Modern Infectious Diseases: Macroeconomic Impacts and Policy Responses

By David E. Bloom, Michael Kuhn, and Klaus Prettner

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2022

We discuss and review literature on the macroeconomic effects of epidemics and pandemics since the late twentieth century. First, we cover the role of health in driving economic growth and well-being and discuss standard frameworks for assessing the eco...

The Economic Impact of the Black Death

By Remi Jedwab, Noel D. Johnson, and Mark Koyama

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2022

The Black Death was the largest demographic shock in European history. We review the evidence for the origins, spread, and mortality of the disease. We document that it was a plausibly exogenous shock to the European economy and trace out its aggregate ...

Looking Back at 50 Years of the Clean Air Act

By Joseph E. Aldy, Maximilian Auffhammer, Maureen Cropper, Arthur Fraas, and Richard Morgenstern

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2022

We synthesize and review retrospective analyses of federal air quality regulations to examine the contributions of the Clean Air Act (CAA) to the vast air quality improvements seen since 1970. Geographic heterogeneity in stringency affects emissions, publ...

A Review of Robert Sugden's Community of Advantage

By Patrick Harless and Romans Pancs

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2022

In his book, The Community of Advantage: A Behavioural Economist's Defence of the Market, Robert Sugden says that people should be left alone to do what they want. We interpret his reasons for saying so and try to unify them. The unification uses...

Missing in Action: Teacher and Health Worker Absence in Developing Countries

[Symposium: Public Sector Absenteeism]

By Nazmul Chaudhury, Jeffrey Hammer, Michael Kremer, Karthik Muralidharan, and F. Halsey Rogers

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2006

In this paper, we report results from surveys in which enumerators made unannounced visits to primary schools and health clinics in Bangladesh, Ecuador, India, Indonesia, Peru and Uganda and recorded whether they found teachers and health workers in the f...

Religion and Discrimination: A Review Essay of Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom

By Sriya Iyer

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2022

Noel D. Johnson and Mark Koyama's book, Persecution and Toleration: The Long Road to Religious Freedom, examines the links between religion, state action, and the development of liberalism in medieval Europe. It discusses a model of "conditiona...

Book Reviews

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2022

Annotated Listing of New Books

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2022

JEL Classification System

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2022

Addressing Absence

[Symposium: Public Sector Absenteeism]

By Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2006

Absent providers are a major problem both for public health facilities and primary schools in many developing countries. For example, in India, absence rates for teachers are over 24 percent, and for health providers they are over 40 percent. This paper p...

The Economy of the Early Roman Empire

By Peter Temin

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2006

Many inhabitants of ancient Rome lived well. Tourists marvel at the temples, baths, roads and aqueducts that they built. Economists also want to understand the existence of a flourishing and apparently prosperous economy two millennia ago. Market institut...

Front Matter

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2022

Will Studying Economics Make You Rich? A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of the Returns to College Major

By Zachary Bleemer and Aashish Mehta

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2022

We investigate the wage return to studying economics by leveraging a policy that prevented students with low introductory grades from declaring a major. Students who barely met the grade point average threshold to major in economics earned $22,000 (46 per...

Political Fragmentation and Government Stability: Evidence from Local Governments in Spain

By Felipe Carozzi, Davide Cipullo, and Luca Repetto

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2022

This paper studies how political fragmentation affects government stability. Using a regression discontinuity design, we show that each additional party with representation in the local parliament increases the probability that the incumbent government is...

Missing Women, Integration Costs, and Big Push Policies in the Saudi Labor Market

By Conrad Miller, Jennifer Peck, and Mehmet Seflek

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2022

In settings where social norms promote gender segregation, firms may find it costly to employ both men and women. These integration costs may hinder women's employment. We develop a methodology to test for the presence of fixed integration costs and estim...

The Rising Return to Noncognitive Skill

By Per-Anders Edin, Peter Fredriksson, Martin Nybom, and Björn Öckert

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2022

This paper uses administrative data from Sweden to document trends in the labor market returns to skills. Between 1992 and 2013, the economic return to noncognitive skill⁠—a psychologist-assessed measure of teamwork and leadership skill⁠—roughly d...

LinkedIn(to) Job Opportunities: Experimental Evidence from Job Readiness Training

By Laurel Wheeler, Robert Garlick, Eric Johnson, Patrick Shaw, and Marissa Gargano

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2022

Online professional networking platforms are widely used and may help workers to search for and obtain jobs. We run the first randomized evaluation of training work seekers to join and use one of the largest platforms, LinkedIn. Training increases the end...

Reexamining the Contribution of Public Health Efforts to the Decline in Urban Mortality

By D. Mark Anderson, Kerwin Kofi Charles, and Daniel I. Rees

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2022

Using data on 25 major American cities for the period 1900⁠–⁠1940, we explore the effects of municipal-level public health efforts that were viewed as critical in the fight against foodborne and waterborne diseases. In addition to studying intervent...

Electronic Trading in Stock Markets

By Hans R. Stoll

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2006

Modern trading technology clashes with the traditional organization of a stock exchange, where transactions were consummated via face-to-face negotiation. The modern trading facility is no longer a place. Rather, it is a computer system over which transac...

Reexamining the Contribution of Public Health Efforts to the Decline in Urban Mortality: Comment

By David M. Cutler and Grant Miller

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2022

We address points raised by Anderson, Charles, and Rees (2022), which comments on our prior work. After correcting unambiguous data mistakes, our revised estimates suggest that municipal water disinfection (filtration) explains 38 percent of the total mor...