From Homo Economicus to Homo Sapiens

[Symposium: Forecasts for the Future of Economics]

By Richard H. Thaler

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2000

In responding to a request for predictions about the future of economics, I predict that Homo Economicus will evolve into Homo Sapiens, or, more simply put, economics will become more related to human behavior. My specific predictions are that Homo Econom...

President's Foreword

By William D. Nordhaus

American Economic Review, May 2014

The NAIRU and Wages in Local Labor Markets

By Robert M. Coen, Robert Eisner, John Tepper Marlin, and Suken N. Shah

American Economic Review, May 1999

Selling Cookies

By Dirk Bergemann and Alessandro Bonatti

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, August 2015

We propose a model of data provision and data pricing. A single data provider controls a large database that contains information about the match value between individual consumers and individual firms (advertisers). Advertisers seek to tailor their spend...

Optimal Allocation with Costly Verification

By Elchanan Ben-Porath, Eddie Dekel, and Barton L. Lipman

American Economic Review, December 2014

A principal allocates an object to one of I agents. Each agent values receiving the object and has private information regarding the value to the principal of giving it to him. There are no monetary transfers, but the principal can check an agent's inf...

Does Early Life Exposure to Cigarette Smoke Permanently Harm Childhood Welfare? Evidence from Cigarette Tax Hikes

By David Simon

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2016

Evidence suggests that excise taxes on tobacco improve fetal health. However, it remains unknown if smoke exposure in early life causes lasting harm to children. I find that in utero exposure to a dollar increase in the state cigarette tax causes a 10 per...

Views among Economists: Professional Consensus or Point-Counterpoint?

By Roger Gordon and Gordon B. Dahl

American Economic Review, May 2013

To what degree do economists disagree about key economic questions? We provide evidence by using the responses to a series of questions posed to a distinguished panel of economists put together by the Chicago School of Business. Based on our analysis, we ...

Daron Acemoglu: 2005 John Bates Clark Medalist

By Robert Shimer

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2007

Daron Acemoglu, winner of the 2005 John Bates Clark Medal, uses theoretical and empirical analysis to tackle critical issues in a variety of fields in economics, including labor economics, macroeconomics, and political economy. His unparalleled combinatio...

Pay as You Go: Prepaid Metering and Electricity Expenditures in South Africa

By B. Kelsey Jack and Grant Smith

American Economic Review, May 2015

High rates of customer default on utility bills present a barrier to the expansion of electricity access in the developing world. Pre-paid electricity metering offers a technological solution to ensuring timely payment. Using an eleven-year panel of pre-p...

The Liabilities and Risks of State-Sponsored Pension Plans

By Robert Novy-Marx and Joshua D. Rauh

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2009

As of December 2008, state governments had approximately $1.94 trillion set aside in pension funds for their employees. How does the value of these assets compare to the present value of states' pension liabilities? Just as future Social Security and Medi...

The Frontier of Telecommunications Deregulation: Small Countries Leading the Pack

[Symposium: Telecommunications Deregulation Around The World]

By Pablo T. Spiller and Carlo G. Cardilli

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1997

Interconnection, equal access, unbundling, and industry structure are four key determinants of facilities-based competition in telecommunications. Using these building blocks, this paper analyzes the differences in telecommunications regulatory regimes in...

The Currency of Reciprocity: Gift Exchange in the Workplace

By Sebastian Kube, Michel André Maréchal, and Clemens Puppe

American Economic Review, June 2012

What determines reciprocity in employment relations? We conducted a controlled field experiment to measure the extent to which monetary and nonmonetary gifts affect workers' performance. We find that nonmonetary gifts have a much stronger impact than mon...

Why Did the Ruble Collapse in August 1998?

By Padma Desai

American Economic Review, May 2000

Crowded Colleges and College Crowd-Out: The Impact of Public Subsidies on the Two-Year College Market

By Stephanie Riegg Cellini

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2009

This study assesses the impact of an increase in funding for public community colleges on the market for two-year college education, considering both the effect on community college enrollments and on the number of proprietary schools in a market. I dr...

Political Economy at Any Speed: What Determines Traffic Citations?

By Michael D. Makowsky and Thomas Stratmann

American Economic Review, March 2009

Speeding tickets are determined not only by the speed of the offender, but also by incentives faced by police officers and their vote-maximizing principals. We hypothesize that police officers issue fines more frequently when drivers have a higher opportu...

The Impact of Social Ties on Group Interactions: Evidence from Minimal Groups and Randomly Assigned Real Groups

By Lorenz Goette, David Huffman, and Stephan Meier

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, February 2012

Economists are increasingly interested in how group membership affects individual behavior. The standard method assigns individuals to "minimal" groups, i.e. arbitrary labels, in a lab. But real group often involve social interactions leading to social ti...

Manipulation and Equity-Based Compensation

By Lin Peng and Ailsa Roell

American Economic Review, May 2008

Trade, Domestic Frictions, and Scale Effects

By Natalia Ramondo, Andrés Rodríguez-Clare, and Milagro Saborío-Rodríguez

American Economic Review, October 2016

Because of scale effects, idea-based growth models imply that larger countries should be much richer than smaller ones. New trade models share the same counterfactual feature. In fact, new trade models exhibit other counterfactual implications associated ...

Search in Asset Markets: Market Structure, Liquidity, and Welfare

By Ricardo Lagos and Guillaume Rocheteau

American Economic Review, May 2007

Why Can't US Airlines Make Money?

By Severin Borenstein

American Economic Review, May 2011

US airlines have lost nearly $60 billion ($2009) in domestic markets since the 1978 deregulation, most of it in the last decade. The dismal financial record challenges the economics of deregulation. I examine some of the common explanations among industry...