The Long-Run Effects of Labor Migration on Human Capital Formation in Communities of Origin

By Taryn Dinkelman and Martine Mariotti

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2016

We provide new evidence of one channel through which circular labor migration has long-run effects on origin communities: by raising completed human capital of the next generation. We estimate the net effects of migration from Malawi to South African mine...

The Long-Run Economic Consequences of High-Stakes Examinations: Evidence from Transitory Variation in Pollution

By Avraham Ebenstein, Victor Lavy, and Sefi Roth

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2016

Cognitive performance during high-stakes exams can be affected by random disturbances that, even if transitory, may have permanent consequences. We evaluate this hypothesis among Israeli students who took a series of matriculation exams between 2000 and 2...

What Does Debt Relief Do for Development? Evidence from India's Bailout for Rural Households

By Martin Kanz

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2016

This paper studies the impact of debt relief, using a natural experiment arising from India's "Agricultural Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme," one of the largest household-level debt relief initiatives in history. I find that debt relief has a substanti...

Buy the Book? Evidence on the Effect of Textbook Funding on School-Level Achievement

By Kristian L. Holden

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2016

This paper considers the effect of textbook funding on school-level test performance by using a quasi-experimental setting in the United States. I consider a lawsuit in California that provided a one-time payment of $96.90 per student for textbooks if sch...

Does Early Life Exposure to Cigarette Smoke Permanently Harm Childhood Welfare? Evidence from Cigarette Tax Hikes

By David Simon

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2016

Evidence suggests that excise taxes on tobacco improve fetal health. However, it remains unknown if smoke exposure in early life causes lasting harm to children. I find that in utero exposure to a dollar increase in the state cigarette tax causes a 10 per...

Habit Formation in Voting: Evidence from Rainy Elections

By Thomas Fujiwara, Kyle Meng, and Tom Vogl

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2016

We estimate habit formation in voting--the effect of past on current turnout--by exploiting transitory voting cost shocks. Using county-level data on US presidential elections from 1952-2012, we find that rainfall on current and past election days reduces...

Patents as a Spur to Subsequent Innovation? Evidence from Pharmaceuticals

By Duncan S. Gilchrist

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2016

This paper examines how an incumbent's patent protection acts as an implicit subsidy toward non-infringing substitutes. I analyze whether classes of pharmaceuticals whose first entrant has a longer period of market exclusivity (time between approval and g...

Iron Deficiency and Schooling Attainment in Peru

By Alberto Chong, Isabelle Cohen, Erica Field, Eduardo Nakasone, and Maximo Torero

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2016

Do nutritional deficiencies contribute to the intergenerational persistence of poverty by reducing the earnings potential of future generations? To address this question, we made available supplemental iron pills at a health center in rural Peru and encou...

The Impact of High School Financial Education: Evidence from a Large-Scale Evaluation in Brazil

By Miriam Bruhn, Luciana de Souza Leão, Arianna Legovini, Rogelio Marchetti, and Bilal Zia

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2016

We study the impact of a comprehensive high school financial education program spanning 6 states, 892 schools, and approximately 25,000 students in Brazil through a randomized control trial. The program increased student financial proficiency by a quarter...

Front Matter

American Economic Review, October 2016

Can Tracking Raise the Test Scores of High-Ability Minority Students?

By David Card and Laura Giuliano

American Economic Review, October 2016

We evaluate a tracking program in a large urban district where schools with at least one gifted fourth grader create a separate "gifted/high achiever" classroom. Most seats are filled by non-gifted high achievers, ranked by previous-year test scores. We s...

The Real Effects of Monetary Shocks in Sticky Price Models: A Sufficient Statistic Approach

By Fernando Alvarez, Hervé Le Bihan, and Francesco Lippi

American Economic Review, October 2016

We prove that the ratio of kurtosis to the frequency of price changes is a sufficient statistic for the real effects of monetary shocks, measured by the cumulated output response following the shock. The sufficient statistic result holds in a large class ...

Adverse Selection and Auction Design for Internet Display Advertising

By Nick Arnosti, Marissa Beck, and Paul Milgrom

American Economic Review, October 2016

We model an online display advertising environment in which "performance" advertisers can measure the value of individual impressions, whereas "brand" advertisers cannot. If advertiser values for ad opportunities are positively correlated, second-price au...

How Much Energy Do Building Energy Codes Save? Evidence from California Houses

By Arik Levinson

American Economic Review, October 2016

Regulations governing the energy efficiency of new buildings have become a cornerstone of US environmental policy. California enacted the first such codes in 1978 and has tightened them every few years since. I evaluate the resulting energy savings three ...

Building State Capacity: Evidence from Biometric Smartcards in India

By Karthik Muralidharan, Paul Niehaus, and Sandip Sukhtankar

American Economic Review, October 2016

Antipoverty programs in developing countries are often difficult to implement; in particular, many governments lack the capacity to deliver payments securely to targeted beneficiaries. We evaluate the impact of biometrically authenticated payments infrast...

Taxation and the International Mobility of Inventors

By Ufuk Akcigit, Salomé Baslandze, and Stefanie Stantcheva

American Economic Review, October 2016

We study the effect of top tax rates on "superstar" inventors' international mobility since 1977, using panel data on inventors from the US and European Patent Offices. We exploit the differential impact of changes in top tax rates on inventors of differe...

Regional Redistribution through the US Mortgage Market

By Erik Hurst, Benjamin J. Keys, Amit Seru, and Joseph Vavra

American Economic Review, October 2016

Regional shocks are an important feature of the US economy. Households' ability to self-insure against these shocks depends on how they affect local interest rates. In the United States, most borrowing occurs through the mortgage market and is influenced ...

Corruption, Trade Costs, and Gains from Tariff Liberalization: Evidence from Southern Africa

By Sandra Sequeira

American Economic Review, October 2016

This paper exploits quasi-experimental variation in tariffs in southern Africa to estimate trade elasticities. Traded quantities respond only weakly to a 30 percent reduction in the average nominal tariff rate. Trade flow data combined with primary data o...

The Agricultural Origins of Time Preference

By Oded Galor and Ömer Özak

American Economic Review, October 2016

This research explores the origins of observed differences in time preference across countries and regions. Exploiting a natural experiment associated with the expansion of suitable crops for cultivation in the course of the Columbian Exchange, the resear...

Managerial Attention and Worker Performance

By Marina Halac and Andrea Prat

American Economic Review, October 2016

We present a novel theory of the employment relationship. A manager can invest in attention technology to recognize good worker performance. The technology may break and is costly to replace. We show that as time passes without recognition, the worker's b...