Recent Trends in Labor Supply Decisions among Married Couples in the United States

By Seonyoung Park and Nicole B. Simpson

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2026

This paper examines changes in joint labor supply among married US households during the period of trend reversal in aggregate labor supply from the late 1990s to the early 2020s. Married women, particularly those with children, exhibit the most significa...

Beyond Time and Money: Parental Occupation and Early Childhood Development

By Hyun Soo Suh

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2026

This paper examines how parental occupation shapes early cognitive and noncognitive child development. Using the Millennium Cohort Study and the British Household Panel Survey, I document that parents allocate time in home production and market work diffe...

Digital Incentives in Surveys: Response Rates and Sociodemographic Effects in a Large-Scale Parental Nudge Intervention

By Kalena E. Cortes, Brian Holzman, Melissa Gentry, and Miranda Lambert

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2026

This study examines how digital incentives influence survey participation and engagement in a large randomized controlled trial of parents across six school districts. We test how incentive amount and information about vendor options affect response behav...

The Harder They Fall: Diverging Black-White Wealth in Older Age Using the Health and Retirement Study

By Teegawende H. Zeida, William A. Darity Jr., Samuel L. Myers Jr., and Illenin O. Kondo

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2026

Using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), we document that wealthier Black households experience slower wealth accumulation compared to White households with similar, higher initial wealth. Racial wealth accumulation gaps widen racial disparities in we...

Asian “Chilling Effect” during the Pandemic: What Can We Learn from Reported Health Status?

By Abdihafit Shaeye and Ruth Uwaifo Oyelere

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2026

There is documented evidence that the origin of the COVID-19 virus in Asia led to increased discrimination and xenophobia toward individuals of Asian descent, resulting in an unprecedented rise in anti-Asian hate during the pandemic. Using a difference-in...

Social Security and Retirement of Older Blacks and Hispanics

By Emma Aguila and Zeewan Lee

AEA Papers and Proceedings, May 2026

Little research has examined how income inequalities by race/ethnic origin shape retirement decisions. Using Health and Retirement Study data from 2000–2020 linked to restricted Social Security Administration records, we calculate Social Security wealth...

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 wrong side of the tracks

[Research Highlight]

May 14, 2026

Eric Chyn discusses the effects of racial segregation on long-run economic outcomes.

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...