Liquidity in Retirement Savings Systems: An International Comparison

By John Beshears, James J. Choi, Joshua Hurwitz, David Laibson, and Brigitte C. Madrian

American Economic Review, May 2015

We compare the liquidity that six developed countries have built into their employer-based defined contribution (DC) retirement schemes. In Germany, Singapore, and the UK, withdrawals are essentially banned no matter what kind of transitory income shock t...

Why Regulate Insider Trading? Evidence from the First Great Merger Wave (1897-1903)

By Ajeyo Banerjee and E. Woodrow Eckard

American Economic Review, December 2001

We use event-time methodology to study legal insider trading associated with mergers circa 1900. For mergers with "prospective" disclosures similar to today's, we find substantial value gains at announcement, implying participation by "outside" shareholde...

Optimal Design of Research Contests

By Yeon-Koo Che and Ian Gale

American Economic Review, June 2003

Procurement of an innovation often requires substantial effort by potential suppliers. Motivating effort may be difficult if the level of effort and quality of the resulting innovation are unverifiable, if innovators cannot benefit directly by marketing t...

Are Mergers Beneficial to Consumers? Evidence from the Market for Bank Deposits

By Dario Focarelli and Fabio Panetta

American Economic Review, September 2003

The general conclusion of the empirical literature is that in-market consolidation generates adverse price changes, harming consumers. Previous studies, however, look only at the short-run pricing impact of consolidation, ignoring effects that take longer...

Efficiency in the Use of Technology in Economic Education: Some Preliminary Results

By Kim Sosin, Betty J. Lecha, Rajshree Agarwal, Robin L. Bartlett, and Joseph I. Daniel

American Economic Review, May 2004

Fifty Years of U.S. Income Data from the Current Population Survey: Alternatives, Trends, and Quality

By Daniel H. Weinberg, Charles T. Nelson, Marc I. Roemer, and Edward J. Welniak

American Economic Review, May 1999

Can Neoclassical Economics Underpin the Reform of Centrally Planned Economies?

[Symposium: Economic Transition in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe]

By Peter Murrell

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1991

This paper addresses whether neoclassical economics can provide the intellectual underpinning for a theory of reform. I examine whether the neoclassical model satisfies an essential condition to qualify for this role: does it give us a satisfactory explan...

Leverage and Beliefs: Personal Experience and Risk-Taking in Margin Lending

By Peter Koudijs and Hans-Joachim Voth

American Economic Review, November 2016

What determines risk-bearing capacity and the amount of leverage in financial markets? Using unique archival data on collateralized lending, we show that personal experience can affect individual risk-taking and aggregate leverage. When an investor syndic...

On the Empirical Content of Quantal Response Equilibrium

By Philip A. Haile, Ali Hortaçsu, and Grigory Kosenok

American Economic Review, March 2008

The quantal response equilibrium (QRE) notion of Richard D. McKelvey and Thomas R. Palfrey (1995) has recently attracted considerable attention, due in part to its widely documented ability to rationalize observed behavior in games played by experiment...

The Future of the IMF and the World Bank

By Raghuram G. Rajan

American Economic Review, May 2008

The Legacy of U.S. Educational Leadership: Notes on Distribution and Economic Growth in the 20th Century

By Claudia Goldin and Lawrence F. Katz

American Economic Review, May 2001

Aggregate Employment Fluctuations with Microeconomic Asymmetries

By Jeffrey R. Campbell and Jonas D. M. Fisher

American Economic Review, December 2000

We provide a simple explanation for the observation from the U.S. manufacturing sector that the job destruction rate fluctuates more than the job creation rate. In our model, proportional plant-level costs of creating and destroying jobs cause shrinking p...

Nobel Laureate: Gary S. Becker: Ideas about Facts

By Victor R. Fuchs

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 1994

Gary S. Becker's career, personality, and contributions are reviewed and commented upon. Special note is taken of his seriousness of purpose, his willingness to take chances, and his persistence in the face of criticism and hostility. Becker's exceptional...

The Economics of Online Postsecondary Education: MOOCs, Nonselective Education, and Highly Selective Education

By Caroline M. Hoxby

American Economic Review, May 2014

I consider economically sustainable online postsecondary education, including massive open online courses (MOOCs). The analysis suggests that MOOCs will be financially sustainable substitutes for some non-selective postsecondary education, but there are s...

The Political Economy of the US Monetary Union: The Civil War Era as a Watershed

By David F. Weiman and John A. James

American Economic Review, May 2007

Rates for Vehicle Loans: Race and Loan Source

By Kerwin Kofi Charles, Erik Hurst, and Melvin Stephens

American Economic Review, May 2008

Policy Watch: The 1996 Welfare Reform

By Rebecca M. Blank

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1997

Welfare reform legislation was passed in the summer of 1996. Four key research questions that the new law presents to social scientists are as follows: (1) Can states design and operate better programs than AFDC? This includes questions about the ability ...

Nonparametric Density and Regression Estimation

[Symposium: Econometric Tools]

By John DiNardo and Justin L. Tobias

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2001

We provide a nontechnical review of recent nonparametric methods for estimating density and regression functions. The methods we describe make it possible for a researcher to estimate a regression function or density without having to specify in advance a...

The State of Economic Education

By Michael K. Salemi and John J. Siegfried

American Economic Review, May 1999

Parental Resources and Child Abuse and Neglect

By Christina Paxson and Jane Waldfogel

American Economic Review, May 1999