Moonshot: Public R&D and Growth

By Shawn Kantor and Alexander Whalley

American Economic Review, September 2025

We estimate the long-term effect of public R&D on growth in manufacturing by analyzing new data from the Cold War–era space race. We develop a novel empirical strategy that leverages US-Soviet rivalry in space technology to isolate windfall R&D spending...

Are Building Codes an Effective Adaptation to Wind Risk? Evidence from Remotely Detected Blue Tarps

By David Wolf and Kenji Takeuchi

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

Hurricanes cause significant wind and water damage, yet economic research primarily focuses on the latter due to data limitations. We overcome this problem by analyzing photographs taken after Hurricane Irma (2017) to locate blue-tarped homes. Using a r...

Tax and Occupancy of Business Properties: Evidence from UK Business Rate Reliefs

By Ben Lockwood, Martin Simmler, and Eddy H.F. Tam

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

We study how UK property tax rates impact commercial vacancies and rents, using new data, and exploiting exogenous variations in two major property tax reliefs, small business relief and retail relief. We estimate that both reliefs are effective at ach...

Estimating the Economic Value of Zoning Reform

By Santosh Anagol, Fernando Ferreira, and Jonah Rexer

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

We estimate the economic value of zoning reform in São Paulo, which altered maximum permitted construction along transportation corridors. Developers increased filings for multifamily construction in blocks affected by the reform, leading to more housi...

Childhood Health Shocks and the Intergenerational Transmission of Inequality

By Tine M. Eriksen, Amanda P. Gaulke, Jannet Svensson, Niels Skipper, and Peter R. Thingholm

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

This paper documents a socioeconomic gradient in adult labor market penalties stemming from a single chronic and treatable childhood health shock in a country with universal access to healthcare. Using childhood onset Type 1 Diabetes, Danish administrat...

How Effective Are R&D Tax Incentives? Reconciling the Micro and Macro Evidence

By Silvia Appelt, Matěj Bajgar, Chiara Criscuolo, and Fernando Galindo-Rueda

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

Recent firm-level studies find R&D tax incentives to be much more effective at stimulating firms’ R&D investment than aggregate analyses suggest. Based on a distributed analysis of official R&D survey and administrative tax relief microdata for 19 OE...

Distortions, Producer Dynamics, and Aggregate Productivity: A General Equilibrium Analysis

By Stephen Ayerst, Loren Brandt, and Diego Restuccia

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics

In less developed economies the allocation of factor inputs to more productive farms is often hindered. To analyze how distortions affect farm dynamics and agricultural productivity, we develop a model of heterogeneous farms investing in productivity impr...

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Navigating the college choice process

[Research Highlight]

December 15, 2025

Intensive advising can substantially increase the likelihood of degree attainment for low-income students.

Common Workflow Options for Managing JOE Applications

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About JOE Network

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Learn more about JOE (Job Openings for Economists)

Getting Started with JOE Job Listings

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The Making of Modern Corporate Finance: A History of the Ideas and How They Help Build the Wealth of Nations by Donald H. Chew Jr.

By Yueran Ma

Journal of Economic Literature

2025 in Featured Charts

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Economists addressed issues related to policing, unemployment benefits, bank bailouts, and more.

Front Matter

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2026

Highway to Hitler

By Nico Voigtländer and Hans-Joachim Voth

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2026

We show that the building of the Autobahn network in Nazi Germany boosted popular support for Adolf Hitler, helping to entrench the Nazi dictatorship. Direct local economic benefits are unlikely to explain the effect. Instead, it reflects successful propa...

The Returns to Physical Capital in Knowledge Production: Evidence from Lab Disasters

By Stefano Baruffaldi and Fabian Gaessler

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2026

We investigate the nature and relevance of physical capital in knowledge production. Exploiting adverse events in research laboratories, we find that scientists experience a persistent reduction in research output if they lose specialized physical capital...

Breaking Bad: How Health Shocks Prompt Crime

By Steffen Andersen, Elin Colmsjö, Gianpaolo Parise, and Kim Peijnenburg

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2026

Exploiting plausibly exogenous variations in the timing of cancer diagnoses, we establish that health shocks elicit a large and persistent increase in the probability of committing a crime. This effect materializes in a substantial rise in both first crim...

From Immediate Acceptance to Deferred Acceptance: Effects on School Admissions and Achievement in England

By Camille Terrier, Parag A. Pathak, and Kevin Ren

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2026

Countries and cities around the world increasingly rely on centralized systems for student placement. Two algorithms, deferred acceptance (DA) and immediate acceptance (IA), are widespread. We investigate the effects of the national ban of IA in England. ...

Direct and Indirect Effects of Vaccines: Evidence from COVID-19

By Seth Freedman, Daniel W. Sacks, Kosali Simon, and Coady Wing

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2026

We estimate direct and indirect vaccine effectiveness and assess how far the infection-reducing externality extends from the vaccinated, a key input to policy decisions. Our empirical strategy uses nearly universal microdata from a single state and relies...