AEJ Best Paper Awards


Annually, an article is selected from each American Economic Journal from nominated articles for the AEJ Best Paper Award.  Nominations are accepted from December 1 to February 15, and winners are announced in April.  The 2026 award recipients are listed below:

2026

Do Carbon Offsets Offset Carbon?
Raphael Calel, Jonathan Colmer, Antoine Dechezleprêtre, and Matthieu Glachant
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Volume 17, No. 1, January 2025

Employed in a SNAP? The Impact of Work Requirements on Program Participation and Labor Supply 
Colin Gray, Adam Leive, Elena Prager, Kelsey Pukelis, and Mary Zaki 
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Volume 15, No. 1, February 2023

Optimal Fiscal and Monetary Policy with Distorting Taxes 
Christopher A. Sims†
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Volume 17, No. 2, April 2025

The Fake News Effect: Experimentally Identifying Motivated Reasoning Using Trust in News
Michael Thaler
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, Volume 16, No. 2, May 2024

Awarded posthumously

2025

Natalia Emanuel Emma Harrington
Natalia Emanuel (L) and Emma Harrington (R) receiving AEJ:Applied Economics Best Paper Awards 
Thomas Dreschel
Thomas Dreschel receiving AEJ:Macroeconomics Best Paper Award
Zach BrownAlexander MacKay
Zach Brown (L) and Alexander MacKay (R) receiving AEJ:Microeconomics Best Paper Awards

 

Working Remotely? Selection, Treatment, and the Market for Remote Work
Natalia Emanuel and Emma Harrington
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Vol. 16, No. 4, October 2024

Adaptation and Adverse Selection in Markets for Natural Disaster Insurance
Katherine R. H. Wagner
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Vol. 14, No. 3, August 2022

Earnings-Based Borrowing Constraints and Macroeconomic Fluctuations
Thomas Drechsel
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Vol. 15, No. 2, April 2023

Competition in Pricing Algorithms
Zach Y. Brown and Alexander MacKay
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, Vol. 15, No. 2, May 2023

2024

Manasi Deshpande (L) and Yalun Su (R) receiving AEJ:Applied Economics Best Paper Awards (not pictured: Tal Gross) 
 
Giovanni Ricco receiving AEJ:Macroeconomics Best Paper Award (not pictured: Silvia Miranda-Agrippino)   
Simon Board (L) and Moritz Meyer-ter-Vehn (R) receiving AEJ:Microeconomics Best Paper Awards

 

Disability and Distress: The Effect of Disability Programs on Financial Outcomes
Manasi Deshpande, Tal Gross, and Yalun Su
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Volume 13, No. 2, April 2021

The Labor Market for Teachers under Different Pay Schemes
Barbara Biasi
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Volume 13, No. 3, August 2021

The Transmission of Monetary Policy Shocks
Silvia Miranda-Agrippino and Giovanni Ricco
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Volume 13, No. 3, July 2021

A Reputational Theory of Firm Dynamics
Simon Board and Moritz Meyer-ter-Vehn
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, Volume 14, No. 2, May 2022

2023

 
Enghin Atalay (L) and Daniel Tannenbaum (center) receiving AEJ:Applied Economics Best Paper Awards (not pictured: Phai Phongthiengtham and Sebastian Sotelo)   Oyebola Okunogbe receiving AEJ:Economic Policy Best Paper Award (not pictured: Victor Pouliquen)
 
Christopher Conlon (center) and Michael Sinkinson (R) receiving AEJ:Microeconomics Best Paper Awards (not pictured: Matthew Backus)   
Morten Olsen receiving AEJ:Macroeconomics Best Paper Award (not pictured: David Hémous)


The Evolution of Work in the United States
Enghin Atalay, Phai Phongthiengtham, Sebastian Sotelo, and Daniel Tannenbaum
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Volume 12, No. 2, April 2020

Technology, Taxation, and Corruption: Evidence from the Introduction of Electronic Tax Filing
Oyebola Okunogbe and Victor Pouliquen
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Volume 14, No. 1, February 2022

The Rise of the Machines: Automation, Horizontal Innovation, and Income Inequality
David Hémous and Morten Olsen
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Volume 14, No. 1, January 2022

Common Ownership in America: 1980 – 2017
Matthew Backus, Christopher Conlon, and Michael Sinkinson. 
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, Volume 13, No. 3, August 2021

2022

Understanding the Average Impact of Microcredit Expansions: A Bayesian Hierarchical Analysis of Seven Randomized Experiments
Rachael Meager
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Volume 11, No. 1, January 2019

Carbon Taxes and CO2 Emissions: Sweden as a Case Study
Julius J. Andersson
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Volume 11, No. 4, November 2019

