Unpacking P-hacking and Publication Bias

By Abel Brodeur, Scott Carrell, David Figlio, and Lester Lusher

American Economic Review, November 2023

We use unique data from journal submissions to identify and unpack publication bias and p-hacking. We find initial submissions display significant bunching, suggesting the distribution among published statistics cannot be fully attributed to a publication...

Is There a VA Advantage? Evidence from Dually Eligible Veterans

By David C. Chan, David Card, and Lowell Taylor

American Economic Review, November 2023

We study public versus private provision of health care for veterans aged 65 and older who may receive care provided by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and in private hospitals financed by Medicare. Utilizing the ambulance design of Doyle et al...

Measuring Upward Mobility

By Debraj Ray ⓡ Garance Genicot

American Economic Review, November 2023

We conceptualize and measure upward mobility over income or wealth. At the core of our exercise is the Growth Progressivity Axiom: transfers of instantaneous growth rates from relatively rich to poor individuals increases upward mobility. This axiom, alon...

A Sufficient Statistics Approach for Macro Policy

By Régis Barnichon and Geert Mesters

American Economic Review, November 2023

The evaluation of macroeconomic policy decisions has traditionally relied on the formulation of a specific economic model. In this work, we show that two statistics are sufficient to detect, often even correct, nonoptimal policies, i.e., policies that do ...

Who Controls the Agenda Controls the Legislature

By S. Nageeb Ali, B. Douglas Bernheim, Alexander W. Bloedel, and Silvia Console Battilana

American Economic Review, November 2023

We model legislative decision-making with an agenda setter who can propose policies sequentially, tailoring each proposal to the status quo that prevails after prior votes. Voters are sophisticated, and the agenda setter cannot commit to future proposals....

Testing two theories of the origin of government

[Research Highlight]

October 27, 2023

Leander Heldring discusses the formation of ancient states in Iraq.

The Economic Origins of Government

By Robert C. Allen, Mattia C. Bertazzini, and Leander Heldring

American Economic Review, October 2023

We test between cooperative and extractive theories of the origins of government. We use river shifts in southern Iraq as a natural experiment, in a new archeological panel dataset. A shift away creates a local demand for a government to coordinate becaus...

Front Matter

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2023

Electoral Cycles in Macroprudential Regulation

By Karsten Müller

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2023

Do politics matter for macroprudential policies? I show that changes in macroprudential regulation exhibit a predictable electoral cycle in the run-up to 221 elections across 58 countries from 2000 through 2014. Policies restricting mortgages and consumer...

Dynamic Impacts of School-Based Internet Access on Student Learning: Evidence from Peruvian Public Primary Schools

By Leah K. Lakdawala, Eduardo Nakasone, and Kevin Kho

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2023

We investigate the impacts of school-based internet access on second graders' test scores, using over 2 million student observations from a panel of Peruvian public primary schools. We identify effects up to 6+ years after installation on different cohort...

Do Tax Incentives Increase Firm Innovation? An RD Design for R&D, Patents, and Spillovers

By Antoine Dechezleprêtre, Elias Einiö, Ralf Martin, Kieu-Trang Nguyen, and John Van Reenen

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2023

We present causal evidence of R&D tax incentives' positive impacts on a firm's own innovation and that of its technological neighbors. Exploiting a change in size-based eligibility thresholds for R&D tax relief, we implement a Regression Discontinuity Des...

Brexit Uncertainty and Its (Dis)service Effects

By Saad Ahmad, Nuno Limão, Sarah Oliver, and Serge Shikher

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2023

We estimate the impact of increased policy uncertainty from Brexit on UK trade in services. We apply an uncertainty-augmented gravity equation to UK services trade with the European Union at the industry level from 2016:I to 2018:IV. By exploiting the var...

Public Pension Reforms and Retirement Decisions: Narrative Evidence and Aggregate Implications

By Huixin Bi and Sarah Zubairy

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2023

We construct a database of public pension policy changes with motivation and implementation information for ten OECD countries. Structural pension reforms, motivated by long-run sustainability concerns, often come with prolonged phase-in periods. In respo...

Age Discrimination across the Business Cycle

By Gordon B. Dahl and Matthew Knepper

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2023

We test whether age discrimination rises during recessions using two complementary analyses. Confidential EEOC microdata reveal that age-related firing and hiring charges rise by 3.3 percent and 1.6 percent, respectively, for each percentage point increas...

Market Power and Price Exposure: Learning from Changes in Renewable Energy Regulation

By Natalia Fabra and Imelda

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2023

Given the critical role of renewable energies in current and future electricity markets, it is important to understand how they affect firms' pricing incentives. We study whether the price-depressing effect of renewables depends on their degree of market ...

Do Credit Supply Shocks Affect Employment in Middle-Income Countries?

By Emilio Gutierrez, David Jaume, and Martín Tobal

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2023

This paper studies the effect of bank credit supply shocks on formal employment in Mexico using a proprietary dataset containing information on all loans extended to firms by commercial banks during 2010–2015. We find large impacts on the formal employm...

Moved to Poverty? A Legacy of the Apartheid Experiment in South Africa

By Bladimir Carrillo, Carlos Charris, and Wilman Iglesias

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2023

During the South African apartheid, Black people were forced to move to homelands during the 1960s and 1970s, resulting in one of history's largest segregation policy experiments. We examine how and why relocation to the homelands affected human capital a...

Juvenile Crime and Anticipated Punishment

By Ashna Arora

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2023

Can sanctions deter juvenile crime? Research indicates that they may not, as offending barely decreases when individuals cross the age of criminal majority and begin to face harsher sanctions. Several models of criminal behavior predict, however, that the...

Public and Private Options in Practice: The Military Health System

By Michael D. Frakes, Jonathan Gruber, and Timothy Justicz

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2023

Recent debates over health care reform, including in the context of the Military Health System (MHS) and Veterans Administration, highlight the dispute between public and private provision of health care services. Using novel data on childbirth claims fro...

My Professor Cares: Experimental Evidence on the Role of Faculty Engagement

By Scott E. Carrell and Michal Kurlaender

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2023

We provide experimental evidence on the impact of specific faculty behaviors aimed at increasing student success for college students from historically underrepresented groups. The intervention was developed after conducting in-person focus groups and a p...