Persuasion: The Art of Changing Worldviews

By Simone Galperti

American Economic Review, March 2019

Persuaders often face the task of changing their listeners' worldview, which may involve conveying evidence that disconfirms that view. It has been shown, however, that people are often reluctant to change their worldviews. These aspects of persuasion can...

When place matters most

[Research Highlight]

April 03, 2020

Moving to nicer neighborhoods has lasting effects on kids' outcomes, especially in their teenage years.

Health Care Spending and Utilization in Public and Private Medicare

By Vilsa Curto, Liran Einav, Amy Finkelstein, Jonathan Levin, and Jay Bhattacharya

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2019

We compare health care spending in public and private Medicare using newly available claims data from Medicare Advantage (MA) insurers. MA insurer revenues are 30 percent higher than their health care spending. Adjusting for enrollee mix, health care spen...

Taking a Financial Position in Your Opponent in Litigation

By Albert H. Choi and Kathryn E. Spier

American Economic Review, December 2018

Before filing suit, a plaintiff can take a financial position in a defendant firm. A short position benefits the plaintiff by transforming a negative expected-value claim into a positive expected-value one and by enhancing the claim's settlement value. If...

Should We Tax Sugar-Sweetened Beverages? An Overview of Theory and Evidence

By Hunt Allcott, Benjamin B. Lockwood, and Dmitry Taubinsky

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2019

Taxes on sugar-sweetened beverages are growing in popularity and have generated an active public debate. Are they a good idea? If so, how high should they be? Are such taxes regressive? People in the United States and some other countries consume remark...

Do 40-Year-Old Facts Still Matter? Long-Run Effects of Federal Oversight under the Voting Rights Act

By Desmond Ang

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2019

In 2013, the Supreme Court struck down parts of the Voting Rights Act that mandated federal oversight of election laws in discriminatory jurisdictions, prompting a spate of controversial new voting rules. Utilizing difference-in-differences to examine the...

Women's Empowerment in Action: Evidence from a Randomized Control Trial in Africa

By Oriana Bandiera, Niklas Buehren, Robin Burgess, Markus Goldstein, Selim Gulesci, Imran Rasul, and Munshi Sulaiman

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2020

We evaluate a multifaceted policy intervention attempting to jump-start adolescent women's empowerment in Uganda by simultaneously providing them vocational training and information on sex, reproduction, and marriage. We find that four years postintervent...

The Aging of the Baby Boomers: Demographics and Propagation of Tax Shocks

By Domenico Ferraro and Giuseppe Fiori

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, April 2020

We study how the changing demographic composition of the US labor force has affected the response of the unemployment rate to marginal tax rate shocks. Using narratively identified tax changes as proxies for structural shocks, we establish that the respon...

On the Determinants of Cooperation in Infinitely Repeated Games: A Survey

By Pedro Dal Bó and Guillaume R. Fréchette

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2018

A growing experimental literature studies the determinants of cooperation in infinitely repeated games, tests different predictions of the theory, and suggests an empirical solution to the problem of multiple equilibria. To provide a robust description of...

Dave Donaldson: Winner of the 2017 Clark Medal

By Daron Acemoglu

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2018

The 2017 John Bates Clark Medal of the American Economic Association was awarded to Dave Donaldson for his path-breaking contributions in international trade. Donaldson’s work sheds light on some of the central questions of international economics, ...

Profit Shifting in a Globalized World

By Dhammika Dharmapala

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2019

This paper briefly reviews the measurement of the magnitude of profit shifting by multinational firms. Highlighting differences between estimates using microeconomic and macroeconomic approaches, it sketches a conceptual framework that can help explain th...

Did Austerity Cause Brexit?

By Thiemo Fetzer

American Economic Review, November 2019

This paper documents a significant association between the exposure of an individual or area to the UK government's austerity-induced welfare reforms begun in 2010, and the following: the subsequent rise in support for the UK Independence Party, an import...

A Review Essay: David Kynaston's Till Time's Last Sand: A History of the Bank of England, 1694–2013

By Charles R. Bean

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2019

This essay reviews Till Time's Last Sand: A History of the Bank of England, 1694–2013, David Kynaston's history of the Bank of England (the Bank) from its foundation in 1694 to the present day. I focus on three themes running through his narrat...

An Experimental Comparison of Risky and Riskless Choice—Limitations of Prospect Theory and Expected Utility Theory

By Hui-Kuan Chung, Paul Glimcher, and Agnieszka Tymula

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, August 2019

Prospect theory, used descriptively for decisions under both risk and certainty, presumes concave utility over gains and convex utility over losses, a pattern widely seen in lottery tasks. Although such discontinuous gain-loss reference-dependence is also...

Parents' Beliefs about Their Children's Academic Ability: Implications for Educational Investments

By Rebecca Dizon-Ross

American Economic Review, August 2019

Schools worldwide distribute information to parents about their children's academic performance. Do frictions prevent parents, particularly low-income parents, from accessing this information to make decisions? A field experiment in Malawi shows that, at ...

Emotional Tagging and Belief Formation: The Long-Lasting Effects of Experiencing Communism

By Christine Laudenbach, Ulrike Malmendier, and Alexandra Niessen-Ruenzi

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2019

Growing evidence in macrofinance suggests long-lasting effects of personally experienced outcomes on beliefs. To understand the underlying mechanism we turn to the neurological foundations of memory formation. We propose that emotional tagging plays a cru...

What Do We Know about the Effects of Austerity?

By Alberto Alesina, Carlo A. Favero, and Francesco Giavazzi

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2018

The literature on fiscal multipliers is far from having reached an agreed upon conclusion. One result, however, seems very robust: in OECD economies, fiscal consolidations based upon expenditure cuts are much less costly than those performed on the tax si...

Macroeconomics and Market Power: Context, Implications, and Open Questions

[Symposium: Markups]

By Chad Syverson

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2019

This article assesses several aspects of recent macroeconomic market power research. These include the ways market power is defined and measured; the use of accounting data to estimate markups; the quantitative implications of theoretical connections amon...

Disrupting Education? Experimental Evidence on Technology-Aided Instruction in India

By Karthik Muralidharan, Abhijeet Singh, and Alejandro J. Ganimian

American Economic Review, April 2019

We study the impact of a personalized technology-aided after-school instruction program in middle-school grades in urban India using a lottery that provided winners with free access to the program. Lottery winners scored 0.37 sigma higher in math and 0.23...

Online Privacy and Information Disclosure by Consumers

By Shota Ichihashi

American Economic Review, February 2020

I study the welfare and price implications of consumer privacy. A consumer discloses information to a multiproduct seller, which learns about his preferences, sets prices, and makes product recommendations. Although the consumer benefits from accurate rec...