Report of the Editor: Journal of Economic Literature

American Economic Review, May 2015

Report of the Editor: Journal of Economic Perspectives

American Economic Review, May 2015

Report of the Editor: American Economic Journal: Applied Economics

American Economic Review, May 2015

Report of the Editor: American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

American Economic Review, May 2015

Report of the Editor: American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics

American Economic Review, May 2015

Report of the Editor: American Economic Journal: Microeconomics

American Economic Review, May 2015

Report of the Director: Job Openings for Economists

American Economic Review, May 2015

Report: Committee on Economic Education

American Economic Review, May 2015

Report: Committee on the Status of Women in the Economics Profession (CSWEP)

American Economic Review, May 2015

Report: Committee on the Status of Minority Groups in the Economic Profession (CSMGEP)

American Economic Review, May 2015

Report: American Economic Association Committee on Statistics (AEAStat)

American Economic Review, May 2015

Report: Committee on Government Relations

American Economic Review, May 2015

Market Failures and Public Policy

By Jean Tirole

American Economic Review, June 2015

Consumer Search and Double Marginalization

By Maarten Janssen and Sandro Shelegia

American Economic Review, June 2015

The well-known double marginalization problem understates the inefficiencies arising from vertical relations in consumer search markets where consumers are uninformed about the wholesale prices charged by manufacturers to retailers. Consumer search provid...

Government Policy with Time Inconsistent Voters

By Alberto Bisin, Alessandro Lizzeri, and Leeat Yariv

American Economic Review, June 2015

Behavioral economics presents a "paternalistic" rationale for benevolent government intervention. This paper presents a model of public debt where voters have self-control problems and attempt to commit using illiquid assets. In equilibrium, government ac...

Trafficking Networks and the Mexican Drug War

By Melissa Dell

American Economic Review, June 2015

Drug trade-related violence has escalated dramatically in Mexico since 2007, and recent years have also witnessed large-scale efforts to combat trafficking, spearheaded by Mexico's conservative PAN party. This study examines the direct and spillover effec...

Clientelism in Indian Villages

By Siwan Anderson, Patrick Francois, and Ashok Kotwal

American Economic Review, June 2015

We study the operation of local governments (Panchayats) in rural Maharashtra, India, using a survey that we designed for this end. Elections are freely contested, fairly tallied, highly participatory, non-coerced, and lead to appointment of representativ...

The Value of Democracy: Evidence from Road Building in Kenya

By Robin Burgess, Remi Jedwab, Edward Miguel, Ameet Morjaria, and Gerard Padró i Miquel

American Economic Review, June 2015

Ethnic favoritism is seen as antithetical to development. This paper provides credible quantification of the extent of ethnic favoritism using data on road building in Kenyan districts across the 1963-2011 period. Guided by a model, it then examines wheth...

Fertility and Childlessness in the United States

By Thomas Baudin, David de la Croix, and Paula E. Gobbi

American Economic Review, June 2015

We develop a theory of fertility, distinguishing its intensive margin from its extensive margin. The deep parameters are identified using facts from the 1990 US Census: (i) fertility of mothers decreases with education; (ii) childlessness exhibits a U-sha...

Endogenous Liquidity and the Business Cycle

By Saki Bigio

American Economic Review, June 2015

I study an economy where asymmetric information about the quality of capital endogenously determines liquidity. Liquid funds are key to relaxing financial constraints on investment and employment. These funds are obtained by selling capital or using it as...