Dynamic Mechanism Design: An Introduction

By Dirk Bergemann and Juuso Välimäki

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2019

We provide an introduction to the recent developments of dynamic mechanism design, with a primary focus on the quasilinear case. First, we describe socially optimal (or efficient) dynamic mechanisms. These mechanisms extend the well-known Vickrey–Clarkâ...

Dominant Currency Paradigm

By Gita Gopinath, Emine Boz, Camila Casas, Federico J. Díez, Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, and Mikkel Plagborg-Møller

American Economic Review, March 2020

We propose a "dominant currency paradigm" with three key features: dominant currency pricing, pricing complementarities, and imported inputs in production. We test this paradigm using a new dataset of bilateral price and volume indices for more than 2,5...

Internal Geography, Labor Mobility, and the Distributional Impacts of Trade

By Jingting Fan

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, July 2019

I develop a spatial-equilibrium model to quantify the distributional impacts of international trade in an economy with intranational trade and migration costs. Focusing on China, I find that international trade increases both between-region inequality amo...

Front Matter

American Economic Review, June 2019

Front Matter

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, May 2019

Front Matter

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, November 2018

Front Matter

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, August 2019

Life-Cycle Consumption Patterns at Older Ages in the United States and the United Kingdom: Can Medical Expenditures Explain the Difference?

By James Banks, Richard Blundell, Peter Levell, and James P. Smith

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2019

This paper documents significantly steeper declines in nondurable expenditures at older ages in the United Kingdom compared to the United States, in spite of income paths being similar. Several possible causes are explored, including different employment ...

The Value of US Government Data to US Business Decisions

[Symposium: Public Provision of Economic Data]

By Ellen Hughes-Cromwick and Julia Coronado

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2019

The US government is a major producer of economic and financial data, statistics, analysis, and forecasts that are gathered, compiled, and published as public goods for use by citizens, government agencies, researchers, nonprofits, and the business comm...

The Introduction of Tasers and Police Use of Firearms: Evidence from the Chicago Police Department

By Bocar Ba and Jeffrey Grogger

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2019

Many police jurisdictions have recently expanded their Taser arsenals with a goal of reducing officer-involved shootings. We analyze substitution between Tasers and firearms by means of an event study made possible by a policy change at the Chicago Police...

A Toolkit of Policies to Promote Innovation

By Nicholas Bloom, John Van Reenen, and Heidi Williams

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2019

Economic theory suggests that market economies are likely to underprovide innovation because of the public good nature of knowledge. Empirical evidence from the United States and other advanced economies supports this idea. We summarize the pros and cons ...

Persuasion: The Art of Changing Worldviews

By Simone Galperti

American Economic Review, March 2019

Persuaders often face the task of changing their listeners' worldview, which may involve conveying evidence that disconfirms that view. It has been shown, however, that people are often reluctant to change their worldviews. These aspects of persuasion can...

When place matters most

[Research Highlight]

April 03, 2020

Moving to nicer neighborhoods has lasting effects on kids' outcomes, especially in their teenage years.

Health Care Spending and Utilization in Public and Private Medicare

By Vilsa Curto, Liran Einav, Amy Finkelstein, Jonathan Levin, and Jay Bhattacharya

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2019

We compare health care spending in public and private Medicare using newly available claims data from Medicare Advantage (MA) insurers. MA insurer revenues are 30 percent higher than their health care spending. Adjusting for enrollee mix, health care spen...

Taking a Financial Position in Your Opponent in Litigation

By Albert H. Choi and Kathryn E. Spier

American Economic Review, December 2018

Before filing suit, a plaintiff can take a financial position in a defendant firm. A short position benefits the plaintiff by transforming a negative expected-value claim into a positive expected-value one and by enhancing the claim's settlement value. If...

Should We Tax Sugar-Sweetened Beverages? An Overview of Theory and Evidence

By Hunt Allcott, Benjamin B. Lockwood, and Dmitry Taubinsky

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2019

Taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages are growing in popularity and have generated an active public debate. Are they a good idea? If so, how high should they be? Are such taxes regressive? People in the United States and some other countries consume remark...

Do 40-Year-Old Facts Still Matter? Long-Run Effects of Federal Oversight under the Voting Rights Act

By Desmond Ang

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2019

In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down parts of the Voting Rights Act that mandated federal oversight of election laws in discriminatory jurisdictions, prompting a spate of controversial new voting rules. Utilizing difference-in-differences to examine the...

Women's Empowerment in Action: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in Africa

By Oriana Bandiera, Niklas Buehren, Robin Burgess, Markus Goldstein, Selim Gulesci, Imran Rasul, and Munshi Sulaiman

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2020

We evaluate a multifaceted policy intervention attempting to jump-start adolescent women's empowerment in Uganda by simultaneously providing them vocational training and information on sex, reproduction, and marriage. We find that four years postintervent...

The Aging of the Baby Boomers: Demographics and Propagation of Tax Shocks

By Domenico Ferraro and Giuseppe Fiori

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, April 2020

We study how the changing demographic composition of the US labor force has affected the response of the unemployment rate to marginal tax rate shocks. Using narratively identified tax changes as proxies for structural shocks, we establish that the respon...

On the Determinants of Cooperation in Infinitely Repeated Games: A Survey

By Pedro Dal Bó and Guillaume R. Fréchette

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2018

A growing experimental literature studies the determinants of cooperation in infinitely repeated games, tests different predictions of the theory, and suggests an empirical solution to the problem of multiple equilibria. To provide a robust description of...