The Welfare Effects of Eligibility Expansions: Theory and Evidence from SNAP

By Jenna Anders and Charlie Rafkin

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

We study how eligibility expansions in the U.S. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program affect take-up among previously eligible households and social welfare. Using an event study with administrative take-up data, we document a “woodwork effect”:...

Inclusive Teaching: Spotting Social Isolation in the Classroom

By Sule Alan, Michela Carlana, and Marinella Leone

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

We evaluate an intervention aimed at addressing social isolation in classrooms. The treatment provides teachers with their students’ social networks and information on developmental risks associated with social exclusion. Using friendship data and in...

A Guide to the Job Market for New Economics PhDs

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Watch A Guide to the Job Market for New Economics PhDs (2025)

Which Reference Groups Matter and How? A Relative Income Information Experiment with Administrative Data

By Xiaogeng Xu, Satu Metsälampi, Michael Kirchler, Kaisa Kotakorpi, Peter Hans Matthews, and Topi Miettinen

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics

Call for nominations for CSWEP’s Carolyn Shaw Bell Award

[News]

April 21, 2025

Nominations are due by September 19, 2025.

Call for nominations for CSWEP’s Elaine Bennett Research Prize

[News]

April 21, 2025

Nominations are due by September 19, 2025.

Tax breaks and the composition of religious markets

[Research Highlight]

September 19, 2025

The effect of tax exemptions on Brazil's religious and political landscape.

Optimal Taxation of Inflation

By Damien Capelle and Yang Liu

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics

This paper analyzes the effectiveness of a tax on inflation policy (TIP), which would require firms to pay a tax proportional to the increase in their prices or wages, in stabilizing inflation. We show that TIP would effectively correct externalities i...

The Welfare Economics of Reference Dependence

By Daniel Reck and Arthur Seibold

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics

We analyze welfare under reference-dependent preferences. We decompose the first-order welfare effects of reference-point and price changes into direct and behavioral effects. The sign of these effects depends on the form of reference-dependent payoffs;...

Front Matter

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2025

Taxes Today, Benefits Tomorrow

By Thomas Le Barbanchon

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2025

This paper tests whether partially unemployed workers value future preserved benefits when they bunch at the kink of the unemployment insurance benefit-withdrawal schedule. I extend the bunching formula of Saez (2010) to a dynamic setting that accounts fo...

Pulled In and Crowded Out: Heterogeneous Outcomes of Merit-Based School Choice

By Antonio Dalla-Zuanna, Kai Liu, and Kjell G. Salvanes

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2025

We analyze the effects of reforming the high school admission system from a residence based allocation to a merit-based allocation. The merit-based system generates oversubscribed schools, which favor high-GPA students at the expense of displacing low-GPA...

Labor Market Inequality and the Changing Life Cycle Profile of Male and Female Wages

By Richard Blundell, Hugo Lopez, and James P. Ziliak

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2025

We estimate the full distribution of life cycle wages for cohorts of men and women in the United States using a quantile selection model to account for systematic differences in employment by gender and education group. Although common within-group time e...

Home Sweet Home: Returns to Returning in the Age of Mass Migration

By Olof Ejermo, Kerstin Enflo, Björn Eriksson, and Erik Prawitz

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2025

Despite significant circular migration flows historically and today, their economic impacts remain understudied. Using data on predominantly rural Swedish migrants who returned from the United States during the Age of Mass Migration, we estimate returns t...

Labor Supply and Entertainment Innovations: Evidence from the US TV Rollout

By George Fenton and Felix Koenig

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2025

We study the impact of entertainment technology on labor supply. Using Social Security work histories and a natural experiment arising from the regulated US rollout of television, we estimate that a station launch reduced the probability of working by aro...

Down to the Wire: Leveraging Technology to Improve Electric Utility Cost Recovery

By Husnain F. Ahmad, Ayesha Ali, Robyn C. Meeks, Zhenxuan Wang, and Javed Younas

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2025

We study the effects of a technical intervention in Karachi, Pakistan—converting bare distribution wires to aerial bundled cables (ABCs)—that was intended to prevent illegal grid connections and improve utility cost recovery. Theft-resistant cables re...

The Franchise, Policing, and Race: Evidence from Arrests Data and the Voting Rights Act

By Giovanni Facchini, Brian Knight, and Cecilia Testa

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2025

This paper investigates the relationship between the franchise and policing. We find that, following the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Black arrest rates in counties that both had more newly enfranchised Blacks and were covered by the legislation fell, compa...

Where Do My Tax Dollars Go? Tax Morale Effects of Perceived Government Spending

By Matias Giaccobasso, Brad Nathan, Ricardo Perez-Truglia, and Alejandro Zentner

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2025

Do perceptions about government spending affect willingness to pay taxes? We test this hypothesis with a natural field experiment that focuses on the allocation of property taxes to public schools. Our results show that taxpayers often misperceive the des...

Front Matter

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, October 2025

The Dynamics of Development: Innovation and Reallocation

By Francisco J. Buera and Roberto N. Fattal-Jaef

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, October 2025

This paper proposes a quantitative model of endogenous firm dynamics to study growth-acceleration episodes triggered by reforms. We find that reversals of entry distortions lead to persistent growth in TFP and declining average firm size, as in the experi...