On Doctors, Mechanics, and Computer Specialists: The Economics of Credence Goods

By Uwe Dulleck and Rudolf Kerschbamer

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2006

Most of us need the services of an expert when our apartment's heating or our washing machine breaks down, or when our car starts to make strange noises. And for most of us, commissioning an expert to solve the problem causes concern. This concern does no...

What Determines Cartel Success?

By Margaret C. Levenstein and Valerie Y. Suslow

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2006

Following George Stigler (1964), many economists assume that incentive problems undermine attempts by firms to collude to raise prices and restrict output. But the potential profits from collusion can create a powerful incentive as well. Theory cannot tel...

The Big Push Déjà Vu: A Review of Jeffrey Sachs's The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time

By William Easterly

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2006

Jeffrey Sachs's new book (The End of Poverty: Economic Possibilities for Our Time, Penguin Press: New York, 2005) advocates a "Big Push" featuring large increases in aid to finance a package of complementary investments in order to end world pove...

Front Matter

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2023

When Sarah Meets Lawrence: The Effects of Coeducation on Women's College Major Choices

By Avery Calkins, Ariel J. Binder, Dana Shaat, and Brenden Timpe

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2023

We leverage variation in the adoption of coeducation by US women's colleges to study how exposure to a mixed-gender collegiate environment affects women's human capital investments. Our event-study analyses of newly collected historical data find a 3.0–...

The Great Escape: A Review of Robert Fogel's The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700-2100

By Angus Deaton

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2006

In this essay, I review Robert Fogel's The Escape from Hunger and Premature Death, 1700–2100, which is concerned with the past, present, and future of human health. Fogel's work places great emphasis on nutrition, not only for the history of he...

Uncovering Peer Effects in Social and Academic Skills

By Román Andrés Zárate

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2023

This paper studies the impact of adolescent peers who are central in their social network on the formation of social skills and academic performance of fellow students. I conduct a novel large-scale field experiment at selective public boarding schools in...

Does Discipline Decrease Police Misconduct? Evidence from Chicago Civilian Allegations

By Kyle Rozema and Max Schanzenbach

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2023

Reformers are calling for greater oversight of police behavior, in part through enhanced use of civilian complaints. However, others counter that greater oversight could chill effective policing. We assess police officer response to administrative determi...

Halfway Home? Residential Housing and Reincarceration

By Logan M. Lee

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2023

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people are released from prison. For many, the transition back to society includes a mandatory stay in residential housing. I estimate the effect of residential housing on reincarceration using administrative data from...

Does Cash Bail Deter Misconduct?

By Aurélie Ouss and Megan Stevenson

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2023

Courts routinely use low cash bail as a financial incentive to ensure released defendants appear in court and abstain from crime. This can create burdens for defendants with little empirical evidence on its efficacy. We exploit a prosecutor-driven reform ...

When Do Politicians Appeal Broadly? The Economic Consequences of Electoral Rules in Brazil

By Moya Chin

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2023

Electoral rules determine how voters' preferences are aggregated and translated into political representation. Using a regression discontinuity design, I contrast single- and two-round elections in Brazil. In two-round elections, the eventual winner must ...

School Attendance Boundaries and the Segregation of Public Schools in the United States

By Tomás E. Monarrez

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2023

School segregation is determined both by residential sorting and local policies, such as the drawing of attendance boundaries and school siting. This paper develops an approach to understanding the relative importance of these factors by calculating the d...

Working Their Way Up? US Immigrants' Changing Labor Market Assimilation in the Age of Mass Migration

By William J. Collins and Ariell Zimran

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2023

Whether immigrants advance in labor markets during their life- times relative to natives is a fundamental question in the economics of immigration. We examine linked census records for five cohorts spanning 1850–1940, when immigration to the United Stat...

From Hashtag to Hate Crime: Twitter and Antiminority Sentiment

By Karsten Müller and Carlo Schwarz

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2023

We study whether social media can amplify antiminority sentiment with a focus on Donald Trump's political rise. Using an instrumental variable strategy based on Twitter's early adopters at the South by Southwest festival in 2007, we find that higher Twitt...

Adverse Selection in Low-Income Health Insurance Markets: Evidence from an RCT in Pakistan

By Torben Fischer, Markus Frölich, and Andreas Landmann

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2023

We present robust evidence on adverse selection in hospitalization insurance for low-income individuals that received first-time access to insurance. A large randomized control trial from Pakistan allows us to separate adverse selection from moral hazard,...

What Difference Does a Health Plan Make? Evidence from Random Plan Assignment in Medicaid

By Michael Geruso, Timothy J. Layton, and Jacob Wallace

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2023

Exploiting the random assignment of Medicaid beneficiaries to managed care plans, we find substantial plan-specific spending effects despite plans having identical cost sharing. Enrollment in the lowest-spending plan reduces spending by at least 25 percen...

The International Monetary Fund in a Time of Crisis: A Review of Stanley Fischer's IMF Essays from a Time of Crisis: The International Financial System, Stabilization, and Development

By Patrick Conway

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2006

Stanley Fischer was deputy managing director of the IMF from 1994 to 2001 and, perhaps more than any other individual, he personifies the international "rapid response" to financial crises in the 1990s. This book is a collection of essays written during h...

Generic Aversion and Observational Learning in the Over-the-Counter Drug Market

By Mariana Carrera and Sofia Villas-Boas

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2023

Through a labeling intervention at a national retailer, we test three hypotheses for consumer aversion to generic over-the-counter drugs: lack of information on the comparability of generic and brand drugs, inattention to their price differences, and unce...

Front Matter

American Economic Review, July 2023

The Old Boys' Club: Schmoozing and the Gender Gap

By Zoë Cullen and Ricardo Perez-Truglia

American Economic Review, July 2023

Offices are social places. Employees and managers take breaks together and talk about family and hobbies. In this study, we show that employees' social interactions with their managers can be advantageous for their careers, and that this phenomenon contri...