The Electric Vehicle Transition and the Economics of Banning Gasoline Vehicles

By Stephen P. Holland, Erin T. Mansur, and Andrew J. Yates

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2021

Electric vehicles have a unique potential to transform personal transportation. We analyze this transition with a dynamic model capturing falling costs of electric vehicles, decreasing pollution from electricity, and increasing vehicle substitutability. O...

The Effect of Leaded Gasoline on Elderly Mortality: Evidence from Regulatory Exemptions

By Alex Hollingsworth and Ivan Rudik

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2021

Leaded gasoline is still used globally for aviation and automotive racing. Exploiting regulatory exemptions and a novel quasi-experiment, we find that leaded gasoline use in racing increases ambient lead, elevated blood lead rates, and elderly mortality. ...

Women's Suffrage and Children's Education

By Esra Kose, Elira Kuka, and Na'ama Shenhav

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2021

While a growing literature shows that women, relative to men, prefer greater investment in children, it is unclear whether empowering women produces better economic outcomes. Exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in US suffrage laws, we show that expos...

Preferred Pharmacy Networks and Drug Costs

By Amanda Starc and Ashley Swanson

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2021

Selective contracting is an increasingly popular tool for reducing health care costs, but any savings must be weighed against consumer surplus losses from restricted access. Recently, many prescription drug plans (PDPs) utilize preferred pharmacy networks...

The Making of an Economist Redux

By David Colander

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2005

This paper reports the findings of a survey and interviews with graduate students at seven top-ranking graduate economics programs. It finds that over the last 15 years graduate economics programs have become more empirical, less mathematical and less the...

Wired and Hired: Employment Effects of Subsidized Broadband Internet for Low-Income Americans

By George W. Zuo

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2021

I present evidence on the relationship between broadband pricing and labor market outcomes for low-income individuals. Specifically, I estimate the effects of a Comcast service providing discounted broadband to qualifying low-income families. I use a trip...

Front Matter

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2021

Effects of the COVID-19 Recession on the US Labor Market: Occupation, Family, and Gender

[Symposium: COVID-19]

By Stefania Albanesi and Jiyeon Kim

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2021

The economic crisis associated with the emergence of the novel corona virus is unlike standard recessions. Demand for workers in high contact and inflexible service occupations has declined while parental supply of labor has been reduced by lack of access...

The Great Unequalizer: Initial Health Effects of COVID-19 in the United States

[Symposium: COVID-19]

By Marcella Alsan, Amitabh Chandra, and Kosali Simon

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2021

We measure inequities from the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality and hospitalizations in the United States during the early months of the outbreak. We discuss challenges in measuring health outcomes and health inequality, some of which are specific to COVID-...

Tracking the Pandemic in Real Time: Administrative Micro Data in Business Cycles Enters the Spotlight

[Symposium: COVID-19]

By Joseph Vavra

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2021

In this paper I discuss the increasingly prominent role of administrative micro data in macroeconomics research. This type of data proved important for interpreting the causes and consequences of the Great Recession, and it has played a crucial role in sh...

Some Thoughts on the Washington Consensus and Subsequent Global Development Experience

[Symposium: Washington Consensus Revisited]

By Michael Spence

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2021

This paper discusses the Washington Consensus, its origins, and its insights in terms of subsequent development experience in a broad range of countries. I continue to find that when properly interpreted as a guide to the formulation of country-specific d...

The Baker Hypothesis: Stabilization, Structural Reforms, and Economic Growth

[Symposium: Washington Consensus Revisited]

By Anusha Chari, Peter Blair Henry, and Hector Reyes

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2021

In 1985, James A. Baker III's "Program for Sustained Growth" proposed a set of economic policy reforms including, inflation stabilization, trade liberalization, greater openness to foreign investment, and privatization, that he believed would lead to fa...

Washington Consensus in Latin America: From Raw Model to Straw Man

[Symposium: Washington Consensus Revisited]

By Ilan Goldfajn, Lorenza Martínez, and Rodrigo O. Valdés

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2021

We take stock of three decades of a love-hate relationship between Latin American policies and the Washington Consensus, reviewing its implementation, national debate, and outcomes. Using regional data and case studies of Brazil, Chile, and Mexico, we dis...

Washington Consensus Reforms and Lessons for Economic Performance in Sub-Saharan Africa

[Symposium: Washington Consensus Revisited]

By Belinda Archibong, Brahima Coulibaly, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2021

Over three decades after market-oriented structural reforms termed "Washington Consensus" policies were first implemented, we revisit the evidence on policy adoption and the effects of these policies on socio-economic performance in sub-Saharan African ...

Child Labor in the Global Economy

By Eric V. Edmonds and Nina Pavcnik

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2005

Few issues in developing countries draw as much popular attention as child labor. This paper begins by quantifying the extent and main characteristics of child labor. It then considers the evidence on a range of issues about child labor. Fundamentally, ch...

Statistical Significance, p-Values, and the Reporting of Uncertainty

[Symposium: Statistical Significance]

By Guido W. Imbens

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2021

The use of statistical significance and p-values has become a matter of substantial controversy in various fields using statistical methods. This has gone as far as some journals banning the use of indicators for statistical significance, or ev...

Of Forking Paths and Tied Hands: Selective Publication of Findings, and What Economists Should Do about It

[Symposium: Statistical Significance]

By Maximilian Kasy

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2021

A key challenge for interpreting published empirical research is the fact that published findings might be selected by researchers or by journals. Selection might be based on criteria such as significance, consistency with theory, or the surprisingness ...

Evidence on Research Transparency in Economics

[Symposium: Statistical Significance]

By Edward Miguel

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2021

A decade ago, the term "research transparency" was not on economists' radar screen, but in a few short years a scholarly movement has emerged to bring new open science practices, tools and norms into the mainstream of our discipline. The goal of this ar...

Why Is Growth in Developing Countries So Hard to Measure?

By Noam Angrist, Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg, and Dean Jolliffe

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2021

Occasional widely publicized controversies have led to the perception that growth statistics from developing countries are not to be trusted. Based on the comparison of several data sources and analysis of novel IMF audit data, we find no support for th...

Retrospectives: James Buchanan: Clubs and Alternative Welfare Economics

By Alain Marciano

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2021

James Buchanan wrote "An Economic Theory of Clubs" and invented clubs to support a form of welfare economics in which there is no social welfare function (SWF) and individual utility functions cannot be "read" by external observers. Clubs were a means to ...