The 2022 AEJ Best Paper Awards have been announced. The papers selected are highlighted below.

AEJ: Applied Economics 

In "Understanding the Average Impact of Microcredit Expansions: A Bayesian Hierarchical Analysis of Seven Randomized Experiments," author Rachael Meager estimates the average effect of microcredit as a tool to alleviate poverty across seven studies. She finds that the impact on household business and consumption variables is unlikely to be transformative and may even be negligible. There is also reasonable external validity of these varied evaluations of microcredit. (AEJ: Applied Economics, Volume 11, No. 1, January 2019)

AEJ: Economic Policy 

In "Carbon Taxes and CO₂ Emissions: Sweden as a Case Study," author Julius J. Andersson examined Sweden's experience after it adopted a tax on carbon in the early 1990s. He says the tax worked: emissions in the transportation sector dropped 6.3 percent annually on average from 1990–2005. The effects were larger than previous research had shown, suggesting that policymakers were underestimating the upside of implementing carbon pricing policies. He also found no credible correlation with slowed economic growth. (AEJ: Economic Policy, Vol. 11, No. 4, November 2019)

Read the Research Highlight here.

AEJ: Macroeconomics 

In "Higher Taxes at the Top: The Role of Entrepreneurs," author Bettina Brüggemann studied what happens to optimal top marginal tax rates when entrepreneurs are taken into account. She said that the highest-income entrepreneurs are indeed hurt by tax hikes. But in the long run, increases are more beneficial for workers and even entrepreneurs outside the highest tax bracket. While previous research recommended marginal tax rates of nearly 80 percent on high-income earners, she found that a top rate closer to 60 percent maximizes welfare. (American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics Vol. 13 No. 3 July 2021)

AEJ: Microeconomics 

In "Is No News (Perceived As) Bad News? An Experimental Investigation of Information Disclosure," authors Ginger Zhe Jin, Michael Luca, and Daniel Martin used a laboratory experiment known as a sender-receiver game to explore the conditions under which strategic forces push people to voluntarily disclose information. Their findings suggest that sellers can often avoid revealing unfavorable information because consumers aren't as skeptical as they should be when information is withheld from them, especially in markets with infrequent transactions. (American Economic Journal: Microeconomics Vol. 13 No. 2 May 2021)

Read the Research Highlight here.