen Cruz said of the Feb. 6 incident in which her son, 26-year-old Erick Diaz-Cruz, was wounded in a confrontation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Gravesend.

The murder may have happened outside the city.

An 83-year-old man was punched and had a gun put to his head by two masked men in Brooklyn, according to video released by police.

A fast-growing New York state program that funds math and science teacher salaries at private schools paid out hundreds of thousands of dollars to some of the city’s priciest private schools that can charge over $50,000 a year for tuition, the Daily News has learned.

Two city Council member proposed universal summer camp.

The probe is part of a broader effort to monitor the influx of donations from other countries to American universities, which also includes investigations at Georgetown and Texas A&M. U.S. colleges are required under federal law to report foreign donations of $250,000 are more.

Shay Pilnik, the new president of the Yeshiva center and himself the grandson of Holocaust survivors, said the recent spate of anti-semitic attacks in New York shows the urgency of coordinated, deep study of the Holocaust.

Teachers, parents, and supporters of Heketi Community Charter School in Mott Haven are fighting back, arguing that the school met its goals for academic growth.

CUNY officials hope the new relief effort — started with two $1 million donations from the Dimon and Petrie Foundations — will eventually grow to $10 million.

Twenty-two of the city’s 25,000 paraprofessionals have died from the coronavirus, a rate four times higher than the rest of the 150,000-employee Department of Education, according to the agency’s data.

Schools chancellor Richard Carranza put the kibosh on the app in early April, several weeks into the city’s seismic shift to remote learning, citing concerns about Zoom’s privacy and security features.

Football's lawmakers have approved a temporary rule change that will allow each side up to five substitutes per match, while opening up the prospect for the controversial video assistant referee system to be suspended.

Runaway vote leader Pat Spillane and five-time All-Star Sean Cavanagh join Mikey Stafford and Rory O'Neill to discuss the best half-forwards of The Sunday Game era.

Now you can specify a pool of hashtags, and random hashtags from your pool will be added to your posts.

The post Advanced Hashtags Feature Will Enhance Your Automated Posting appeared first on RSSground.com.

Shelter in place orders (SIPOs) require residents to remain home for all but essential activities such as purchasing food or medicine, caring for others, exercise, or traveling for employment deemed essential. Between March 19 and April 20, 2020, 40 states and the District of Columbia adopted SIPOs. This study explores the impact of SIPOs on health, with particular attention to heterogeneity in their impacts. First, using daily state-level social distancing data from SafeGraph and a difference-in-differences approach, we document that adoption of a SIPO was associated with a 5 to 10 percent increase in the rate at which state residents remained in their homes full-time. Then, using daily state-level coronavirus case data collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, we find that approximately three weeks following the adoption of a SIPO, cumulative COVID-19 cases fell by 44 percent. Event-study analyses confirm common COVID-19 case trends in the week prior to SIPO adoption and show that SIPO-induced case reductions grew larger over time. However, this average effect masks important heterogeneity across states — early adopters and high population density states appear to reap larger benefits from their SIPOs. Finally, we find that statewide SIPOs were associated with a reduction in coronavirus-related deaths, but estimated mortality effects were imprecisely estimated.

A member of the U.S. Navy who serves as one of President Trump’s personal valets has tested positive for coronavirus.

In the late 1970s, a harbor seal named Hoover began catcalling passersby at the New England Aquarium in a thick Maine accent. A new study confirms seals’ uncanny ability to copy human speech.

Quantum physics impacts the technology students use every day. Use these resources from NOVA broadcasts, NOVA Digital, and What the Physics!? to introduce quantum concepts to your classroom.

PBS leads the list with 47 nominations.

With a goal to empower youth to tell stories about the world in new ways, NOVA Science Studio was able to give students exposure to a wide range of careers in STEM, journalism, and media production.

A rare iron isotope produced by exploding stars has been found in Antarctic snow.

Both treatments rely on infusing patients with antibodies that latch onto the virus and block it from invading cells.

New findings suggest Neanderthals evolved their unusually broad fingers after they split from Denisovans, just 400,000 years ago.

Lava descending into Hawai‘i’s ocean drove an upward surge of deep sea nutrients, cultivating life at the surface.

Scientists say the planet, called K2-18b, is “the best candidate for habitability” beyond our solar system.

American pikas’ responses to climate are driven by location, location, location.

Even forests that look green from space can show symptoms of impending decline.

The relationships these winged mammals forge in captivity are strong enough to survive the jarring transition back into the wild.

New research quantifies the fire risks of eight species of invasive grass.