Figuring out what works

[Research Highlight]

June 04, 2020

Healthy people follow health trends. That behavior can actually cloud research.

Health Recommendations and Selection in Health Behaviors

By Emily Oster

American Economic Review: Insights, June 2020

Consider a case in which a new research finding links a health behavior with good health outcomes. A possible consequence is take-up of this behavior among individuals who engage in other positive health behaviors. If this occurs, later analyses of observ...

AEA Distinguished Lecture: Competition, Equilibrium, Freedom, and Paternalism

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AEA Distinguished Lecture: Work of the Past, Work of the Future

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AEA Distinguished Lecture: Gender in the 21st Century

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AEA Distinguished Lecture: The Economist as Plumber: Large Scale Experiments to Inform the Details of Policy Making

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AEA Distinguished Lecture "Restoring Rational Choice: The Challenge of Consumer Finance"

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AEA Distinguished Lecture: Behavioral Economics and Public Policy

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ASSA 2015 Webcast: AEA Distinguished Lecture "Behavioral Economics and Public Policy"

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AEA Distinguished Lecture "Behavioral Economics and Public Policy" Raj Chetty, introduced by Richard Thaler

The Economist as Plumber

By Esther Duflo

American Economic Review, May 2017

As economists increasingly help governments design new policies and regulations, they take on an added responsibility to engage with the details of policy making and, in doing so, to adopt the mindset of a plumber. Plumbers try to predict as well as possi...

Breaking the poverty cycle

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Can a support program for disadvantaged high school students have lasting effects?