Sweeping Changes and an Uncertain Legacy: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017

[Symposium: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017]

By William G. Gale, Jeffrey L. Hoopes, and Kyle Pomerleau

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2024

The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) of 2017 introduced sweeping changes to individual and corporate taxation. We summarize the major provisions, trace the origins of the Act, and compare it to previous tax changes. We also examine the effects on the govern...

The US Individual Income Tax: Recent Evolution and Evidence

[Symposium: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017]

By Jon Bakija

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2024

This paper assesses the current state of the US federal individual taxation, and considers its recent evolution, with an emphasis on the changes to the individual income tax enacted in the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), and evidence on their impacts...

Lessons from the Biggest Business Tax Cut in US History

[Symposium: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017]

By Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, Owen Zidar, and Eric Zwick

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2024

We assess the business provisions of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, the biggest corporate tax cut in US history. We draw five lessons. First, corporate tax revenue fell by 40 percent due to the lower rate and more generous expensing. Second, firms with...

US International Corporate Taxation after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act

[Symposium: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017]

By Kimberly A. Clausing

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2024

The root dilemma that informs the past, present, and future of US international taxation is the tension between two desiderata: protecting the corporate tax base from erosion and ensuring the competitiveness of US multinational firms in the world econom...

Reconsidering Crucial Concepts in Micro Principles

By Karl E. Case

American Economic Review, May 2002

Are Opportunity Zones an Effective Place-Based Policy?

[Symposium: The Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017]

By Kevin Corinth and Naomi Feldman

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2024

We evaluate the Opportunity Zones provision of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, focusing on its targeting and effects on investment and resident outcomes. The policy allowed substantial discretion for state governors to designate Opportunity Zones that were n...

Seeking the "Missing Women" of Economics with the Undergraduate Women in Economics Challenge

[Symposium: Expanding the Appeal of Economics]

By Tatyana Avilova and Claudia Goldin

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2024

Economics is among the most popular undergraduate majors, especially in top colleges and universities. However, even at the best research universities and liberal arts colleges men outnumber women by two to one, and overall there are about 2.5 males to ...

Valuing Identity in the Classroom: What Economics Can Learn from Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education

[Symposium: Expanding the Appeal of Economics]

By Sergio Barrera, Susan Sajadi, Marionette Holmes, and Sarah Jacobson

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2024

Economics faces stubborn underrepresentation of minoritized identity groups. Economics instructors also largely use antiquated instructional methods. We leverage the literature from the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics educati...

Lessons for Expanding the Share of Disadvantaged Students in Economics from the AEA Summer Program at Michigan State University

[Symposium: Expanding the Appeal of Economics]

By Lisa D. Cook and Christine Moser

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2024

Since 1974, the American Economic Association Summer Training Program has provided training and mentoring to students from disadvantaged backgrounds in economics. The aim of the program is to encourage and prepare these students to apply to PhD programs...

What Went Wrong with Federal Student Loans?

By Adam Looney and Constantine Yannelis

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2024

At a time when the returns to college and graduate school are at historic highs, why do so many students struggle with their student loans? The increase in aggregate student debt and the struggles of today's student loan borrowers can be traced to chang...

On the Economics of Extinction and Possible Mass Extinctions

By M. Scott Taylor and Rolf Weder

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2024

Human beings' domination of the planet has not been kind to many species. This is to be expected. Humans have radically altered natural landscapes, harvested heavily from the ocean, and altered the climate in an unprecedented way. Recent concerns over t...

Recommendations for Further Reading

By Timothy Taylor

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2024

The Economic Naturalist: Teaching Introductory Students How to Speak Economics

By Robert H. Frank

American Economic Review, May 2002

Use It or Lose It: Teaching Literacy in the Economics Principles Course

By W. Lee Hansen, Michael K. Salemi, and John J. Siegfried

American Economic Review, May 2002

Promoting Economic Literacy: Panel Discussion

American Economic Review, May 2002

Front Matter

American Economic Review, September 2024

Arbitraging Covered Interest Rate Parity Deviations and Bank Lending

By Lorena Keller

American Economic Review, September 2024

I propose and test a new channel through which covered interest rate parity (CIP) deviations can affect bank lending in emerging economies. I argue that when CIP deviations exist, banks attempt to arbitrage them. To do so, banks must borrow in a particula...

Revealing Choice Bracketing

By Andrew Ellis and David J. Freeman

American Economic Review, September 2024

Experiments suggest that people fail to take into account interdependencies between their choices—they do not broadly bracket. Researchers often instead assume people narrowly bracket, but existing designs do not test it. We design a novel experiment an...

Valuing Long-Term Property Rights with Anticipated Political Regime Shifts

By Zhiguo He, Maggie Hu, Zhenping Wang, and Vincent Yao

American Economic Review, September 2024

We identify exposure to political risk by exploiting a unique variation around land lease extension protection after 2047 in Hong Kong's housing market due to historical arrangements. Relative to properties that have been promised an extension protection,...

Age Set versus Kin: Culture and Financial Ties in East Africa

By Jacob Moscona and Awa Ambra Seck

American Economic Review, September 2024

We study how social organization shapes patterns of economic interaction and the effects of national policy, focusing on the distinction between age-based and kin-based groups in sub-Saharan Africa. Motivated by ethnographic accounts suggesting that this ...