Firm Dynamics, Job Turnover, and Wage Distributions in an Open Economy

By A. Kerem Coşar, Nezih Guner, and James Tybout

American Economic Review, March 2016

This paper explores the combined effects of reductions in trade frictions, tariffs, and firing costs on firm dynamics, job turnover, and wage distributions. It uses establishment-level data from Colombia to estimate an open economy dynamic model that li...

Strategic Vote Trading in Power Sharing Systems

By Dimitrios Xefteris and Nicholas Ziros

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, May 2017

This paper studies decentralized vote trading in a power sharing system that follows the rules of strategic market games. In particular, we study a two-party election in which prior to the voting stage, voters are free to trade votes for money. Voters hol...

Which Inequality? The Inequality of Endowments versus the Inequality of Rewards

By Ed Hopkins and Tatiana Kornienko

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, August 2010

We introduce a new distinction between inequality in initial endowments (e.g., ability, inherited wealth) and inequality of what one can obtain as rewards (e.g., prestigious positions, money). We show that, when society allocates resources via tournaments...

A Seller's (and Buyer's) Guide to the Job Market for Beginning Academic Economists

By Richard Carson and Peter Navarro

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 1988

In an effort to increase the stock of information available to sellers and buyers in the academic job market for beginning Ph.D. economists, this paper presents the findings of a survey of the 1985-86 hiring process by economics departments. The findings ...

Service Delivery and Corruption in Public Services: How Does History Matter?

By Priyanka Pandey

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2010

This paper provides microlevel evidence of how past institutions impact present economic outcomes. It looks at the impact of colonial land tenure institutions on local governance and education outcomes in northern India. Outcomes are worse in villages tha...

Immigration, Social Security, and Broader Fiscal Impacts

By Ronald Lee and Timothy Miller

American Economic Review, May 2000

The Elasticity of Taxable Income with Respect to Marginal Tax Rates: A Critical Review

By Emmanuel Saez, Joel Slemrod, and Seth H. Giertz

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2012

This paper critically surveys the large and growing literature estimating the elasticity of taxable income with respect to marginal tax rates using tax return data. First, we provide a theoretical framework showing under what assumptions this elasticity c...

Job flexibility

[Research Highlight]

November 30, 2017

A video about the value employees put on alternative work arrangements.

Measuring What Employers Do about Entry Wages over the Business Cycle: A New Approach

By Pedro S. Martins, Gary Solon, and Jonathan P. Thomas

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, October 2012

Rigidity in real hiring wages plays a crucial role in some recent macroeconomic models. But are hiring wages really so noncyclical? We propose using employer/employee longitudinal data to track the cyclical variation in the wages paid to workers newly hir...

Cooperation among Strangers under the Shadow of the Future

By Gabriele Camera and Marco Casari

American Economic Review, June 2009

We study the emergence of norms of cooperation in experimental economies populated by strangers interacting indefinitely. Can these economies achieve full efficiency even without formal enforcement institutions? Which institutions for monitoring and en...

Complementarities and Games: New Developments

By Xavier Vives

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2005

The theory of monotone comparative statics and supermodular games is presented as the appropriate tool to model complementarities. The approach, which has not yet been fully incorporated into the standard toolbox of researchers, makes the analysis intuiti...

Credit Elasticities in Less-Developed Economies: Implications for Microfinance

By Dean S. Karlan and Jonathan Zinman

American Economic Review, June 2008

Policymakers often prescribe that microfinance institutions increase interest rates to eliminate their reliance on subsidies. This strategy makes sense if the poor are rate insensitive: then microlenders increase profitability (or achieve sustainabilit...

Pavlovian Processes in Consumer Choice: The Physical Presence of a Good Increases Willingness-to-Pay

By Benjamin Bushong, Lindsay M. King, Colin F. Camerer, and Antonio Rangel

American Economic Review, September 2010

This paper describes a series of laboratory experiments studying whether the form in which items are displayed at the time of decision affects the dollar value that subjects place on them. Using a Becker-DeGroot auction under three different conditions &#...

Are Your Wages Set in Beijing?

[Symposium: Income Inequality and Trade]

By Richard B. Freeman

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 1995

The economic troubles of less-skilled workers in the United States. and OECD-Europe during a period of rising manufacturing imports from third world countries has created a debate about whether, in a global economy, wages or employment are determined by t...

Evolutionary Theorizing in Economics

[Symposium: Evolutionary Economics]

By Richard R. Nelson and Sidney G. Winter

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2002

This paper reviews the case for an evolutionary approach to problems of economic analysis, ranging from the details of individual firm behavior in the short run through industrial dynamics to the historical evolution of institutions and technologies. We d...

Is There an Energy Efficiency Gap?

[Symposium: Energy Challenges]

By Hunt Allcott and Michael Greenstone

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2012

Many analysts of the energy industry have long believed that energy efficiency offers an enormous "win-win" opportunity: through aggressive energy conservation policies, we can both save money and reduce negative externalities associated with energy use. ...

The Value of Relationships: Evidence from a Supply Shock to Kenyan Rose Exports

By Rocco Macchiavello and Ameet Morjaria

American Economic Review, September 2015

This paper provides evidence on the importance of reputation in the context of the Kenyan rose export sector. A model of reputation and relational contracting is developed and tested. A seller's reputation is defined by buyer's beliefs about seller's reli...

The Strategic Value of Quantity Forcing Contracts

By David Martimort and Salvatore Piccolo

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, February 2010

We explore the strategic value of quantity forcing contracts in a manufacturer-retailer environment under both adverse selection and moral hazard. Manufacturers dealing with (exclusive) competing retailers may prefer to leave contracts silent on retail...

Tiebout? Or Not Tiebout? The Market Metaphor and America's Devolution Debate

[Symposium: Fiscal Federalism]

By John D. Donahue

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1997

The market metaphor of intergovernmental choice as a spur to efficiency (formalized by Charles M. Tiebout) is often invoked to support the shift away from Washington and toward the states. But the model translates badly to governments; governmental entry ...

Value-Added Taxation: A Tax Whose Time Has Come?

By Gilbert E. Metcalf

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1995

Value-added taxes (VATs) are used in a large number of developed countries and have been under consideration at the national level in the United States in recent years. This paper provides an introduction to the tax for those unfamiliar with it. The autho...