Urbanization in the Developing World: Too Early or Too Slow?

[Symposium: Cities in Developing Countries]

By J. Vernon Henderson and Matthew A. Turner

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2020

We describe patterns of urbanization in the developing world and the extent to which they differ from the developed world. We consider the extent to which urbanization in the developing world can be explained by conventional models of spatial equilibriu...

Urban-Rural Gaps in the Developing World: Does Internal Migration Offer Opportunities?

[Symposium: Cities in Developing Countries]

By David Lagakos

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2020

This article provides an overview of the growing literature on urban-rural gaps in the developing world. I begin with recent evidence on the size of the gaps as measured by consumption, income, and wages, and argue that the gaps are real rather than just ...

How You Can Work to Increase the Presence and Improve the Experience of Black, Latinx, and Native American People in the Economics Profession

By Amanda Bayer, Gary A. Hoover, and Ebonya Washington

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2020

Recently in economics there has been discussion of how to increase diversity in the profession and how to improve the work life of diverse peoples. We conducted surveys and interviews with Black, Latinx and Native American people. These groups have long b...

Facts and Myths about Misperceptions

By Brendan Nyhan

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2020

Misperceptions threaten to warp mass opinion and public policy on controversial issues in politics, science, and health. What explains the prevalence and persistence of these false and unsupported beliefs, which seem to be genuinely held by many people?...

Venture Capital's Role in Financing Innovation: What We Know and How Much We Still Need to Learn

By Josh Lerner and Ramana Nanda

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2020

Venture capital is associated with some of the most high-growth and influential firms in the world. Academics and practitioners have effectively articulated the strengths of the venture model. At the same time, venture capital financing also has real li...

Recommendations for Further Reading

By Timothy Taylor

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2020

How Close Is Close? The Spatial Reach of Agglomeration Economies

[Symposium: Productivity Advantages of Cities]

By Stuart S. Rosenthal and William C. Strange

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2020

This paper considers the attenuation of agglomeration economies. Put another way: how close is close? The paper presents evidence of agglomeration effects operating at various levels of spatial aggregation, including the regional, metropolitan, and neighb...

The Economics of Urban Density

[Symposium: Productivity Advantages of Cities]

By Gilles Duranton and Diego Puga

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2020

Density boosts productivity and innovation, improves access to goods and services, reduces typical travel distances, encourages energy efficient construction and transport, and allows broader sharing of scarce urban amenities. However, density is also syn...

Tech Clusters

[Symposium: Productivity Advantages of Cities]

By William R. Kerr and Frederic Robert-Nicoud

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2020

Tech clusters like Silicon Valley play a central role for modern innovation, business competitiveness, and economic performance. This paper reviews what constitutes a tech cluster, how they function internally, and the degree to which policy makers can pu...

Internal Mobility: The Greater Responsiveness of Foreign-Born to Economic Conditions

[Symposium: Productivity Advantages of Cities]

By Gaetano Basso and Giovanni Peri

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2020

In this article, we review the internal geographic mobility of immigrants and natives in the United States in the recent decades, with a focus on the period since 2000. We confirm a continuing secular decline in mobility already pointed out by the exist...

Using Place-Based Jobs Policies to Help Distressed Communities

[Symposium: Place-Based Policies]

By Timothy J. Bartik

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2020

Place-based jobs policies seek to create jobs in particular local labor markets. Such policies include business incentives provided by state and local governments, which cost almost 50 billion USD annually. The most persuasive rationale for these polici...

Wielding charity for political influence

[Research Highlight]

August 03, 2020

Marianne Bertrand and Matilde Bombardini discuss how much of corporate philanthropy is really lobbying.

Tax-Exempt Lobbying: Corporate Philanthropy as a Tool for Political Influence

By Marianne Bertrand, Matilde Bombardini, Raymond Fisman, and Francesco Trebbi

American Economic Review, July 2020

We explore the role of charitable giving as a means of political influence. For philanthropic foundations associated with large US corporations, we present three different identification strategies that consistently point to the use of corporate social re...

History-Bound Reelections

By Hans Gersbach

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, August 2020

We introduce history-bound reelections. In their simple form, they consist in a "score-replication rule." Under such a rule, an incumbent has to match the highest vote share he or she has obtained in any previous election in order to be reelected. We deve...

Bound by history

[Research Highlight]

July 24, 2020

Would requiring incumbents to match their previous best vote share improve our democracy?

90th International Atlantic Economic Conference

[News]

August 12, 2020

The conference will be held virtually on October 15-18, 2020.

Can tax policy change gender norms?

[Page]

The earned income tax credit spurred more women to work and changed social attitudes in the process.

Losing Prosociality in the Quest for Talent? Sorting, Selection, and Productivity in the Delivery of Public Services

By Nava Ashraf, Oriana Bandiera, Edward Davenport, and Scott S. Lee

American Economic Review, May 2020

We embed a field experiment in a nationwide recruitment drive for a new health care position in Zambia to test whether career benefits attract talent at the expense of prosocial motivation. In line with common wisdom, offering career opportunities attract...

The elite-school wage premium

[Page]

How much does going to a prestigious college matter?

Finding the best person for the job

[Research Highlight]

August 13, 2020

Does offering more career advancement attract less motivated workers?