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Nakitte

Institutional research & analysis

Reports

Curated financial intelligence from central banks, sovereign funds, and think tanks.

Working PaperJune 9, 2026

Measuring Housing Quality Using Revealed Preference: A Geographic PageRank Approach -- by Alex Bell, Sophie Calder-Wang, Shusheng Zhong

This paper introduces Geographic PageRank (GPR), an innovative measure of place quality that is based on migration decisions, employing a recursive algorithm that leverages the full network of migration flows. Using various public data sources, we construct GPR rankings for U.S. counties and metropolitan areas. We also extend the rankings to capture changes over time and differences for population subgroups, providing a versatile data product. As an application, we show that GPR can serve as ...

NBER1 min read
Working PaperJune 9, 2026

The Effect of Height on Adolescents' Body Image Perceptions and Behaviors -- by Monica Deza, Neiva J. Fortes, Maria Zhu

This paper estimates the causal effect of height on adolescents’ body image, encompassing self-perceptions of weight, the accuracy of those perceptions, and weight-management aspirations. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97), we leverage within-individual variation in height during adolescence and condition on body mass index (BMI) to isolate the effects of height on body image outcomes. We find that taller adolescents are more likely to perceive themselves ...

NBER1 min read
Working PaperJune 9, 2026

Reducing Gun Violence at Scale -- by Max Kapustin, Aaron Chalfin, Jeremy Biddle, Brian A. Wade, Natasha Khade, Cristina Layana, Ben Struhl, Anthony A. Braga

Baltimore's homicide rate fell by roughly 60% between 2022 and 2025, an exceptional decline among large U.S. cities. At the start of this period, Baltimore launched a strategy that concentrated police and social service resources on a small set of people thought to be driving group-involved gun violence. The approach—“focused deterrence”—has been implemented in some form by cities across the U.S. The strategy was introduced first in the Western police district, one of the highest-violence com...

NBER1 min read
Working PaperJune 9, 2026

Incentives, Evidence, and Reminders for Bureaucrats: Overcoming Barriers to Policy Scale Up -- by Patrick Agte, Daniel R. Morales, Christopher Neilson, Sebastián Otero, Gautam Rao

Scaling up effective policies often requires the attention of frontline bureaucrats with many competing responsibilities. Even when policymakers adopt effective programs, implementation may not follow. In a nationwide experiment in the Dominican Republic, we test interventions to increase school principals' implementation of an educational program proven effective in a previous RCT. Only 37% of control schools verifiably implemented the intervention when ordered to by the Ministry of Educatio...

NBER1 min read
Working PaperJune 9, 2026

What Investment Data Implies about the AI Transition -- by Jessica Wachter, Jonathan Wachter

The five largest U.S. technology firms spent $380 billion on capital expenditure in 2025 and are forecast to spend roughly double that in 2026. These firms risk bankruptcy unless expected profits grow commensurately. We embed this observation in a two-sector open-economy model with rare productivity booms. We calibrate the boom size to match the observed increase in investment projected through 2027, implying that a boom raises AI-sector productivity by a factor of roughly 2.7. We then calibr...

NBER1 min read
Working PaperJune 9, 2026

Water Works: Causes and Consequences of Safe Drinking Water in America -- by David A. Keiser, Bhashkar Mazumder, David Molitor, Joseph S. Shapiro

Since the 1974 Safe Drinking Water Act, the U.S. has spent $2 trillion to provide safe drinking water, yet drinking water for 10–20 percent of Americans violates standards. We study trends, causes, and consequences of U.S. drinking water pollution, using 266 million readings on 1,250 pollutants over decades that we obtained from 48 states via dozens of Freedom of Information Act and associated requests. We link pollution to administrative Medicare data on older Americans' health outcomes. Thr...

NBER1 min read
Development ReportJune 9, 2026

ADB to Mobilize $30 Billion by 2030 to Support ASEAN Countries

ADB has announced it will mobilize $30 billion by 2030 to help the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) advance long-term development priorities and withstand external shocks. ADB President Masato Kanda announced the commitment during his attendance at the 48th ASEAN Summit in Cebu, where its leaders welcomed ADB’s longstanding partnership with the bloc and its role as the region’s main bank.

ADB1 min read