The Evolution of Medical Spending Risk

[Symposium: Household Risks]

By Jonathan Gruber and Helen Levy

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2009

How has the economic risk of health spending changed over time for U.S. households? We describe trends in aggregate health spending in the United States and how private insurance markets and public insurance programs have changed over time. We then presen...

Pay for Percentile

By Gadi Barlevy and Derek Neal

American Economic Review, August 2012

We propose an incentive scheme for educators that links compensation to the ranks of their students within comparison sets. Under certain conditions, this scheme induces teachers to allocate socially optimal levels of effort. Moreover, because this scheme...

The Effect of Fast Food Restaurants on Obesity and Weight Gain

By Janet Currie, Stefano DellaVigna, Enrico Moretti, and Vikram Pathania

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, August 2010

We investigate how changes in the supply of fast food restaurants affect weight outcomes of 3 million children and 3 million pregnant women. Among ninth graders, a fast food restaurant within 0.1 miles of a school results in a 5.2 percent increase in obes...

Optimal Inattention to the Stock Market

By Andrew B. Abel, Janice C. Eberly, and Stavros Panageas

American Economic Review, May 2007

Changes in the Consumption, Income, and Well-Being of Single Mother Headed Families

By Bruce D. Meyer and James X. Sullivan

American Economic Review, December 2008

We investigate well-being changes for single mother headed families targeted by recent tax and welfare reforms. Measured income changes sharply differ from consumption changes. We examine disaggregated consumption, time use, and health insurance coverage....

In Defense of the NSF Economics Program

[Symposium: NSF Funding for Economists]

By Robert A. Moffitt

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2016

The NSF Economics program funds basic research in economics across all its disparate fields. Its budget has experienced a long period of stagnation and decline, with its real value in 2013 below that in 1980 and having declined by 50 percent as a percent ...

Efficient Pollution Regulation: Getting the Prices Right: Corrigendum (Mortality Rate Update)

By Nicholas Z. Muller and Robert Mendelsohn

American Economic Review, February 2012

Profits in the "New Trade" Approach to Trade Negotiations

By Ralph Ossa

American Economic Review, May 2012

I highlight two advantages of adopting a "new trade" approach to trade negotiations. First, it allows for a view of trade negotiations in which producer interests play a prominent role. And second, it lends itself naturally to quantitative analyses of non...

Temperature and Income: Reconciling New Cross-Sectional and Panel Estimates

By Melissa Dell, Benjamin F. Jones, and Benjamin A. Olken

American Economic Review, May 2009

Nation Building and Economic Growth

By Ellyn Creasey, Ahmed S. Rahman, and Katherine A. Smith

American Economic Review, May 2012

Over the past half-century there have been over three hundred instances of nation building initiatives, episodes where countries jointly give military and economic aid to a country embroiled in conflict. Despite the prevalence and expense of this foreign...

Are Tax Incentives for Charitable Giving Efficient? Evidence from France

By Gabrielle Fack and Camille Landais

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, May 2010

This paper estimates the effect of tax incentives for charitable contributions in France. We focus on two reforms that increased the nonrefundable tax credit rate for charitable contributions by 32 percent. We use a difference-in-difference identification...

Long-Run Mortality Effects of Vietnam-Era Army Service: Evidence from Australia's Conscription Lotteries

By Peter Siminski and Simon Ville

American Economic Review, May 2011

We estimate the effect of Vietnam-era Army service on mortality, exploiting Australia's conscription lotteries for identification. We utilize population data on deaths during 1994-2007 and military personnel records. The estimates are identified by over 5...

Disability Insurance and the Great Recession

By Nicole Maestas, Kathleen J. Mullen, and Alexander Strand

American Economic Review, May 2015

The US Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program is designed to provide income support to workers who become unable to work because of a severe, long-lasting disability. In this study, we use administrative data to estimate the effect of labor m...

Shifts in Privacy Concerns

By Avi Goldfarb and Catherine Tucker

American Economic Review, May 2012

This paper explores how digitization and the associated use of customer data have affected the evolution of consumer privacy concerns. We measure privacy concerns by reluctance to disclose income in an online marketing research survey. Using over three mi...

On the Economics of State Lotteries

By Charles T. Clotfelter and Philip J. Cook

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1990

This article examines several aspects of the economics of state lotteries, focusing primarily on the demand for lottery products. We begin by giving a descriptive overview. The succeeding sections examine the motivations for playing lottery games and evid...

Report of the Editor: Journal of Economic Literature

By Janet Currie

American Economic Review, May 2013

Experimentation at Scale

[Symposium: From Experiments to Economic Policy]

By Karthik Muralidharan and Paul Niehaus

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2017

This paper makes the case for greater use of randomized experiments "at scale." We review various critiques of experimental program evaluation in developing countries, and discuss how experimenting at scale along three specific dimensions—the size o...

Menu Pricing and Learning

By Alessandro Bonatti

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, August 2011

We analyze the design of dynamic menus to sell experience goods. The quality of the product is initially unknown, and the total quantity sold in each period determines the amount of information in the market. We characterize the optimum menu as a function...

Does the Secondary Life Insurance Market Threaten Dynamic Insurance?

By Glenn Daily, Igal Hendel, and Alessandro Lizzeri

American Economic Review, May 2008

Productivity Change in Health Care

By David M. Cutler and Mark McClellan

American Economic Review, May 2001