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...

Front Matter

American Economic Review, June 2015

The Industrial Organization of Health-Care Markets

By Martin Gaynor, Kate Ho, and Robert J. Town

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2015

The U.S. health-care sector is large and growing—health-care spending in 2011 amounted to $2.7 trillion and 18 percent of GDP. Approximately half of health-care output is allocated via markets. In this paper, we analyze the industrial organization l...

Research on Teaching Economics to Undergraduates

By Sam Allgood, William B. Walstad, and John J. Siegfried

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2015

This survey summarizes the main research findings about teaching economics to undergraduates. After briefly reviewing the history of research on undergraduate economic education, it discusses the status of the economics major numbers and trends, goals, co...

Revisiting Samuelson's Foundations of Economic Analysis

By Roger E. Backhouse

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2015

Paul Samuelson's Foundations of Economic Analysis played a major role in defining how economic theory was undertaken for many years after the Second World War. This paper fills out Samuelson's account of the book's origins and corrects some detai...

Racial Realism: A Review Essay on John Skrentny's After Civil Rights

By Kevin Lang

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2015

In his valuable contribution, After Civil Rights, John Skrentny shows that in many sectors of the labor market, race is used in ways that were unanticipated when the 1964 Civil Rights Act was enacted. With separate chapters on the professions and...

Book Reviews

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2015

Front Matter

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2015

Annotated Listing of New Books

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2015

JEL Classification System

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2015

Unintended Effects of Anonymous Résumés

By Luc Behaghel, Bruno Crépon, and Thomas Le Barbanchon

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2015

We evaluate an experimental program in which the French public employment service anonymized résumés for firms that were hiring. Firms were free to participate or not; participating firms were then randomly assigned to receive either anonymous résumés...

Saving Lives at Birth: The Impact of Home Births on Infant Outcomes

By N. Meltem Daysal, Mircea Trandafir, and Reyn van Ewijk

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2015

Many developed countries have recently experienced sharp increases in home birth rates. This paper investigates the impact of home births on the health of low-risk newborns using data from the Netherlands, the only developed country where home births are ...

Incentives, Commitments, and Habit Formation in Exercise: Evidence from a Field Experiment with Workers at a Fortune-500 Company

By Heather Royer, Mark Stehr, and Justin Sydnor

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2015

Financial incentives have shown strong positive short-run effects for problematic health behaviors that likely stem from time inconsistency. However, the effects often disappear once incentive programs end. This paper analyzes the results of a large-scale...

The Rise of Fringe Competitors in the Wake of an Emerging Middle Class: An Empirical Analysis

By Alon Eizenberg and Alberto Salvo

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2015

The "emerging middle class" is a force of economic importance in many consumer markets around the globe. A striking phenomenon in some of these markets is the growth of "generic," low-price brands. This paper examines these phenomena in Brazil's large sof...

Hassle Costs and Price Discrimination: An Empirical Welfare Analysis

By Guillermo Marshall

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2015

This paper studies a market where soda is sold in both refillable and nonrefillable bottles. Purchasing refillables is inconvenient but cheaper. Using a discrete choice model, I find that price-sensitive customers put less weight on the inconveniences of ...

The Girl Next Door: The Effect of Opposite Gender Friends on High School Achievement

By Andrew J. Hill

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2015

This paper finds that a student's share of opposite gender school friends negatively affects high school GPA. It uses the gender composition of schoolmates in an individual's neighborhood as an instrument for the gender composition of an individual's self...

The Effect of Income on Religiousness

By Thomas Buser

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2015

How does income affect religiousness? Using self-collected survey data, we estimate the effects of income on religious behavior. As a source of exogenous income variation we use a change in the eligibility criteria for a government cash transfer in Ecuado...