Childhood Health Shocks and the Intergenerational Transmission of Inequality

By Tine M. Eriksen, Amanda P. Gaulke, Jannet Svensson, Niels Skipper, and Peter R. Thingholm

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

This paper documents a socioeconomic gradient in adult labor market penalties stemming from a single chronic and treatable childhood health shock in a country with universal access to healthcare. Using childhood onset Type 1 Diabetes, Danish administrat...

How Effective Are R&D Tax Incentives? Reconciling the Micro and Macro Evidence

By Silvia Appelt, Matěj Bajgar, Chiara Criscuolo, and Fernando Galindo-Rueda

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

Recent firm-level studies find R&D tax incentives to be much more effective at stimulating firms’ R&D investment than aggregate analyses suggest. Based on a distributed analysis of official R&D survey and administrative tax relief microdata for 19 OE...

Distortions, Producer Dynamics, and Aggregate Productivity: A General Equilibrium Analysis

By Stephen Ayerst, Loren Brandt, and Diego Restuccia

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics

In less developed economies the allocation of factor inputs to more productive farms is often hindered. To analyze how distortions affect farm dynamics and agricultural productivity, we develop a model of heterogeneous farms investing in productivity impr...

Navigating the college choice process

[Research Highlight]

December 15, 2025

Intensive advising can substantially increase the likelihood of degree attainment for low-income students.

Common Workflow Options for Managing JOE Applications

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About JOE Network

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Learn more about JOE (Job Openings for Economists)

Getting Started with JOE Job Listings

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The Making of Modern Corporate Finance: A History of the Ideas and How They Help Build the Wealth of Nations by Donald H. Chew Jr.

By Yueran Ma

Journal of Economic Literature

2025 in Featured Charts

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Economists addressed issues related to policing, unemployment benefits, bank bailouts, and more.

Front Matter

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2026

Highway to Hitler

By Nico Voigtländer and Hans-Joachim Voth

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2026

We show that the building of the Autobahn network in Nazi Germany boosted popular support for Adolf Hitler, helping to entrench the Nazi dictatorship. Direct local economic benefits are unlikely to explain the effect. Instead, it reflects successful propa...

The Returns to Physical Capital in Knowledge Production: Evidence from Lab Disasters

By Stefano Baruffaldi and Fabian Gaessler

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2026

We investigate the nature and relevance of physical capital in knowledge production. Exploiting adverse events in research laboratories, we find that scientists experience a persistent reduction in research output if they lose specialized physical capital...

Breaking Bad: How Health Shocks Prompt Crime

By Steffen Andersen, Elin Colmsjö, Gianpaolo Parise, and Kim Peijnenburg

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2026

Exploiting plausibly exogenous variations in the timing of cancer diagnoses, we establish that health shocks elicit a large and persistent increase in the probability of committing a crime. This effect materializes in a substantial rise in both first crim...

From Immediate Acceptance to Deferred Acceptance: Effects on School Admissions and Achievement in England

By Camille Terrier, Parag A. Pathak, and Kevin Ren

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2026

Countries and cities around the world increasingly rely on centralized systems for student placement. Two algorithms, deferred acceptance (DA) and immediate acceptance (IA), are widespread. We investigate the effects of the national ban of IA in England. ...

Direct and Indirect Effects of Vaccines: Evidence from COVID-19

By Seth Freedman, Daniel W. Sacks, Kosali Simon, and Coady Wing

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2026

We estimate direct and indirect vaccine effectiveness and assess how far the infection-reducing externality extends from the vaccinated, a key input to policy decisions. Our empirical strategy uses nearly universal microdata from a single state and relies...

Disadvantaging Rivals: Vertical Integration in the Pharmaceutical Market

By Charles Gray, Abby Alpert, and Neeraj Sood

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2026

The pharmaceutical market has experienced a wave of vertical integration between pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and insurers in recent years. Using a unique dataset on insurer-PBM contracts, we document increasing vertical integration in Medicare Part D...

Divine Policy: The Impact of Religion in Government

By Jeanet Sinding Bentzen, Alessandro Pizzigolotto, and Lena Lindbjerg Sperling

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2026

Can policies shape personal values and beliefs? To examine, we exploit the staggered introduction of faith-based initiatives across US states. Our difference-in-differences analysis reveals that the initiatives strengthened religiosity and conservative-re...

Rising Concentration of Household Shopping, Superstar Firms, and the Implications for Retail Markups

By Justin H. Leung and Zhonglin Li

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2026

This paper documents an increase in the concentration of household shopping in the United States retail sector from 2004 to 2019. Despite a growing number of stores, households visit fewer stores, do more one-stop shopping, and increasingly shop at differ...

AEA-CEE Annual Reports

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Front Matter

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, January 2026