Can We Trust Social Capital?

By Joel Sobel

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2002

This essay looks at the literature on social capital from the perspective of game theory. It reviews Bowling Alone by Robert Putnam and Social Capital: A Multifaceted Approach edited by Partha Dasgupta and Ismail Serageldin.

Annotated Listing of New Books

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2002

Time Discounting and Time Preference: A Critical Review

By Shane Frederick, George Loewenstein, and Ted O'Donoghue

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2002

This paper discusses the discounted utility (DU) model: its historical development, underlying assumptions, and "anomalies" - the empirical regularities that are inconsistent with its theoretical predictions. We then summarize the alternate theoretical fo...

Schools and Skills in Developing Countries: Education Policies and Socioeconomic Outcomes

By Paul Glewwe

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2002

This paper reviews recent research on the determinants of educational outcomes, and the impact of those outcomes on other socioeconomic phenomena. It addresses three questions: 1) What school policies are most cost-effective in producing students with par...

Who Talks to Whom? Intra- and Interdisciplinary Communication of Economics Journals

By Rik Pieters and Hans Baumgartner

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2002

Citation patterns between 42 journals in economics from 1995 to 1997 are examined, plus between economics and anthropology, political science, psychology, sociology and five business disciplines. Building on social network theory, we identify a hierarchic...

Annotated Listing of New Books

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2002

JEL Classification System

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2002

Enterprise Restructuring in Transition: A Quantitative Survey

By Simeon Djankov and Peter Murrell

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2002

We survey the empirical literature analyzing the process of enterprise restructuring in transition economies. The survey provides new insights into the relative effectiveness of different reform policies, and into how this effectiveness varies across regi...

Modern Hyper- and High Inflations

By Stanley Fischer, Ratna Sahay, and Carlos A. Végh

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2002

Since 1947, hyperinflations in market economies have been rare. More common have been longer inflationary processes at rates above 100 percent per annum. This paper examines the main characteristics of such very high inflation episodes. We find that (i) a...

Annotated Listing of New Books

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2002

Evaluating Welfare Reform in the United States

By Rebecca M. Blank

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2002

This paper reviews the economic literature on welfare reform over the 1990s. A brief summary of the policy changes is followed by a discussion of the methodological techniques that analyze the effects of these changes on outcomes. The paper then criticall...

Identity and Schooling: Some Lessons for the Economics of Education

By George A. Akerlof and Rachel E. Kranton

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2002

This review culls noneconomic literature on education--by sociologists, anthropologists, and practitioners to present a new economic theory of students and schools. This theory elaborates two themes that have eluded economic analysis. First is the student...

Anatomy of The Anatomy of Racial Inequality

By Steven Raphael

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2002

In this review, I summarize and offer thoughts about two arguments key to Glenn Loury's analysis of the anatomy of racial inequality. The first concerns the idea that many negative stereotypes held about blacks in the United States are self-fulfilling, de...

Annotated Listing of New Books

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2002

JEL Classification System

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2002

Doctoral Dissertations in Economics

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2002

Political Institutions and Policy Choices: Evidence from the United States

By Timothy Besley and Anne Case

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2003

A rich array of institutional diversity makes the United States an excellent place to study the relationship between political institutions and public policy outcomes. This essay has three main aims. It reviews empirical evidence on the relationship betwe...

Measurement Error in the Consumer Price Index: Where Do We Stand?

By David E. Lebow and Jeremy B. Rudd

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2003

We survey the evidence on CPI bias and provide our best estimate of its magnitude. We also identify a "weighting" bias that has not been quantified previously. We estimate that the CPI currently overstates the rate of change in the cost of living by about...

Annotated Listing of New Books

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2003

What Is Wrong with Taylor Rules? Using Judgment in Monetary Policy through Targeting Rules

By Lars E. O. Svensson

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2003

It is argued that inflation targeting is best understood as a commitment to a targeting rule rather than an instrument rule, either a general targeting rule (explicit objectives for monetary policy) or a specific targeting rule (a criterion for the foreca...