Framing Social Security Reform: Behavioral Responses to Changes in the Full Retirement Age

By Luc Behaghel and David M. Blau

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2012

We use a US Social Security reform as a quasi-experiment to provide evidence on framing effects in retirement behavior. The reform increased the full retirement age (FRA) from 65 to 66 in two-month increments per year of birth. We find strong evidence tha...

Estimating Taxable Income Responses Using Danish Tax Reforms

By Henrik Jacobsen Kleven and Esben Anton Schultz

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2014

This paper estimates taxable income responses using a series of Danish tax reforms and population-wide administrative data since 1980. The tax variation and data in Denmark makes it possible to overcome the biases from nontax changes in inequality and ...

Testing the Mechanisms of Structural Models: The Case of the Mickey Mantle Effect

By Hanming Fang, Michael Keane, Ahmed Khwaja, Martin Salm, and Dan Silverman

American Economic Review, May 2007

Sex Selection and Gender Balance

By V. Bhaskar

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, February 2011

We model the equilibrium sex ratio when parents can choose the sex of their child. With intrinsic son preference, sex selection results in a male-biased sex ratio. This is inefficient due to a marriage market congestion externality. Medical innovations th...

Persistent Discrimination: Racial Disparity in the United States, 1967-1988

By Patrick L. Mason

American Economic Review, May 2000

Gender Differences in Preferences

By Rachel Croson and Uri Gneezy

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2009

This paper reviews the literature on gender differences in economic experiments. In the three main sections, we identify robust differences in risk preferences, social (other-regarding) preferences, and competitive preferences. We also speculate on the ...

Housing, Credit Constraints, and Macro Stability: The Secondary Mortgage Market and Reduced Cyclicality of Residential Investment

By Joe Peek and James A. Wilcox

American Economic Review, May 2006

Fund Managers, Career Concerns, and Asset Price Volatility

By Veronica Guerrieri and Péter Kondor

American Economic Review, August 2012

We propose a model of delegated portfolio management with career concerns. Investors hire fund managers to invest their capital either in risky bonds or in riskless assets. Some managers have superior information on default risk. Based on past performance...

Anomalies: The Endowment Effect, Loss Aversion, and Status Quo Bias

By Daniel Kahneman, Jack L. Knetsch, and Richard H. Thaler

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1991

A wine-loving economist we know purchased some nice Bordeaux wines years ago at low prices. The wines have greatly appreciated in value, so that a bottle that cost only $10 when purchased would now fetch $200 at auction. This economist now drinks some of ...

Recommendations for Further Reading

By Bernard Saffran

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1990

The Area and Population of Cities: New Insights from a Different Perspective on Cities

By Hernán D. Rozenfeld, Diego Rybski, Xavier Gabaix, and Hernán A. Makse

American Economic Review, August 2011

The distribution of city populations has attracted much attention, in part because it constrains models of local growth. However, there is no consensus on the distribution below the very upper tail, because available data need to rely on "legal" rather th...

Psychological Frictions and the Incomplete Take-Up of Social Benefits: Evidence from an IRS Field Experiment

By Saurabh Bhargava and Dayanand Manoli

American Economic Review, November 2015

We address the role of "psychological frictions" in the incomplete take-up of EITC benefits with an IRS field experiment. We specifically assess the influence of program confusion, informational complexity, and stigma by evaluating response to experimenta...

Strategic Immunization and Group Structure

By Andrea Galeotti and Brian W. Rogers

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, May 2013

We consider the spread of a harmful state through a population divided into two groups. Interaction patterns capture the full spectrum of assortativity possibilities. We show that a central planner who aims for eradication optimally either divides equa...

Assumptions Matter: Model Uncertainty and the Deterrent Effect of Capital Punishment

By Steven N. Durlauf, Chao Fu, and Salvador Navarro

American Economic Review, May 2012

This paper examines how estimates of the deterrent effect of capital punishment depend on alternate choices of assumptions concerning the homicide process. Specific models of the homicide process represent bundles of these assumptions, which involve the u...

From Homo Economicus to Homo Sapiens

[Symposium: Forecasts for the Future of Economics]

By Richard H. Thaler

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 2000

In responding to a request for predictions about the future of economics, I predict that Homo Economicus will evolve into Homo Sapiens, or, more simply put, economics will become more related to human behavior. My specific predictions are that Homo Econom...

President's Foreword

By William D. Nordhaus

American Economic Review, May 2014

The NAIRU and Wages in Local Labor Markets

By Robert M. Coen, Robert Eisner, John Tepper Marlin, and Suken N. Shah

American Economic Review, May 1999

Selling Cookies

By Dirk Bergemann and Alessandro Bonatti

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, August 2015

We propose a model of data provision and data pricing. A single data provider controls a large database that contains information about the match value between individual consumers and individual firms (advertisers). Advertisers seek to tailor their spend...

Optimal Allocation with Costly Verification

By Elchanan Ben-Porath, Eddie Dekel, and Barton L. Lipman

American Economic Review, December 2014

A principal allocates an object to one of I agents. Each agent values receiving the object and has private information regarding the value to the principal of giving it to him. There are no monetary transfers, but the principal can check an agent's inf...

Does Early Life Exposure to Cigarette Smoke Permanently Harm Childhood Welfare? Evidence from Cigarette Tax Hikes

By David Simon

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2016

Evidence suggests that excise taxes on tobacco improve fetal health. However, it remains unknown if smoke exposure in early life causes lasting harm to children. I find that in utero exposure to a dollar increase in the state cigarette tax causes a 10 per...