Data is the starting point
Discovery is the path
Impact is the goal

BFI Data Studio

Data
is the starting point

Discovery
is the path

Impact
is the goal

BFI Data Studio

Our Projects

The 2017 Tax Cut and Jobs Act (TCJA) reduced corporate tax revenue by 40%. Firms experiencing larger tax rate cuts invested more, raising total investment by 11%. The TCJA raised GDP by less than 1%.

The increase in aggregate student debt and the struggles of today’s borrowers can be traced to changes in federal policies intended to broaden access to educational opportunities, which increased enrollment and borrowing in higher-risk circumstances.

Return-to-office (RTO) mandates drive employees away from firms, with senior employees leaving at the highest rates, likely leading to significant human capital costs in terms of output, productivity, innovation, and competitiveness for the companies implementing strict RTO policies.

BFI Interactive Research Brief on ChatGPT Adoption

Half of workers have used ChatGPT, with younger, less experienced, higher-achieving, and especially male workers leading the curve. Workers see substantial productivity potential in using ChatGPT, and informing workers about expert assessments of ChatGPT shifts their beliefs but has limited impacts on their adoption of ChatGPT.

Evan Rose Discrimination Report Card graphic

A new statistical methodology grades the race and gender callback gaps of large US employers.

In Chicago, welfare would be increased by charging almost nothing for public transit, increasing the frequency of trains, and lowering the frequency of buses. Road pricing reduces environmental externalities, but only benefits travelers if the revenues are used for transit subsidies and rebates.

Graphic: Algorithm policy

Policies that implement the use of algorithms for making pretrial release decisions, referring medical patients for testing, and guiding workplace safety inspections would provide large benefits and pay for themselves in the long run.

Graphic: identifying the people on the righthand side of the Laffer Curve

For a small subset of criminal defendants, often those who are poor, Black, and charged with felonies, court fines are set so high that reducing them could increase revenue. Decreasing court fines for the average defendant, however, would come at substantial cost to governments.

BFI Interactive Research Brief on Platform Gig Work

Research illustrates the demographic composition, earnings amounts, and tax-filing behavior of new platform gig workers over time.

Figure: Labor Supply Scenarios for Injured Workers

Injured workers who reskill through bachelor’s programs earn 25% more than before their injuries and avoid being prescribed antidepressants or receiving disability insurance.

By applying machine-learning algorithms to human behavior data, this paper offers a novel approach to hypothesis generation for scientific research; the authors apply this framework to reveal that judges rely on facial characteristics of defendants when making incarceration decisions.

Figure: Daily Commute Time Savings When Working from Home (Minutes)

Work from home saved about two hours per week per worker in 2021 and 2022, and will likely save about one hour per week per worker after the pandemic ends; workers allocate 40 percent of time savings to work and about 11 percent to caregiving activities.

Figure: Disaggregated Economic Accounts

This novel research improves upon current aggregate economic tracking measures to include disaggregated economic accounts that enrich our understanding of economic shocks and their effects.

Figure: Automated Enforcement Interactive

View the impact of automating enforcement on the average household’s water use and water savings, and probability of calling customer service.

About

The BFI Data Studio is an initiative of the University of Chicago’s Becker Friedman Institute for Economics. It collaborates with UChicago economists to transform research and data into interactive projects that visually convey key insights and drive real-world impact.

For inquiries, email us at bfidatastudio@uchicago.edu.

If you are a UChicago scholar interested in collaborating, fill out this form.

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