Multiproduct Search and the Joint Search Effect

By Jidong Zhou

American Economic Review, September 2014

This paper presents a sequential search model where consumers look for several products from multiproduct firms. Multiproduct search can significantly influence firms' pricing decisions. For example, it can make market prices decrease with search costs. P...

Household Expenditure and the Income Tax Rebates of 2001

By David S. Johnson, Jonathan A. Parker, and Nicholas S. Souleles

American Economic Review, December 2006

Using questions expressly added to the Consumer Expenditure Survey, we estimate the change in consumption expenditures caused by the 2001 federal income tax rebates and test the permanent income hypothesis. We exploit the unique, randomized timing of r...

Fertility Transitions along the Extensive and Intensive Margins

By Daniel Aaronson, Fabian Lange, and Bhashkar Mazumder

American Economic Review, November 2014

By allowing for an extensive margin in the standard quantity-quality model, we generate new insights into fertility transitions. We test the model on Southern black women aected by a large-scale school construction program. Consistent with our model, wom...

Life and Death in the Fast Lane: Police Enforcement and Traffic Fatalities

By Gregory DeAngelo and Benjamin Hansen

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, May 2014

Simultaneity complicates the estimation of the causal effect of police on crime. We overcome this obstacle by focusing on a mass layoff of Oregon State Police in February of 2003. Due solely to budget cuts, 35 percent of the roadway troopers were laid ...

Trends in Earnings Differentials across College Majors and the Changing Task Composition of Jobs

By Joseph G. Altonji, Lisa B. Kahn, and Jamin D. Speer

American Economic Review, May 2014

We show that, among college graduates, earnings differentials across field of study have increased substantially since the early 1990s. We study the degree to which this increase can be accounted for by changes in the labor market return to skills associa...

How to Control Controlled School Choice

By Federico Echenique and M. Bumin Yenmez

American Economic Review, August 2015

We characterize choice rules for schools that regard students as substitutes while expressing preferences for a diverse student body. The stable (or fair) assignment of students to schools requires the latter to regard the former as substitutes. Such a re...

Economic Choices

By Daniel McFadden

American Economic Review, June 2001

Restoring Rational Choice: The Challenge of Consumer Financial Regulation

By John Y. Campbell

American Economic Review, May 2016

This lecture considers the case for consumer financial regulation in an environment where many households lack the knowledge to manage their financial affairs effectively. The lecture argues that financial ignorance is pervasive and unsurprising given the...

The Psychology of Tail Events: Progress and Challenges

By Nicholas Barberis

American Economic Review, May 2013

Over the past decade there has been a surge of interest in "tail events," or rare, high-impact events. In this article, I start by summarizing some recent progress in our understanding of the psychology of tail events. I suggest that much of this progress...

The Effects of Voting Costs on the Democratic Process and Public Finances

By Roland Hodler, Simon Luechinger, and Alois Stutzer

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, February 2015

Increasing the attractiveness of voting is often seen as a remedy for unequal participation and the influence of special-interest groups on public policy. However, lower voting costs may also bring less informed citizens to the poll, thereby inviting effo...

Media Freedom, Political Knowledge, and Participation

[Symposium: Economics of Persuasion]

By Peter T. Leeson

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2008

This paper examines the relationship between media freedom from government control and citizens' political knowledge, political participation, and voter turnout. To explore these connections, I first examine media freedom and citizens' political knowledge...

On the Timing and Pricing of Dividends: Comment

By Florian Schulz

American Economic Review, October 2016

I present novel empirical evidence on the term structure of the equity risk premium. In contrast to previous research that documented high discount rates for the short-term component of the market portfolio, I show evidence for an unconditionally flat ter...

The Lerner Index of Monopoly Power: Origins and Uses

By Kenneth G. Elzinga and David E. Mills

American Economic Review, May 2011

Abba Lerner's paper in the Review of Economic Studies (1934) is the source of what is now referred to as the Lerner Index of monopoly power. The Lerner Index has become the standard measure of monopoly power and one of the most widely cited index...

Trading Activity and Price Behavior in the Stock and Stock Index Futures Markets in October 1987

[Symposium: Brady Commission Report on the October 1987 Stock Market Crash]

By James F. Gammill and Terry A. Marsh

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 1988

This paper discusses what actually happened during the October 1987 market break and the days immediately before. It attempts to lay out a set of stylized facts that describe differing categories of traders and how they behaved and reacted to each other d...

Data Watch: The U.S. National Income and Product Accounts

By Joel Popkin

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2000

GDP is arguably the most widely used economic statistic. It is part of the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs). The concepts, methods and source data for the NIPAs are described in this article. It contains citations to more detailed information ...

Planning and Financial Literacy: How Do Women Fare?

By Annamaria Lusardi and Olivia S. Mitchell

American Economic Review, May 2008

Trade Agreements and Enforcement: Evidence from WTO Dispute Settlement

By Chad P. Bown and Kara M. Reynolds

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2017

This paper examines implications of the terms-of-trade theory for the determinants of outcomes arising under the enforcement provisions of international agreements. Like original trade agreement negotiations, formal trade dispute negotiations are modeled ...

Concentrating on the Fall of the Labor Share

By David Autor, David Dorn, Lawrence F. Katz, Christina Patterson, and John Van Reenen

American Economic Review, May 2017

The recent fall of labor's share of GDP in numerous countries is well-documented, but its causes are poorly understood. We sketch a "superstar firm" model where industries are increasingly characterized by "winner take most" competition, leading a small n...

What Really Matters in Auction Design

By Paul Klemperer

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2002

The most important issues in auction design are the traditional concerns of competition policy-preventing collusive, predatory, and entry-deterring behavior. Ascending and uniform-price auctions are particularly vulnerable to these problems. The Anglo-Dut...

A Greater Price for a Greater Good? Evidence That Consumers Pay More for Charity-Linked Products

By Daniel W. Elfenbein and Brian McManus

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, May 2010

To study whether consumers will pay more for products that generate charitable donations, we analyze data from eBay on charity and noncharity auctions of otherwise identical products. Charity prices are 6 percent higher, on average, than noncharity prices...