Economics Insights @ CBS

Emissions abatement alone cannot address the consequences of global warming for weather disasters. We model how society adapts to manage disaster risks to capital stock. Optimal adaptation — a mix of firm-level efforts and public spending — varies as society learns about the adverse consequences of global warming for disaster arrivals. Taxes on capital are needed alongside those on carbon to achieve the first best.

We study a regulation in Chile that mandates warning labels on products whose sugar or caloric concentration exceeds certain thresholds.We show that consumers substitute from labeled to unlabeled products—a pattern mostly driven by  products that consumers mistakenly believe to be healthy. On the supply side, we find substantial reformulation of products and bunching at the thresholds.

This paper analyzes the entire business registry of Colombia during 2015 to 2022, a period when Colombia received two million Venezuelan immigrants and refugees. We present two main findings. First, firms owned by foreigners, most of them Venezuelans, tend to be 10 to 20 percent more capitalized when founded, as compared to firms owned by locals within the same industry, geographic location, and year of registration. Second, while more intensive in capital, these firms owned by foreigners are just as likely to survive the first 2 and 3 years as firms owned by locals.