Human Development in Poor Countries: On the Role of Private Incomes and Public Services

By Sudhir Anand and Martin Ravallion

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1993

Development is often taken to mean rising incomes. Discussions of the "goals of development" now often emphasize the reduction of poverty, rather than raising average incomes per se. The role of social services—particularly basic health and educatio...

WTO Accession and Performance of Chinese Manufacturing Firms

By Loren Brandt, Johannes Van Biesebroeck, Luhang Wang, and Yifan Zhang

American Economic Review, September 2017

We examine the effects of trade liberalization in China on the evolution of markups and productivity of manufacturing firms. Although these dimensions of performance cannot be separately identified when firm output is measured by revenue, detailed price d...

Illegal Immigration, Border Enforcement, and Relative Wages: Evidence from Apprehensions at the U.S.-Mexico Border

By Gordon H. Hanson and Antonio Spilimbergo

American Economic Review, December 1999

Deal or No Deal? Decision Making under Risk in a Large-Payoff Game Show

By Thierry Post, Martijn J. van den Assem, Guido Baltussen, and Richard H. Thaler

American Economic Review, March 2008

We examine the risky choices of contestants in the popular TV game show "Deal or No Deal" and related classroom experiments. Contrary to the traditional view of expected utility theory, the choices can be explained in large part by previous outcomes ex...

What Parts of Globalization Matter for Catch-Up Growth?

By Paul M. Romer

American Economic Review, May 2010

Health and the Economy in the United States from 1750 to the Present

By Dora L. Costa

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2015

I discuss the health transition in the United States, bringing new data to bear on health indicators and investigating the changing relationship between health, income, and the environment. I argue that scientific advances played an outsize role and that ...

Real-Time Macroeconomic Monitoring: Real Activity, Inflation, and Interactions

By S. Borağan Aruoba and Francis X. Diebold

American Economic Review, May 2010

Estimating Average Treatment Effects: Supplementary Analyses and Remaining Challenges

By Susan Athey, Guido Imbens, Thai Pham, and Stefan Wager

American Economic Review, May 2017

There is a large literature on semiparametric estimation of average treatment effects under unconfounded treatment assignment in settings with a fixed number of covariates. More recently attention has focused on settings with a large number of covariates....

Consumer Confusion in the Mortgage Market: Evidence of Less Than a Perfectly Transparent and Competitive Market

By Susan E. Woodward and Robert E. Hall

American Economic Review, May 2010

Detecting Learning by Exporting

By Jan De Loecker

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, August 2013

Learning by exporting refers to the mechanism whereby a firm's performance improves after entering export markets. This mechanism is often mentioned in policy documents, but many econometric studies have not found corroborating evidence. I show that th...

150 Years of Patent Protection

By Josh Lerner

American Economic Review, May 2002

Applications of Generalized Method of Moments Estimation

[Symposium: Econometric Tools]

By Jeffrey M. Wooldridge

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2001

I describe how the method of moments approach to estimation, including the more recent generalized method of moments (GMM) theory, can be applied to problems using cross section, time series, and panel data. Method of moments estimators can be attractive ...

A Dual-Self Model of Impulse Control

By Drew Fudenberg and David K. Levine

American Economic Review, December 2006

We propose that a simple “dual-self” model gives a unified explanation for several empirical regularities, including the apparent time inconsistency that has motivated models of quasi-hyperbolic discounting and Rabin’s paradox of risk aversion in the...

Political Pressures on Monetary Policy during the US Great Inflation

By Charles L. Weise

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, April 2012

Drawing on an analysis of Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) documents, this paper argues that political pressures on the Federal Reserve were an important contributor to the rise in inflation in the United States in the 1970s. Members of the FOMC under...

To Buy or Not to Buy: Consumer Constraints in the Housing Market

By Andreas Fuster and Basit Zafar

American Economic Review, May 2016

We use a strategic household survey to study the sensitivity of intended homeownership decisions to financing constraints. We find that the average stated likelihood of buying a home is strongly sensitive to the size of the required down payment, which we...

Marijuana on Main Street? Estimating Demand in Markets with Limited Access

By Liana Jacobi and Michelle Sovinsky

American Economic Review, August 2016

Marijuana is the most common illicit drug with vocal advocates for legalization. Among other things, legalization would increase access and remove the stigma of illegality. Our model disentangles the role of access from preferences and shows that selectio...

Sources of Bias and Solutions to Bias in the Consumer Price Index

[Symposium: Consumer Price Index]

By Jerry Hausman

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2003

Four sources of bias in the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) have been identified. The most discussed is substitution bias, which creates a second order bias in the CPI. Three other changes besides prices changes create first order effects on a correctly measu...

Different Approaches for Dealing with Social Security

[Symposium: Social security]

By Edward M. Gramlich

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 1996

This paper discusses the report of the 1994 Quadrennial Advisory Council on Social Security, of which the author was chair. The system is out of long-term actuarial balance and, as a maturing defined benefit pay-as-you-go system, is giving younger cohorts...

Public Finance Principles and National Health Care Reform

[Symposium: Health Care Reform]

By Richard Zeckhauser

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 1994

Public finance principles, though usually treated as a minor consideration, lie at the heart of effective national health care reform. Four principles are discussed: charge for a service where its cost is created; distinguish rents, resources, and transfe...

Tackling the European Migration Problems

[Symposium: Immigration]

By Klaus F. Zimmermann

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 1995

A fortress Europe immigration policy is currently observed throughout the European Union. The European migration problem seems to be that, in the face of high and persistent unemployment rates, additional immigration implies further unemployment. This mig...