Global Giants and Local Stars: How Changes in Brand Ownership Affect Competition

By Vanessa Alviarez, Keith Head, and Thierry Mayer

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, February 2025

Large beer and spirits makers expanded abroad mainly by acquiring local brands. Exploiting market share data in 76 countries and changes in brand ownership from 2007 to 2018, we estimate that owners matter little for brand performance, except via a negati...

Call for Papers: 2025 Conference on Auditing and Capital Markets

[News]

February 05, 2025

The submission deadline is May 16, 2025.

Call for Papers: 2025 Stanford Financial Education Symposium

[News]

February 05, 2025

The submission deadline is February 24, 2025.

Start-up Costs and Market Power: Lessons from the Renewable Energy Transition

By Akshaya Jha and Gordon Leslie

American Economic Review, February 2025

Firms expect to recover the fixed costs required to start production by earning positive operating profits in subsequent periods. We develop a dynamic competitive benchmark that accounts for start-up costs, showing that static markups overstate the rents ...

The Gulags and the intelligentsia

[Research Highlight]

February 04, 2025

How forced relocation of Soviet intellectuals shaped Russia's economic geography.

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ASSA 2025 Annual Meeting

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2025 AEA Poster Videos

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Call for Papers and Other Announcements

[News]

February 12, 2025

View the AEA Member Announcement from February 12, 2025.

Maritime emissions and infant health

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Do stricter regulations improve health outcomes for newborns?

Call for Papers: Research Prize in Historical Finance Honoring the Memory of Professor Georges Gallais-Hamonno

[News]

February 26, 2024

The submission deadline is March 31, 2024.

Call for Papers: Research Prize in Historical Finance Honoring the Memory of Professor Georges Gallais-Hamonno

[News]

February 12, 2025

The deadline for submissions is March 31, 2025 (midnight CET).

Getting Infrastructure Built: The Law and Economics of Permitting

By Zachary Liscow

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2025

Given the benefits to economic growth and economic mobility, and the need to transition to green energy, getting infrastructure built is an urgent issue. I first review the evidence on the costs and benefits of the current regime of government approvals f...

A Practical Guide to Shift-Share Instruments

By Kirill Borusyak, Peter Hull, and Xavier Jaravel

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2025

A recent econometric literature shows two distinct paths for identification with shift-share instruments, leveraging either many exogenous shifts or exogenous shares. We present the core logic of both paths and practical takeaways via simple checklists. A...

Did Welfare Reform End the Safety Net as We Knew It? The Record since 1996

[Symposium: US Safety Net]

By Lucie Schmidt, Lara Shore-Sheppard, and Tara Watson

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2025

This paper examines the evolution of the safety net for low-income families since welfare reform in 1996 promised to "end welfare as we know it". The total package of supports has become substantially more generous, but has changed in character. Support h...

Two Histories of the Public Safety Net

[Symposium: US Safety Net]

By Christopher Howard

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2025

Although poverty in the United States has declined over the last half century, it remains a serious problem. This article charts the historical development of the public safety net, starting with means-tested programs and then adding inclusive social insu...

Administrative Burdens in the Social Safety Net

[Symposium: US Safety Net]

By Pamela Herd and Donald Moynihan

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2025

Administrative burdens shape people's experiences of, and access to, social safety net programs. They can undermine the goals these programs are trying to achieve. Such burdens are the experience of policy implementation as onerous, and arise via learning...

Improving Economic Analysis in Merger Guidelines

[Symposium: The 2023 Merger Guidelines and Beyond]

By Louis Kaplow

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2025

Merger review should reflect basic precepts of decision analysis, best practices in industrial organization economics, and teachings from related fields. Unfortunately, the analytical methods in modern merger guidelines fall short. Protocols violate stand...

Acquisitions to Enter New Markets

[Symposium: The 2023 Merger Guidelines and Beyond]

By Carl Shapiro

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2025

How should antitrust enforcers treat acquisitions by successful firms to enter new markets? Should a major pharmaceutical company with an extensive sales and distribution network be permitted to acquire a popular drug that does not compete against any of ...

The 2023 Merger Guidelines and the Arc of Antitrust History

[Symposium: The 2023 Merger Guidelines and Beyond]

By Daniel Francis

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2025

In 2023, the federal antitrust agencies rewrote the nation's flagship merger policy document, as part of a broader "Neo-Brandeisian" effort to bring about a deep reform of the antitrust system. The result—the 2023 Merger Guidelines—has been highly con...