An Evolutionary Perspective on Updating Risk and Ambiguity Preferences

By Philipp Sadowski and Todd Sarver

American Economic Review: Insights

Using an evolutionary approach, we address the prominent tension in the literature that updating of ambiguity and non-expected-utility preferences cannot, in general, be both dynamically consistent and consequentialist. Perhaps not surprisingly, evoluti...

Prediction Errors, Incarceration, & Violent Crime: Evidence from Linking Prosecutor Surveys to Court Records

By Emma Harrington, William Murdock III, and Hannah Shaffer

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

Incarceration is often justified by a defendant’s risk of future crime. To what extent do biased beliefs about predictors of crime distort incarceration decisions? We survey prosecutors about how violent re-arrest rates vary by defendant age and crim...

Report on the Second AEA Member Survey on the Professional Climate in Economics

[News]

September 15, 2025

View the AEA Member Announcement from September 15th, 2025.

Concentration in Product Markets

By C. Lanier Benkard, Ali Yurukoglu, and Anthony Lee Zhang

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics

This paper measures concentration in narrowly defined product markets for a broad range of consumer goods and services in the U.S. from 1994 to 2019. We document two main empirical facts. First, concentration levels are high. 44.4% of the markets in ou...

Voter Information and Distributive Politics

By Benjamin Blumenthal

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics

Does more information benefit voters? I examine this question in a novel setting of distributive politics and electoral accountability. Homogeneously-informed electorates can benefit from less information through improvements in the control or screenin...

Sharing Model Uncertainty

By Chiaki Hara, Sujoy Mukerji, Frank Riedel, and Jean-Marc Tallon

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics

This paper examines efficient allocations in economies where consumers exhibit heterogeneous smooth ambiguity preferences and face model uncertainty with a common set of identifiable models. Aggregate endowment is ambiguous. We characterize economies ...

Medical Technology and Life Expectancy: Evidence from the Antitoxin Treatment of Diphtheria

By Philipp Ager, Casper W. Hansen, and Peter Z. Lin

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

We examine the impact of the free supply of diphtheria antitoxin, the first effective medical treatment for an infectious disease, on the historical health transition in Massachusetts. Using newly collected municipality-level data on the distribution of...

Federal Statistical System

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The 13 principal U.S. statistical agencies and their coordination

Macro Recruiting Intensity from Micro Data

By Simon Mongey and Giovanni L. Violante

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics

We merge QCEW and JOLTS microdata to study recruiting intensity of firms in the cross section and over time. We show that vast establishment-level heterogeneity in vacancy filling rates is entirely explained by differences in gross hiring rates. We provid...

Under the cover of disaster

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In the immediate aftermath of natural disasters, members of Congress become more likely to adopt the positions of special interest donors.

Reexamining the Contribution of Public Health Efforts to the Decline in Urban Mortality

By D. Mark Anderson, Kerwin Kofi Charles, and Daniel I. Rees

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2022

Using data on 25 major American cities for the period 1900⁠–⁠1940, we explore the effects of municipal-level public health efforts that were viewed as critical in the fight against foodborne and waterborne diseases. In addition to studying intervent...

Reexamining the Contribution of Public Health Efforts to the Decline in Urban Mortality: Comment

By David M. Cutler and Grant Miller

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2022

We address points raised by Anderson, Charles, and Rees (2022), which comments on our prior work. After correcting unambiguous data mistakes, our revised estimates suggest that municipal water disinfection (filtration) explains 38 percent of the total mor...

Reexamining the Contribution of Public Health Efforts to the Decline in Urban Mortality: Reply

By D. Mark Anderson, Kerwin Kofi Charles, and Daniel I. Rees

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2022

This rejoinder is written in response to the comment by Cutler and Miller (hereafter CM) on our paper, "Reexamining the Contribution of Public Health Efforts to the Decline in Urban Mortality" (Anderson, Charles, and Rees 2022). In their comment, CM ackno...

Don't miss the AEA sessions on how research can inform policy at ASSA 2026!

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September 04, 2025

Undergrad Research Opportunities

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What Drives the Recent Surge in Inflation? The Historical Decomposition Roller Coaster

By Drago Bergholt, Fabio Canova, Francesco Furlanetto, Nicolò Maffei-Faccioli, and Pål Ulvedal

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics

What drives the recent inflation surge? To answer this question, one must decompose inflation fluctuations into the contribution of structural shocks. We document how whimsical an historical shock decomposition can be in standard vector autoregressive ...

Adjustable Product Attributes, Indirect Network Effects, And Subsidy Design: The Case of Electric Vehicles

By Kevin Remmy

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

This paper develops a structural model of endogenous product attribute choice in the presence of indirect network effects to study electric vehicle (EV) subsidies. Using data on the German EV market, I find that a support scheme almost doubled EV sales...

Guaranteed Employment in Rural India: Intra-Household Labor and Resource Allocation Consequences

By Jorge Luis García

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

I investigate the intra-household labor and resource allocation consequences of an employment guarantee targeting rural households in India. The guarantee insures household earnings, replacing women as added workers and shutting down a motive for savin...

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”:...