An Economic Theory of the Evolutionary Emergence of Property Rights

By Mukesh Eswaran and Hugh M. Neary

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, August 2014

We model the emergence of an innate, biological sense of property rights where resource scarcity and output contestability reign. Preferences evolve such that, in evolutionarily stable equilibrium, an object is valued more by an individual who possesses i...

Optimal Project Selection Mechanisms

By Talia Bar and Sidartha Gordon

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, August 2014

We study mechanisms for selecting up to m out of n projects. Project managers' private information on quality is elicited through transfers. Under limited liability, the optimal mechanism selects projects that maximize some function of the project's obser...

Resisting Moral Wiggle Room: How Robust Is Reciprocal Behavior?

By Joël J. van der Weele, Julija Kulisa, Michael Kosfeld, and Guido Friebel

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, August 2014

We provide the second mover in a trust game and a moonlighting game with an excuse for not reciprocating. While this type of manipulation has been shown to strongly reduce giving in the dictator game, we find that the availability of the excuse has no eff...

Sequential Kidney Exchange

By Lawrence M. Ausubel and Thayer Morrill

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, August 2014

The traditional literature on kidney exchange assumes that all components of the exchange must occur simultaneously. Unfortunately, the number of operating rooms required for concurrent surgeries poses a significant constraint on the beneficial exchanges ...

Front Matter

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, August 2014

The Effects of Regulation in the Presence of Multiple Unpriced Externalities: Evidence from the Transportation Sector

By Antonio Bento, Daniel Kaffine, Kevin Roth, and Matthew Zaragoza-Watkins

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2014

In transportation systems with unpriced congestion, allowing single-occupant low-emission vehicles in high-occupancy vehicle (HOV) lanes to encourage their adoption exacerbates congestion costs for carpoolers. The resulting welfare effects of the policy a...

Is Gifted Education a Bright Idea? Assessing the Impact of Gifted and Talented Programs on Students

By Sa A. Bui, Steven G. Craig, and Scott A. Imberman

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2014

We evaluate the impact of Gifted and Talented (GT) programs on students through a regression discontinuity (RD) design, and by analyzing a randomized lottery for elite magnet GT schools. We show that GT students in each analysis are exposed to higher achi...

Friends in High Places

By Lauren Cohen and Christopher J. Malloy

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2014

We demonstrate that personal connections amongst US politicians have a significant impact on Senate voting behavior. Networks based on alumni connections between politicians are consistent predictors of voting behavior. We estimate sharp measures that con...

Recessions, Older Workers, and Longevity: How Long Are Recessions Good for Your Health?

By Courtney C. Coile, Phillip B. Levine, and Robin McKnight

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2014

Although past research has found that recessions reduce contemporaneous mortality, workers nearing retirement age may experience reduced longevity attributable to lengthy unemployment spells and lost health insurance at a particularly vulnerable time. To ...

Early Retirement Incentives and Student Achievement

By Maria D. Fitzpatrick and Michael F. Lovenheim

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2014

Early retirement incentives (ERIs) are increasingly prevalent in education as districts seek to close budget gaps by replacing expensive experienced teachers with lower cost newer teachers. Combined with the aging of the teacher workforce, these ERIs are ...

Taxation of Couples under Assortative Mating

By Alexander Frankel

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2014

I present a simple and tractable model of the optimal taxation of married couples, working off of the multidimensional screening framework of Armstrong and Rochet (1999). In particular, I study how the tax code varies with the degree of assortative mating...

Corporate Incentives and Nuclear Safety

By Catherine Hausman

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2014

Following electricity market restructuring, approximately half of all commercial US nuclear power reactors were sold by price-regulated public utilities to independent power producers. At the time of the sales, some policymakers raised concerns that these...

Under Pressure: Job Security, Resource Allocation, and Productivity in Schools under No Child Left Behind

By Randall Reback, Jonah Rockoff, and Heather L. Schwartz

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2014

We conduct the first nationwide study of incentives under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, which requires states to punish schools failing to meet target passing rates on students' standardized exams. States' idiosyncratic policies created variation i...

The Incentive Effects of Marginal Tax Rates: Evidence from the Interwar Era

By Christina D. Romer and David H. Romer

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2014

This paper uses the interwar United States as a laboratory for investigating the incentive effects of marginal income tax rates. We examine the impact of the large changes in rates in this period on taxable income using time-series/cross-section analysis ...

Does Abolishing User Fees Lead to Improved Health Status? Evidence from Post-apartheid South Africa

By Shinsuke Tanaka

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2014

Whether user fees for health services should be charged or abolished for the poor has recently been debated. This study examines the impact on child health status of removing user fees in South Africa. Our main innovation is to exploit plausibly exogenous...

Inside the Refrigerator: Immigration Enforcement and Chilling Effects in Medicaid Participation

By Tara Watson

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2014

"Chilling effects" are a popular explanation for low program take-up rates among immigrants, but the effects of an icy policy climate are inherently hard to measure. This paper finds robust evidence that heightened federal immigration enforcement reduces ...

Front Matter

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2014

Front Matter

American Economic Review, August 2014

Financial Globalization, Inequality, and the Rising Public Debt

By Marina Azzimonti, Eva de Francisco, and Vincenzo Quadrini

American Economic Review, August 2014

During the last three decades government debt has increased in most developed countries. During the same period we have also observed a significant liberalization of international financial markets. We propose a multi-country model with incomplete markets...

The Axiomatic Structure of Empirical Content

By Christopher P. Chambers, Federico Echenique, and Eran Shmaya

American Economic Review, August 2014

We define the empirical content of an economic theory as the least restrictive observationally equivalent theory. We show that the empirical content of a theory is captured by a certain kind of axiomatization, with axioms that are universal negations of c...