Improved Market Access and Indigenous Land Loss: Evidence from the Nineteenth-Century US Railroad Expansion

By Jeff Chan, Azim Essaji, and Rob Gillezeau

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2026

We study the effects of colonial market access on the loss of lands for Indigenous nations, using the rapid expansion of the US railroad network in the nineteenth century as a quasi-natural experiment. We find that increased market access to Indigenous ho...

Black-White Differences in Income Tax Liability

By William Gale, Oliver Hall, and John Sabelhaus

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2026

The federal income tax does not explicitly discriminate by race or ethnicity but can still generate disparate outcomes when a group’s activity correlates with determinants of tax liability. Using Survey of Consumer Finances data and NBER’s TAXSIM mode...

The Impact of Immigration Policies on Reentry Rates among Deportees

By Eunsik Chang, Heriberto Gonzalez-Lozano, and Sandra Orozco-Aleman

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2026

We examine whether US interior immigration enforcement policies deter deportees from reentering the United States and whether these effects vary by individual characteristics. Using data from the Mexican Survey of Migration to the Northern Border and expl...

Resilient Finance, Stratified Costs: Unmasking Racial Disparities in Disaster-Induced Bank Closures

By Isaac Marcelin, Wei Sun, and Gaye-Del Lo

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2026

Climate disasters and bank branch closures can reshape mortgage credit without obvious changes in headline approval rates. Using Home Mortgage Disclosure Act applications matched to county disasters (SHELDUS) and branch closures (S&P Global), we estimate ...

President's Foreword

By Katharine G. Abraham

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2026

Editors’ Introduction

By William R. Johnson

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2026

The Effects of Racial Segregation on Intergenerational Mobility: Evidence from Historical Railroad Placement

By Eric Chyn, Kareem Haggag, and Bryan A. Stuart

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2026

This paper provides new evidence on the causal impacts of citywide racial segregation on intergenerational mobility. We use an instrumental variable approach that relies on plausibly exogenous variation in segregation due to the arrangement of railroad tr...

Some Macroeconomic Evidence on Substitution between Clean and Dirty Energy

By Gregory Casey, Yang Gao, and Peter K. Kruse-Andersen

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2026

We investigate the aggregate elasticity of substitution between clean and dirty energy using time-series data from the United States. To match the data, a standard macro climate-economy model requires an elasticity that is close to one in the long run but...

Organizing Production across Borders in a Time of Uncertainty

By Laura Alfaro, Anusha Chari, and Haruka Takayama

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2026

Intensifying geopolitical turmoil has revealed the fragility of international production networks. This paper demonstrates how multinational firms are redefining their organizational boundaries by examining cross-border mergers and acquisitions (M&A) as a...

Early Learning across Decades: Advances in Measuring Head Start Effectiveness

By Chloe R. Gibbs

Journal of Economic Literature

The Head Start program, launched in 1965 and targeted to children from disadvantaged backgrounds, remains the largest early childhood care and education (ECE) program in the United States and the only one deployed at the federal level. As such, the Head S...

Remote Work and City Structure

By Ferdinando Monte, Charly Porcher, and Esteban Rossi-Hansberg

American Economic Review

Relative to remote work, working downtown facilitates valuable interactions with other in-office workers, but entails commuting costs. The resulting coordination mechanism can lead to multiple stationary equilibria with varying levels of remote work. T...

Class Disparities and Discrimination in Traffic Stops and Searches

By Benjamin Feigenberg and Conrad Miller

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics

We study class disparities in highway patrol traffic stops. Low-income motorists are more likely to be searched for contraband, less likely to be found with contraband when searched, and more likely to be stopped for infractions associated with pretext st...

Scars of War: The Legacy of WWI Deaths on Civic Capital and Combat Motivation

By Felipe Carozzi, Edward Pinchbeck, and Luca Repetto

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics

We study how the legacy of WWI deaths affected British communities and the next generation of soldiers. Our instrumental-variable estimates show that servicemen from localities that suffered heavier losses in WWI were considerably more likely to die or...

Deterring Industrial Vessels from African Coastal Fisheries

By Aishwarya Agarwal and Gabriel Englander

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

Can African countries deter industrial fishing vessels from near-shore waters reserved for artisanal fishers? Using radar data released in 2024, this paper provides the first causal evaluation of these Inshore Exclusion Zones (IEZs). Regression disconti...

Non-Tariff Barriers in the U.S.-China Trade War

By Tuo Chen, Chang-Tai Hsieh, and Zheng (Michael) Song

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics

Unofficial non-tariff barriers were responsible for 50% of the reduction in Chinese imports from the U.S. during the 2018-2019 trade war. We infer NTBs from the change in imports of U.S. products relative to imports from other countries of the same HS6 pr...

Endogenous Tracking: Sorting and Peer Effects

By Aleksei Chernulich, Romain Gauriot, and Daehong Min

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics

Can an educational system without ability tracking and signalling motive generate self-sorting of students by ability? We build a theoretical model to show that when seeking positive peer effects is combined with costly educational choices, even in the...

Markets, Contracts, and Hierarchies: How Bargaining Frictions Affect Governance

By Tore Ellingsen and Topi Miettinen

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics

We develop an organizational governance model with a single buyer and endogenous upstream entry. Investments and control rights over assets and actions are immediately contractable; production is contractable after uncertainty resolves. We show the fol...

Behavioral Biases are Temporally Stable

By Victor Stango and Jonathan Zinman

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics

Social scientists often consider temporal stability when assessing a construct and its measures, but whether behavioral biases display such stability is relatively unknown. We estimate stability for 17 biases, using lab-style elicitations in online surv...

The effect of prison sentences on financial crime

[Research Highlight]

May 21, 2026

Evidence from Finland suggests that incarceration for fraud defendants reduces recidivism and discourages misconduct among defendants’ colleagues.

Different Paths to College Success: The Impact of Massachusetts's Charter Schools on College Trajectories

By Sarah R. Cohodes and Astrid C. Pineda

American Economic Review: Insights, June 2026

The charter school movement encompasses many school models. In Massachusetts in the 2010s, the site of our study, urban charter schools primarily used "No Excuses" practices, whereas nonurban charters had greater model variety. Using randomized admissions...