The process of state building and long-run growth

[Research Highlight]

December 03, 2024

How did administrative reforms initiated during the French Revolution shape economic development over time?

The Dynamic Consequences of State Building: Evidence from the French Revolution

By Cédric Chambru, Emeric Henry, and Benjamin Marx

American Economic Review, November 2024

How do radical reforms shape economic development over time? In 1790, the French Constituent Assembly overhauled the kingdom's organization to establish new local capitals. In some departments, the choice of local capitals over rival candidate cities was ...

Front Matter

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2024

Call for Abstracts: Animal Welfare Economics Working Group Conference 2025 at the Paris School of Economics

[News]

December 06, 2024

The submission deadline is January 15, 2025.

Call for Papers: 15th FEBST International Conference “Economic Policies, Business Perspectives, and Sustainability Transformation”

[News]

December 09, 2024

The submission deadline is March 3, 2025.

The polarization of industry wages

[Page]

A small set of industries accounts for the rise in US earnings inequality over the last two decades.

Service quality in the financial advisory industry

[Research Highlight]

December 16, 2024

Mark Egan discusses the extent of misconduct among financial advisers and the reasons for its persistence in the industry.

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics Editor search -- request for suggestions

[News]

December 18, 2024

View the AEA Member Announcement from December 18, 2024.

2024 in Featured Charts

[Page]

Economists addressed issues related to remote learning, carbon pricing, species extinction, and more.

Hotel Workers’ Strike in San Francisco Has Ended

[News]

December 26, 2024

View the AEA Member Announcement from December 26, 2024.

ASSA 2025 Housing Information

[Page]

Front Matter

American Economic Review, January 2025

Price Floors and Employer Preferences: Evidence from a Minimum Wage Experiment

By John J. Horton

American Economic Review, January 2025

Firms posting job openings in an online labor market were randomly assigned minimum hourly wages. When facing a minimum wage, fewer firms hired, but those they did hire paid higher wages. Hours-worked fell substantially. Treated firms shifted to hiring mo...

In Harm's Way? Infrastructure Investments and the Persistence of Coastal Cities

By Clare Balboni

American Economic Review, January 2025

Coasts contain a disproportionate share of the world's population, reflecting historical advantages, but environmental change threatens a reversal of coastal fortune in the coming decades as natural disasters intensify and sea levels rise. This paper cons...

Dynamic Inconsistency in Risky Choice: Evidence from the Lab and Field

By Rawley Heimer, Zwetelina Iliewa, Alex Imas, and Martin Weber

American Economic Review, January 2025

We document a robust dynamic inconsistency in risky choice. Using a unique brokerage dataset and a series of experiments, we compare people's initial risk-taking plans to their subsequent decisions. Across settings, people accept risk as part of a loss-ex...

The Global Financial Resource Curse

By Gianluca Benigno, Luca Fornaro, and Martin Wolf

American Economic Review, January 2025

We provide a model connecting the global saving glut to productivity growth. The key feature is that the tradable sector is the engine of growth of the economy. Capital flows from developing countries to the United States boost demand for US nontradable g...

Universalism: Global Evidence

By Alexander W. Cappelen, Benjamin Enke, and Bertil Tungodden

American Economic Review, January 2025

This paper leverages nationally representative surveys across 60 countries and 64,000 respondents to present novel stylized facts about the relationship-specific nature of altruism. Across individuals, universalist preferences systematically vary with dem...

Organized Voters: Elections and Public Funding of Nonprofits

By Camille Urvoy

American Economic Review, January 2025

What makes politicians respond to civil society organizations' demands? I use new data on government transfers to French associations and exploit close elections to show that politicians grant more funds to ideologically close organizations when the local...

Dying or Lying? For-Profit Hospices and End-of-Life Care

By Jonathan Gruber, David H. Howard, Jetson Leder-Luis, and Theodore L. Caputi

American Economic Review, January 2025

The Medicare hospice program is intended to provide palliative care to terminal patients, but patients with long stays in hospice are highly profitable, motivating concerns about overuse among the Alzheimer's and Dementia (ADRD) population in the rapidly ...

Whatever It Takes? The Impact of Conditional Policy Promises

By Valentin Haddad, Alan Moreira, and Tyler Muir

American Economic Review, January 2025

At the announcement of a new policy, agents form a view of state-contingent policy actions and impact. We develop a method to estimate this state-contingent perception and implement it for many asset-purchase interventions worldwide. Expectations of large...