A short history of Asian immigration

[Research Highlight]

March 10, 2026

Hannah Postel discusses the evolution of Asian immigration to the United States.

Uncertainty and Change: Survey Evidence of Firms’ Subjective Beliefs

By Rüdiger Bachmann, Kai Carstensen, Stefan Lautenbacher, Manuel Menkhoff, and Martin Schneider

American Economic Review

This paper studies how managers plan under uncertainty. In a new panel survey of German manufacturing firms, we observe both forecasts of sales growth and a quantitative measure of subjective uncertainty. We show that subjective uncertainty reflects c...

Deadwood Labor? The Effects of Eliminating Employment Protection for Older Workers

By Emmanuel Saez, Benjamin Schoefer, and David Seim

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics

We analyze mandatory retirement in Sweden which eliminates entirely employment protection at age 67. Employment falls by about 10 percent and total average earnings by about 20 percent immediately at age 67. 8 percent of jobs separate immediately due t...

You're the One That I Want! Understanding the Overrepresentation of Women in the Public Sector

By Pedro Gomes and Zoë Kuehn

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, April 2026

The public sector hires disproportionally more women than men. Using microdata, we document gender differences in employment, transition probabilities, hours, and wages in the public and private sector. We calibrate a search and matching model where men a...

Disagreement about Monetary Policy

By Karthik A. Sastry

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, April 2026

This paper studies why central banks and markets hold different beliefs. I introduce a model that formalizes three mechanisms for disagreement: asymmetric information about fundamentals, different perceptions of the policy rule, and different confidence i...

Cognitive Hubs and Spatial Redistribution

By Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, Pierre-Daniel Sarte, and Felipe Schwartzman

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, April 2026

In the United States, cognitive nonroutine (CNR) occupations are disproportionately and increasingly represented in large cities. To study the allocation of workers across cities, we propose a quantitative spatial equilibrium model with multiple industrie...

Employed in a SNAP? The Impact of Work Requirements on Program Participation and Labor Supply

By Colin Gray, Adam Leive, Elena Prager, Kelsey Pukelis, and Mary Zaki

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, February 2023

Work requirements are common in US safety net programs. Evidence remains limited, however, on the extent to which work requirements increase economic self-sufficiency or screen out vulnerable individuals. Using linked administrative data on food stamps (S...

Disemployment Effects of Unemployment Insurance: A Meta-analysis

By Jonathan P. Cohen and Peter Ganong

American Economic Review: Insights, March 2026

We systematically review studies of how unemployment benefits affect unemployment duration. Statistically significant findings are eight times more likely to be published. Correcting for publication bias cuts the average elasticity by a third. Meta-analys...

Wage Adjustment in Efficient Long-Term Employment Relationships

By Michael W. L. Elsby, Axel Gottfries, Pawel Krolikowski, and Gary Solon

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics

We present a model in which efficient long-term employment relationships are sustained by wage adjustments prompted by productivity shocks and outside job offers. These wage adjustments occur only sporadically, due to the presence of renegotiation cost...

Bonus Question: How Does Flexible Incentive Pay Affect Unemployment Dynamics?

By Meghana Gaur, John Grigsby, Jonathon Hazell, and Abdoulaye Ndiaye

American Economic Review: Insights

We introduce dynamic incentive contracts into a model of unemployment fluctuations. Our main result is that wage cyclicality from incentives does not affect the response of unemployment to productivity shocks. The response of unemployment is the same, ...

How valuable is access to the social safety net in early childhood?

[Research Highlight]

April 03, 2016

The effects of the Food Stamp Program rollout are still visible decades later

Did the US housing boom obscure a massive manufacturing bust?

[Research Highlight]

June 17, 2016

The housing bubble might help solve a mystery about the declining job prospects of noncollege men

How does the relentless churn of jobs in the modern economy affect happiness?

[Research Highlight]

December 08, 2016

Examining the paradox of "creative destruction"

Can temporary affirmative action policies have lasting effects?

[Research Highlight]

June 27, 2017

Hiring regulations can lead to fundamental changes in how employers recruit

"Sand castles before the tide"

[Research Highlight]

February 16, 2018

How can America's most expensive cities keep themselves affordable?

Cutting taxes, creating jobs

[Research Highlight]

September 26, 2018

How would lowering the corporate tax rate affect entrepreneurial decisions and employment?

Targeting poverty

[Research Highlight]

November 30, 2018

The AEA interviews Rema Hanna and Benjamin Olken about whether universal basic income programs are the best way to provide aid in the developing world.

Educational returns

[Research Highlight]

February 12, 2019

Are financial aid programs getting their money's worth?

Turning to cartels

[Research Highlight]

June 03, 2019

When factories leave town, does violence get worse?

Passing the buck

[Research Highlight]

July 25, 2019

Who pays for a raise in the minimum wage and how does it affect job growth?