AIG in Hindsight

[Symposium: The Bailouts of 2007-2009]

By Robert McDonald and Anna Paulson

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2015

The near-failure on September 16, 2008, of American International Group (AIG) was an iconic moment in the financial crisis. Two large bets on real estate made with funding vulnerable to bank-run-like dynamics pushed AIG to the brink of bankruptcy. AIG use...

Economic Catastrophe Bonds

By Joshua D. Coval, Jakub W. Jurek, and Erik Stafford

American Economic Review, June 2009

The central insight of asset pricing is that a security's value depends both on its distribution of payoffs across economic states and on state prices. In fixed income markets, many investors focus exclusively on estimates of expected payoffs, such as ...

Is Lottery Gambling Addictive?

By Jonathan Guryan and Melissa S. Kearney

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2010

We present an empirical test for the addictiveness of lottery gambling that exploits an exogenous shock to local market consumption of lottery gambling. It uses the sale of a winning jackpot ticket in a zip code as an instrument for present consumption an...

Distinguished Lecture on Economics in Government: Reflections on Managing Global Integration

By Lawrence H. Summers

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 1999

On the topic of globalization and economic integration, I want to address five subjects: The first is the extent of global integration that has taken place and that lies in prospect. The second is the broad case for economic integration and why domestic a...

Domestic Institutions and the Bypass Effect of Financial Globalization

By Jiandong Ju and Shang-Jin Wei

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2010

This paper proposes a simple model to study how domestic institutions affect patterns of international capital flows. Inefficient financial system, and poor corporate governance, may be bypassed by two-way capital flows in which domestic savings leave the...

Recessions, Retirement, and Social Security

By Courtney C. Coile and Phillip B. Levine

American Economic Review, May 2011

This paper examines how labor market fluctuations around the time of retirement affect the labor force status and Social Security receipt of individuals ages 55 to 69 and the income of retirees in their 70s, using data from the March Current Population Su...

Interpreting Labor Supply Regressions in a Model of Full- and Part-Time Work

By Yongsung Chang, Sun-Bin Kim, Kyooho Kwon, and Richard Rogerson

American Economic Review, May 2011

We construct a family model of labor supply that features adjustment along both the intensive and extensive margin. Intensive margin adjsutment is restricted to two values: full-time work and part-time work. Using simulated data from the steady state of t...

Assessing the Rate of Replication in Economics

By James Berry, Lucas C. Coffman, Douglas Hanley, Rania Gihleb, and Alistair J. Wilson

American Economic Review, May 2017

We assess the rate of replication for empirical papers in the 2010 American Economic Review. Across 70 empirical papers, we find that 29 percent have 1 or more citation that partially replicates the original result. While only a minority of papers has a p...

Statistical Modeling of Monetary Policy and Its Effects

By Christopher A. Sims

American Economic Review, June 2012

Bundling and Competition for Slots

By Doh-Shin Jeon and Domenico Menicucci

American Economic Review, August 2012

We consider competition between sellers selling multiple distinct products to a buyer having k slots. Under independent pricing, a pure strategy equilibrium often does not exist, and equilibrium in mixed strategy is never efficient. When bundling is allo...

Caps on Political Lobbying: Comment

By Todd R. Kaplan and David Wettstein

American Economic Review, September 2006

Bankruptcy, Finance Constraints, and the Value of the Firm

By Douglas Gale and Piero Gottardi

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, May 2011

We study a competitive model in which market incompleteness implies that debt-financed firms may default in some states of nature, and default may lead to the sale of the firms' assets at fire sale prices when a finance constraint is binding. The anticipa...

Aggregate and Idiosyncratic Risk in a Frictional Labor Market

By Leena Rudanko

American Economic Review, October 2011

This paper develops a tractable extension of a Mortensen-Pissarides style matching model that allows for risk averse workers with limited ability to smooth consumption. I show that this leads to a form of equilibrium wage rigidity, as the inability of wor...

Economic Literacy or Economic Ideology?

By Julie A. Nelson and Steven M. Sheffrin

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 1991

The Test of Economic Literacy (TEL), is a standardized multiple choice test developed under the auspices of the Joint Council on Economic Education with esteemed economists in an advisory role. The Test of Economic Literacy (TEL) is administered in many h...

Immigrant Earnings Assimilation: Estimates from Longitudinal Data

By Wei-Yin Hu

American Economic Review, May 2000

Why Are Women Such Reluctant Economists? Evidence from Liberal Arts Colleges

By Elizabeth J. Jensen and Ann L. Owen

American Economic Review, May 2000

Is College Financial Aid Equitable and Efficient?

By Aaron S. Edlin

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 1993

Two families with identical earnings paths pay dramatically different amounts for college if one saves more than the other. Because saving leads to receiving less financial aid, a family's return to saving is substantially below the social return. This ma...

The Berlin Stock Exchange in Imperial Germany: A Market for New Technology?

By Sibylle Lehmann-Hasemeyer and Jochen Streb

American Economic Review, November 2016

Analyzing 474 cases of firms going public in the German capital between 1892 and 1913, we show that innovative firms could rely on the Berlin stock market as a source of financing. Our data also reveal that initial public offerings (IPO) of innovative fir...

A Reconsideration of Hedonic Price Indexes with an Application to PC's

By Ariel Pakes

American Economic Review, December 2003

This paper compares hedonic to matched model indexes. Matched model indexes are averages of the price changes of goods that remain on sampled stores' shelves. Since goods that disappear tend to have falling market values, matched model indexes select from...

Product Market Regulation and Market Work: A Benchmark Analysis

By Lei Fang and Richard Rogerson

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, April 2011

Recent empirical work finds a negative correlation between product market regulation and aggregate employment. We examine the effect of product market regulations on hours worked in a benchmark model of time allocation. Product market regulations affect m...