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We study how ownership structure, in particular public listing status, affects workplace safety and productivity tradeoffs. Theory offers competing hypotheses on how listing related frictions affect these tradeoffs. We exploit detailed asset-level data in the U.S. coal industry and find that workplace safety deteriorates dramatically under public firm ownership, primarily in mines that experience the largest productivity increases. We find evidence consistent with information asymmetry between managers and shareholders of public firms, and ties of private firm ownership with local communities being first-order drivers of workplace safety and productivity tradeoffs.

How do persistent cash flow shocks affect debt repayment across the distribution of households? Using individual data on natural gas shale royalty payments matched with credit bureau data for 215,639 consumers, we estimate that individuals repay 33 cents of debt per dollar of windfall, and that initially-subprime individuals repay approximately 5 times more debt than initially-prime individuals do. This difference in debt repayment is driven by changes to revolving debt balances. Finally, we show that debt repayment precedes durable goods consumption, particularly for households who were initially financially constrained. These results shed new light on how deleveraging affects household consumption.

We examine how wealth windfalls affect self-employment decisions using data on cash payments from claims on Texas shale drilling to people throughout the United States. Individuals who receive large wealth shocks (greater than $50,000) have 51% higher self-employment rates. The increase in self-employment rates is driven by individuals who lengthen existing self-employment spells, and not by individuals who leave regular employment for self-employment. Moreover, the effect of wealth reverts for individuals whose payments run out. Rather than alleviating a financial constraint, our evidence suggests that unrestricted cash windfalls affect self-employment decisions primarily through self-employment’s non-pecuniary benefits.

We use evidence from asset price data to quantify the contribution of shale oil to the U.S. economy. Equity market valuations of rms engaged in shale oil extraction reect the market’s expectations about the future growth in shale oil supply and its potential for raising aggregate productivity in the U.S. economy. We use returns on an index of shale oil producers orthogonalized with respect to oil prices and industry-wide return controls to extract an empirical measure of shale-specic productivity innovations. This hedged strategy explains roughly 10% of the increase in aggregate U.S. equity market capitalization since 2010.

This paper studies how shifts in voter preferences from large wealth shocks affect political change. Support for conservatives rises after shale oil and gas booms and Republican candidates gain votes. Roll-call voting becomes more conservative after shale booms across many issues, including those unrelated to energy. These changes occur because Republicans win seats from Democrats, as opposed to Democratic incumbents voting more conservatively. Even among incumbent Democrats who do vote more conservatively, we find no increase in their re-election likelihood. The results suggest that incumbent politicians face challenges committing to move toward new voter preferences.