Higher Taxes at the Top: The Role of Entrepreneurs
Bettina Brüggemann
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Volume 13, No. 3, July 2021

Is No News (Perceived As) Bad News? An Experimental Investigation of Information Disclosure
Ginger Zhe Jin
Michael Luca
Daniel Martin
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, Volume 13, No. 2, May 2021

2021

Social Media and Corruption
Ruben Enikolopov
Maria Petrova
Konstantin Sonin
American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, Volume 10, No. 1, January 2018

How Antitrust Enforcement Can Spur Innovation: Bell Labs and the 1956 Consent Decree
Martin Watzinger
Thomas A. Fackler
Markus Nagler
Monika Schnitzer
American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, Volume 12, No. 4, November 2020

Deconstructing Monetary Policy Surprises – The Role of Information Shocks
Marek JarociƄski
Peter Karadi
American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Volume 12, No. 2, April 2020

Who Benefits from Information Disclosure? The Case of Retail Gasoline
Fernando Luco
American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, Volume 11, No. 2, May 2019

2020

Children and Gender Inequality: Evidence from Denmark
Henrik Klevin
Camille Landais
Jakob Egholt Søgaard
AEJ: Applied Economics, 11 (4)

Who is Screened Out? Application Costs and the Targeting of Disability Programs
Manasi Deshpande
Yue Li
AEJ: Economic Policy, 11 (4)

A Model of Secular Stagnation: Theory and Quantitative Evaluation
Gauti Eggertsson
Neil R. Mehrotra
Jacob Robbins
AEJ: Macroeconomics, 11 (1)

Discrimination via Symmetric Auctions
Rahul Deb
Mallesh Pai
AEJ: Microeconomics, 9 (1)

2019

Expertise versus Bias in Evaluation: Evidence from the NIH
Danielle Li
AEJ: Applied Economics, 9 (2)

Adaptation to Climate Change: Evidence from US Agriculture
Marshall Burke and Kyle Emerick
AEJ: Economic Policy, 8 (3)

The Firm Size Distribution across Countries and Skill-Biased Change in Entrepreneurial Technology
Markus Poschke
AEJ: Macroeconomics, 10 (3)

A Pseudo-Market Approach to Allocation with Priorities
Yinghua He, Antonio Miralles, Marek Pycia, and Jianye Yan
AEJ: Microeconomics, 10 (3)

2019 AEJ Best Paper Winners
(L to R) Janet Yellen and 2019 recipients Danielle Li, Kyle Emerick (co-author Marshall Burke not present), Markus Poschke, Yinghua He and Jianye Yan (co-authors Antonio Miralles and Marek Pycia not present)

2018

The Persistent Effect of Temporary Affirmative Action
Conrad Miller
AEJ: Applied Economics, 9 (3)

Income, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Infant Health
Hilary Hoynes, Doug Miller and David Simon
AEJ: Economic Policy, 7 (1)

Gender Gaps and the Rise of the Service Economy
L. Rachel Ngai and Barbara Petrongolo
AEJ: Macroeconomics, 9 (4)

Collective Self-Control
Alessandro Lizzeri and Leeat Yariv
AEJ: Microeconomics, 9 (3)


Barbara Petrongolo (L) and L. Rachel Ngai (center) receiving AEJ:Macro Best Paper Awards

David Simon and Hilary Hoynes receiving AEJ:Policy Best Paper Awards (not pictured: Doug Miller)

Conrad Miller receiving AEJ:Applied Best Paper Award

Alessandro Lizzeri receiving AEJ:Micro Best Paper Award (not pictured: Leeat Yariv)

2017


  • Ruben Durante and Stefano DellaVigna, recipients of the 2017 AEJ: Applied Economics Best Paper Award (not pictured: Brian Knight and Eliana La Ferrara)

    Philippe Aghion and Julian Kolev, recipients of the 2017 AEJ: Economic Policy Best Paper Award (not pictured: Fiona Murray, Mathias Dewatripont, and Scott Stern)

    Martin S. Eichenbaum and Lawrence J. Christiano, recipients of the 2017 AEJ: Macroeconomics Best Paper Award (not pictured: Mathias Trabandt)
     

2016

2015


Enrico Moretti, recipient of the
2015 AEJ: Applied Economics Best Paper Award

François Gourio, recipient of the
2015 AEJ: Macroeconomics Best Paper Award

Kenneth Hendricks, recipient of the
2015 AEJ: Microeconomics Best Paper Award
(Alan Sorensen and Thomas Wiseman, not pictured)

Alan J. Auerbach and Yuriy Gorodnichenko,
recipients of the
2015 AEJ: Economic Policy Best Paper Award

2014

2013

2011