American Economic Association Nashville, TN 0022-8282 Journal of Economic Literature http://www.aeaweb.org/journal.html 46 3 September 2008 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/issue_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=46&issue=3&issue_date=September 2008 Articles Covering the Uninsured in the United States JonathanGruberMIT 571 606 One of the major social policy issues facing the United States in the first decade of the twenty-first century is the large number of Americans lacking health insurance. This article surveys the major economic issues around covering the uninsured. I review the facts on insurance coverage and the nature of the uninsured; explore explanations for why the United States has such a large, and growing, uninsured population; and discuss why we should care if individuals are uninsured. I then examine policy options to address the problem of the uninsured, beginning with a discussion of the key issues and available evidence and then turning to estimates from a micro-simulation model of the impact of alternative interventions to increase insurance coverage. http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/article_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=46&issue=3&article=1&issue_date=September 2008 10.1257/jel.46.3.571 American Economic Association Nashville, TN 0022-8282 Journal of Economic Literature http://www.aeaweb.org/journal.html 46 3 September 2008 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/issue_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=46&issue=3&issue_date=September 2008 Articles The Role of Cognitive Skills in Economic Development Eric A.HanushekCESifo LudgerWoessmannIfo Institute, U Munich and CESifo 607 68 The role of improved schooling, a central part of most development strategies, has become controversial because expansion of school attainment has not guaranteed improved economic conditions. This paper reviews the role of cognitive skills in promoting economic well-being, with a particular focus on the role of school quality and quantity. It concludes that there is strong evidence that the cognitive skills of the population—rather than mere school attainment—are powerfully related to individual earnings, to the distribution of income, and to economic growth. New empirical results show the importance of both minimal and high level skills, the complementarity of skills and the quality of economic institutions, and the robustness of the relationship between skills and growth. International comparisons incorporating expanded data on cognitive skills reveal much larger skill deficits in developing countries than generally derived from just school enrollment and attainment. The magnitude of change needed makes clear that closing the economic gap with developed countries will require major structural changes in schooling institutions. http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/article_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=46&issue=3&article=2&issue_date=September 2008 10.1257/jel.46.3.607 American Economic Association Nashville, TN 0022-8282 Journal of Economic Literature http://www.aeaweb.org/journal.html 46 3 September 2008 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/issue_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=46&issue=3&issue_date=September 2008 Articles Real Business Cycle Views of the Great Depression and Recent Events: A Review of Timothy J. Kehoe and Edward C. Prescott's Great Depressions of the Twentieth Century PeterTeminMIT 669 84 This book collects essays, most of which were published earlier, into an advertisement for real business cycle (RBC) analysis. Half of the essays discuss the Great Depression; half discuss events of the 1980s and 1990s. They all use the general equilibrium model of economic growth to analyze short-run fluctuations in the rate of economic growth of various countries. I find that the use of closed economy models without frictions is not useful for the analysis of short-run variations in the rate of economic growth. Almost all of these essays end by claiming that variations in the rate of GDP growth were due to changes in the rate of total factor productivity (TFP) growth. They do not provide any explanation for fluctuations in the rate of TFP growth, leaving the reader no closer to understanding these periods of depression and slow growth. I discuss in turn the essays on the Great Depression, the essays on more recent fluctuations, and the definition of "great depressions" used in this volume. http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/article_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=46&issue=3&article=3&issue_date=September 2008 10.1257/jel.46.3.669 American Economic Association Nashville, TN 0022-8282 Journal of Economic Literature http://www.aeaweb.org/journal.html 46 3 September 2008 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/issue_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=46&issue=3&issue_date=September 2008 Articles Horizons of Understanding: A Review of Ray Fair's Estimating How the Macroeconomy Works JesúsFernández-VillaverdeU PA and CEPR 685 703 Ray Fair's Estimating How the Macroeconomy Works is the latest in a series of books by Fair that build, estimate, and apply his macroeconometric model to study the U.S. economy. In this book, Fair updates the model to incorporate the most recent data and uses it to analyze several important empirical questions, such as whether the U.S. economy moved into a new age of high productivity in the last half of the 1990s and the dynamics of prices, output, and unemployment. This review places his work in the context of the historical evolution of aggregate econometric models, compares it with the current developments in the estimation of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models, and discusses some salient aspects of Fair’s contributions. http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/article_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=46&issue=3&article=4&issue_date=September 2008 10.1257/jel.46.3.685 American Economic Association Nashville, TN 0022-8282 Journal of Economic Literature http://www.aeaweb.org/journal.html 46 3 September 2008 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/issue_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=46&issue=3&issue_date=September 2008 Articles The Efficacy of Information Policy: A Review of Archon Fung, Mary Graham, and David Weil's Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency CliffordWinstonBrookings Institution 704 17 The economics of information has identified an important role for government to correct situations where competition is not sufficient to reveal valuable information to consumers. Archon Fung, Mary Graham, and David Weil's Full Disclosure: The Perils and Promise of Transparency provides a thorough discussion of government-mandated disclosure policies. I use their book to frame an empirical assessment of whether these—and other information policies—have significantly reduced the costs to consumers created by imperfect information. My conclusion, which calls for more research, is that government information policies have amounted to weak solutions in search of a problem. http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/article_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=46&issue=3&article=5&issue_date=September 2008 10.1257/jel.46.3.704 American Economic Association Nashville, TN 0022-8282 Journal of Economic Literature http://www.aeaweb.org/journal.html 46 3 September 2008 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/issue_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=46&issue=3&issue_date=September 2008 Book Reviews Book Reviews 718 51 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/article_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=46&issue=3&article=6&issue_date=September 2008 10.1257/jel.46.3.718 American Economic Association Nashville, TN 0022-8282 Journal of Economic Literature http://www.aeaweb.org/journal.html 46 3 September 2008 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/issue_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=46&issue=3&issue_date=September 2008 Back Matter Annotated Listings of New Books 752 852 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/article_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=46&issue=3&article=7&issue_date=September 2008 10.1257/jel.46.3.752 American Economic Association Nashville, TN 0022-8282 Journal of Economic Literature http://www.aeaweb.org/journal.html 46 3 September 2008 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/issue_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=46&issue=3&issue_date=September 2008 Back Matter JEL Classification System 853 866 http://www.aeaweb.org/articles/article_detail.php?journal=JEL&volume=46&issue=3&article=8&issue_date=September 2008 10.1257/jel.46.3.853