Herd Behavior and Investment: Reply

By David S. Scharfstein and Jeremy C. Stein

American Economic Review, June 2000

The Role of Economics in Climate Change Policy

By Warwick J. McKibbin and Peter J. Wilcoxen

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2002

The most important characteristic of climate change as a policy problem is uncertainty. From climatology to economics, uncertainties are pervasive, large and difficult to resolve. However, the economic theory of environmental policy under uncertainty prov...

What Makes US Government Bonds Safe Assets?

By Zhiguo He, Arvind Krishnamurthy, and Konstantin Milbradt

American Economic Review, May 2016

US government bonds are considered to be the world's safe store of value, especially during periods of economic turmoil such as the events of 2008. But what makes US government bonds "safe assets"? We highlight coordination among investors, and build a mo...

Notes

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2003

Education, Poverty and Terrorism: Is There a Causal Connection?

By Alan B. Krueger and Jitka Malečková

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2003

The paper investigates whether there is a connection between poverty or low education and terrorism. We review evidence on hate crimes, which are closely related to terrorism; the occurrence of hate crimes is largely independent of economic conditions. We...

Policy Watch: The Economics of Fuel Economy Standards

By Paul R. Portney, Ian W.H. Parry, Howard K. Gruenspecht, and Winston Harrington

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2003

One of the most hotly contested of all energy policy issues involves Corporate Average Fuel Economy (or CAFE) standards for new cars and light-duty trucks. Tighter standards would reduce gasoline consumption, and hence both greenhouse gas emissions as wel...

Escaping from a Liquidity Trap and Deflation: The Foolproof Way and Others

By Lars E.O. Svensson

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2003

Existing proposals to escape from a liquidity trap and deflation, including my "Foolproof Way," are discussed in the light of the optimal way to escape. The optimal way involves three elements: (1) an explicit central-bank commitment to a higher future pr...

The Unholy Trinity of Financial Contagion

[Symposium: International Financial Architecture]

By Graciela L. Kaminsky, Carmen M. Reinhart, and Carlos A. Végh

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2003

Over the last 20 years, some financial events, such as devaluations or defaults, have triggered an immediate adverse chain reaction in other countries--which we call fast and furious contagion. Yet, on other occasions, similar events have failed to trigge...

Anomalies: The Law of One Price in Financial Markets

By Owen A. Lamont and Richard H. Thaler

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2003

The Law of One price states that identical goods (or securities) should sell for identical prices. In financial markets the law of one price is thought to hold almost exactly, and is the basis for much of financial economic theory. We present evidence on ...

Restructuring Sovereign Debt

[Symposium: International Financial Architecture]

By Barry Eichengreen

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2003

This paper provides new empirical evidence relevant to the debate over the desirability of reforms to the way that financial markets and the international community deal with sovereign debt crises. In particular, given the ongoing opposition of investors ...

The Mirage of Exchange Rate Regimes for Emerging Market Countries

[Symposium: International Financial Architecture]

By Guillermo A. Calvo and Frederic S. Mishkin

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2003

This paper argues that much of the debate on choosing an exchange rate regime misses the boat. It begins by discussing the standard theory of choice between exchange rate regimes, and then explores the weaknesses in this theory, especially when it is appl...

Recommendations for Further Reading

By Bernard Saffran

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2003

Does Antitrust Policy Improve Consumer Welfare? Assessing the Evidence

[Symposium: Activist Antitrust?]

By Robert W. Crandall and Clifford Winston

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2003

This paper reviews the literature and assesses the effects of antitrust policy and enforcement on consumer welfare. We find no evidence that antitrust policy in the areas of monopolization, collusion, and mergers has provided much benefit to consumers and...

Comments

By Luigi L. Pasinetti, Franklin M. Fisher, Jesus Felipe, J.S.L. McCombie, Robert L. Greenfield, Avi J. Cohen, G.C. Harcourt, William H. Kaempfer, Anton D. Lowenberg, Lance E. Davis, and Stanley Engerman

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2003

Medicare Part D and the Financial Protection of the Elderly

By Gary V. Engelhardt and Jonathan Gruber

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2011

We examine the impact of the expansion of public prescription-drug insurance coverage from Medicare Part D and find evidence of substantial crowd-out. Using the 2002-2007 waves of the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey, we estimate the extension of Part D ...

Earnings Losses of Displaced Workers Revisited

By Kenneth A. Couch and Dana W. Placzek

American Economic Review, March 2010

Earnings losses of Connecticut workers affected by mass layoff are calculated using administrative data. Estimated reductions are initially more than 30 percent and six years later, as much as 15 percent. The Connecticut estimates are smaller than compara...

Control Functions and Simultaneous Equations Methods

By Richard Blundell, Dennis Kristensen, and Rosa L. Matzkin

American Economic Review, May 2013

The control function approach is a convenient method of estimation in simultaneous equation systems. This requires that the system can be expressed in triangular form with variables satisfying a conditional mean independence restriction. Linear simultaneo...

Disability Insurance and Health Insurance Reform: Evidence from Massachusetts

By Nicole Maestas, Kathleen J. Mullen, and Alexander Strand

American Economic Review, May 2014

As health insurance becomes available outside of the employment relationship as a result of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the cost of applying for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI)–potentially going without health insurance coverage durin...

Declining Mortality Inequality within Cities during the Health Transition

By Dora L. Costa and Matthew E. Kahn

American Economic Review, May 2015

In the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century, large cities had extremely high death rates from infectious disease. Within major cities such as New York City and Philadelphia, there was significant variation at any point in time in the mort...

Merger Policy with Merger Choice

By Volker Nocke and Michael D. Whinston

American Economic Review, April 2013

We analyze the optimal policy of an antitrust authority towards horizontal mergers when merger proposals are endogenous and firms choose among alternative mergers. In our model, the optimal policy of an antitrust authority that seeks to maximize expected ...