Decentralizing Development: The Economic Impacts of Government Splits

By Ricardo Dahis and Christiane Szerman

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics

We examine the economic impacts of the creation of smaller government units through splitting. Exploiting reforms that led to sharp increases in the number of government units in Brazil, we show that voluntary splitting enlarges the public sector, enhance...

The Role of Race in the Legal Representation of Low-Income Defendants

By Maya Mikdash and Suhyeon Oh

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

Little is known about the role of race in the defense of low income defendants by court-appointed attorneys. Exploiting the quasi-random assignment of court-appointed attorneys to cases, we test whether attorneys secure better deals for same-race defen...

ASSA 2026 Job Market Information

[Page]

Message from the AEA Ombuds Team at MWI

[News]

October 02, 2025

View the AEA Member Announcement from October 2nd, 2025.

A Matter of Time? Measuring Effects of Public Schooling Expansions on Families

By Chloe R. Gibbs, Jocelyn Wikle, and Riley Wilson

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

We leverage pronounced changes in the availability of public schooling for young children— through duration expansions to the kindergarten day—to better understand how an implicit childcare subsidy affects mothers and families. Exploiting full-day k...

Last Chance to Apply or Nominate Someone for AEA Award and Grant Opportunities

[News]

October 03, 2025

View the AEA Member Announcement from October 3rd, 2025.

2026 Elected AEA Officers

[Page]

Learn more about the new officers elected for 2026.

AEA Leadership

[Page]

Learn about AEA leadership including current and former officers

Career in Economics Video

[Page]

Una Carrera en Economía (Spanish Version)

[Page]

The Unintended Consequences of Academic Leniency

By A. Brooks Bowden, Viviana Rodriguez, and Zach Weingarten

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

Education is widely recognized as the primary driver of human capital accumulation. However, policies designed to promote educational attainment often overlook students’ endogenous responses. This paper provides empirical evidence of the causal impact...

Fostering Cooperation: The Conflict-Reducing Effects of Inter-Village Competition for Government Transfers

By Teevrat Garg, Caterina Gennaioli, Stefania Lovo, and Gregor Singer

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics

We examine the effect of inter-group competition on within-group violent conflict in Indonesia. Using a triple-differences design, we find that higher competition for national government transfers between villages reduces within-village conflict. These ...

Turbocharging Profits? Contract Gaming and Revenue Allocation in Healthcare

By Atul Gupta, Ambar La Forgia, and Adam Sacarny

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics

Firms often exploit weaknesses in government contracts to boost revenues, yet little is known about how they allocate these funds. We study how hospitals allocated $3 billion obtained from gaming a Medicare loophole. The average gaming hospital increase...

Unconditional Convergence in Manufacturing: A Reassessment

By Berthold Herrendorf, Richard Rogerson, and Ákos Valentinyi

American Economic Review: Insights

The movement of labor out of the agricultural sector is a central feature of the development process. A long-held belief is that successful development requires that much of the labor released from agriculture be allocated to manufacturing rather than ...

Ombuds Drop-in Hour Available Today

[News]

October 08, 2025

View the AEA Member Announcement from October 8th, 2025.

Housing supply skepticism

[Research Highlight]

October 06, 2025

Christopher Elmendorf discusses the views of the US public on the housing market.

Economist Nobel Laureates

[Page]

Entertainment technology and work behavior

[Page]

How did the rollout of broadcast television during the mid-twentieth century affect labor supply decisions in the United States?

Agent-Based Modeling in Economics and Finance: Past, Present, and Future

By Robert L. Axtell and J. Doyne Farmer

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2025

Agent-based modeling (ABM) is a novel computational methodology for representing the behavior of individuals in order to study social phenomena. Its use is rapidly growing in many fields. We review ABM in economics and finance and highlight how it can be ...

Organizing Time Exchanges: Lessons from Matching Markets

By Tommy Andersson, Ágnes Cseh, Lars Ehlers, and Albin Erlanson

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, February 2021

This paper considers time exchanges via a common platform (e.g., markets for exchanging time units, positions at education institutions, and tuition waivers). There are several problems associated with such markets, e.g., imbalanced outcomes, coordination...