Image versus Information: Changing Societal Norms and Optimal Privacy

By S. Nageeb Ali and Roland Bénabou

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, August 2020

We analyze the costs and benefits of using social image to foster desirable behaviors. Each agent acts based on his intrinsic motivation, private assessment of the public good, and reputational concern for appearing prosocial. A Principal sets the general...

Decompositions and Policy Consequences of an Extraordinary Decline in Air Pollution from Electricity Generation

By Stephen P. Holland, Erin T. Mansur, Nicholas Z. Muller, and Andrew J. Yates

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2020

Using integrated assessment models, we calculate the economic value of the extraordinary decline in emissions from US power plants. Annual local and global air pollution damages fell from 245 to 133 billion USD over 2010–2017. Decomposition shows change...

The United States of Europe: A Gravity Model Evaluation of the Four Freedoms

[Symposium: European Union]

By Keith Head and Thierry Mayer

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2021

One of the pillars of the 1957 Treaty of Rome that ultimately led to the European Union is the commitment to the four freedoms of movement (goods, services, persons, and capital). Over the following decades, as the members expanded in numbers, they also s...

Fiscal Policy in Europe: Controversies over Rules, Mutual Insurance, and Centralization

[Symposium: European Union]

By Florin Bilbiie, Tommaso Monacelli, and Roberto Perotti

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2021

We discuss the main fiscal policy issues in Europe, focusing on two that are at the core of the current debate. The first is that the government deficit and debt were, from the outset, the key objects of contention in the debate that led to the creation...

Identifying Students at Risk Using a New Math Skills Assessment

By George Orlov, Douglas McKee, Irene R. Foster, Daria Bottan, and Stephanie R. Thomas

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2021

Math skills are critical for success in economics courses. However, instructors often lack information about the level and extent of their students' underpreparedness in mathematics. In this paper, we describe the development of two new assessments of mat...

Gender Bias in Assessments of Teacher Performance

By Sabrin Beg, Anne Fitzpatrick, and Adrienne M. Lucas

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2021

To measure whether principals exhibit gender bias when assessing teacher effectiveness, we compare principals' subjective evaluations against teachers' self-evaluations and objective effectiveness in Ghanaian primary schools. Female and male teachers rate...

Macro and Micro Dynamics of Productivity: From Devilish Details to Insights

By G. Jacob Blackwood, Lucia S. Foster, Cheryl A. Grim, John Haltiwanger, and Zoltan Wolf

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, July 2021

Firm-level, revenue-based productivity measures are ubiquitous in studies of firm dynamics and aggregate outcomes. One common measure is increasingly interpreted as reflecting "distortions" since in distortions' absence, equalization of marginal revenue p...

The Baker Hypothesis: Stabilization, Structural Reforms, and Economic Growth

[Symposium: Washington Consensus Revisited]

By Anusha Chari, Peter Blair Henry, and Hector Reyes

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2021

In 1985, James A. Baker III's "Program for Sustained Growth" proposed a set of economic policy reforms including, inflation stabilization, trade liberalization, greater openness to foreign investment, and privatization, that he believed would lead to fa...

A Review of Matthias Doepke and Fabrizio Zilibotti's Love, Money and Parenting: How Economics Explains the Way We Raise Our Kids

By Lena Edlund

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2021

As Generation X's (born in the 1960s and 1970s) child bearing years draw to a close, its parenting practices are due for assessment, the topic of the book under review. The book organizes its discussion around Diana Baumrind's three parenting styles: auth...

The Political Premium of Television Celebrity

By Heyu Xiong

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2021

This paper studies the electoral consequences of television stardom through the career of Ronald Reagan. I utilize quasi-experimental variation in television reception to estimate the causal effect of celebrity exposure on political support. I find that...

Saving Effects of a Real-Life Imperfectly Implemented Wealth Tax: Evidence from Norwegian Micro Data

By Annette Alstadsæter, Marie Bjørneby, Wojciech Kopczuk, Simen Markussen, and Knut Røed

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2022

Countries that implement wealth taxes make many practical compromises regarding relative treatment and approach to valuation of different categories of assets in order to ease assessment and liquidity difficulties with this form of taxation. Relying on No...

An Analysis of the Literature on International Unconventional Monetary Policy

By Saroj Bhattarai and Christopher J. Neely

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2022

This paper evaluates the literature on international unconventional monetary policies (UMPs). Introducing market segmentation, limits-to-arbitrage, and time-consistent policy in standard models permits a theoretical role for UMP. Empirical studies provide...

Hours, Occupations, and Gender Differences in Labor Market Outcomes

By Andrés Erosa, Luisa Fuster, Gueorgui Kambourov, and Richard Rogerson

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, July 2022

Goldin (2014) offers a narrative in which gender differences in home production responsibilities create gender gaps in labor market outcomes. We carry out a model-based quantitative assessment of this narrative and find that it can account for a significa...

Attention Oligopoly

By Andrea Prat and Tommaso Valletti

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, August 2022

We model digital platforms as attention brokers that have proprietary information about their users' product preferences and sell targeted ad space to retail product industries. Retail producers—incumbents or entrants—compete for access to this attent...

Job Search and Hiring with Limited Information about Workseekers' Skills

By Eliana Carranza, Robert Garlick, Kate Orkin, and Neil Rankin

American Economic Review, November 2022

We assess South African workseekers' skills and disseminate the assessment results to explore how limited information affects firm and workseeker behavior. Giving workseekers assessment results that they can credibly share with firms increases workseekers...

Falling wages and discretionary pay-setting practices

[Research Highlight]

February 06, 2023

A decline in the use of standardized pay rates contributed to stagnating wages from the 1970s to the mid-1990s.

Do Financial Incentives Encourage Women to Apply for a Tech Job? Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment

By Jan Feld, Edwin Ip, Andreas Leibbrandt, and Joseph Vecci

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2023

We conduct a natural field experiment to test whether offering financial incentives encourages more female job seekers to complete their applications for a tech job. All eligible applicants for the job were invited to perform an online skill assessment. W...

Stereotypes about Successful Entrepreneurs

By Victor Lyonnet and Léa Stern

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2023

What comes to mind when thinking about a successful entrepreneur? Belief formation models suggest that what comes to mind is an oversimplified picture of the characteristics of successful entrepreneurs—that is, stereotypes about successful entrepreneurs...

An Empirical Analysis of the Revival of Fiscal Activism in the 2000s

By John B. Taylor

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2011

An empirical review of the three fiscal stimulus packages of the 2000s shows that they had little if any direct impact on consumption or government purchases. Households largely saved the transfers and tax rebates. The federal government only increased pu...