Puzzles: Blockades, Carrier Missions, Secret Intelligence, and More

By Barry Nalebuff

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1988

As usual, this feature begins with several speed puzzles; answers can be found at the end of the problems. Following is one longer puzzle for which readers are challenged to submit their own answer. The puzzles in this issue focus on everything from diver...

Global Financial Crisis and Africa: Is the Impact Permanent or Transitory? Time Series Evidence from North Africa

By Hassan Y. Aly and Mark C. Strazicich

American Economic Review, May 2011

We utilize time series tests with structural breaks to test for an adverse impact on economic growth rates in North Africa associated with the recent US financial crisis and global recession. One or two breaks are identified for each country, except for M...

The Structure of Tariffs and Long-Term Growth

By Nathan Nunn and Daniel Trefler

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, October 2010

We show that the "skill bias" of a country's tariff structure is positively correlated with long-term per capita GDP growth. Testing for causal mechanisms, we find evidence consistent with the existence of real benefits from tariffs focused in skill-inte...

The Role of Intergenerational Transfers and Life Cycle Saving in the Accumulation of Wealth

[Symposium: Explaining Savings]

By Franco Modigliani

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 1988

The purpose of this paper is to review what economists know at present about the following question: How large a portion of the existing wealth is the result of a bequest motive, that is, of accumulation for the specific purpose of leaving bequests? But ...

Learning from Others' HIV Testing: Updating Beliefs and Responding to Risk

By Susan Godlonton and Rebecca L. Thornton

American Economic Review, May 2013

An individual who takes an HIV test can be informed about their own status and risk. Similarly, when friends, family or neighbors learn of a person's HIV status, they may update their beliefs about HIV infection among people they know. Using an experiment...

Productivity Differences between and within Countries

By Daron Acemoglu and Melissa Dell

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, January 2010

We document substantial within-country (cross-municipality) differences in incomes for a large number of countries in the Americas. A significant fraction of the within-country differences cannot be explained by observed human capital. We conjecture that...

Distributional Preferences, Reciprocity-Like Behavior, and Efficiency in Bilateral Exchange

By Daniel J. Benjamin

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, February 2015

Under what conditions do distributional preferences, such as altruism or a concern for fair outcomes, generate efficient trade? I analyze theoretically a simple bilateral exchange game: each player sequentially takes an action that reduces his own materia...

Correspondence: Are Economists Different?

By Ralph Lattimore

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 1992

Understanding the Forward Premium Puzzle: A Microstructure Approach

By Craig Burnside, Martin Eichenbaum, and Sergio Rebelo

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, July 2009

High interest rate currencies tend to appreciate relative to low interest rate currencies. We argue that adverse selection problems between participants in foreign exchange markets can account for this "forward premium puzzle." The key feature of our m...

Within-City Variation in Urban Decline: The Case of Detroit

By Veronica Guerrieri, Daniel Hartley, and Erik Hurst

American Economic Review, May 2012

When a city experiences a decline in income or population, do all neighborhoods within the city decline equally? Or, do some neighborhoods decline more than others? What are the characteristics of the neighborhoods that decline the most? We answer thes...

Job Loss and the Fraying of the Implicit Employment Contract

[Symposium: Household Risks]

By Kevin F. Hallock

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2009

Most workers have one employment contract that is explicit and another one that is implicit. The explicit employment contract specifies working hours, compensation, and job tasks. The implicit contract involves expectations about the extent to which the e...

Productivity Spillovers across Firms through Worker Mobility

By Andrey Stoyanov and Nikolay Zubanov

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, April 2012

Using matched firm-worker data from Danish manufacturing, we observe firm-to-firm worker movements and find that firms that hired workers from more productive firms experience productivity gains one year after the hiring. The productivity gains associated...

Great Expectations and the End of the Depression

By Gauti B. Eggertsson

American Economic Review, September 2008

This paper suggests that the US recovery from the Great Depression was driven by a shift in expectations. This shift was caused by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's policy actions. On the monetary policy side, Roosevelt abolished the gold standard ...

Transportation Fuels Policy since the OPEC Embargo: Paved with Good Intentions

By Christopher R. Knittel

American Economic Review, May 2013

A long line of research investigates whether the retail prices of electricity and natural gas send proper signals about scarcity in order to induce efficient consumption. Historically, regulated utilities have not designed tariffs that set marginal price...

Enrollment without Learning: Teacher Effort, Knowledge, and Skill in Primary Schools in Africa

By Tessa Bold, Deon Filmer, Gayle Martin, Ezequiel Molina, Brian Stacy, Christophe Rockmore, Jakob Svensson, and Waly Wane

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2017

School enrollment has universally increased over the last 25 years in low-income countries. Enrolling in school, however, does not assure that children learn. A large share of children in low-income countries complete their primary education lacking even ...

Course Requirements for Bachelor's Degrees in Economics

By William Bosshardt, Michael Watts, and William E. Becker

American Economic Review, May 2013

We conducted a national survey of department Chairs to investigate whether departments of economics changed course requirements for bachelors degrees since the Siegfried and Bidani (1992) paper using 1980 data. There have been few changes to course requir...

Recommendations for Further Reading

By Timothy Taylor

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2013

Symposium on Consumption Smoothing in Developing Countries

[Symposium: Consumption Smoothing in Developing Countries]

By Anne Case

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 1995

This symposium explores how households in low-income countries, even without access to formal credit and insurance markets, find ways to smooth consumption in the face of large shocks to their income. This general area of risk sharing and consumption smoo...

Recommendations for Further Reading

By Bernard Saffran

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1987

Interest Rates and Inflation

By Fernando Alvarez, Robert E. Lucas, and Warren E. Weber

American Economic Review, May 2001