Consumption, Income Changes, and Heterogeneity: Evidence from Two Fiscal Stimulus Programs

By Kanishka Misra and Paolo Surico

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, October 2014

Almost half of American families did not adjust their consumption following receipt of the 2001 or 2008 tax rebates. Another 20 percent, with low income and more likely to rent, spent a small but significant amount. Households with large spending prope...

Evolutionary Selection of Individual Expectations and Aggregate Outcomes in Asset Pricing Experiments

By Mikhail Anufriev and Cars Hommes

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, November 2012

In recent "learning to forecast" experiments (Hommes et al. 2005), three different patterns in aggregate price behavior have been observed: slow monotonic convergence, permanent oscillations, and dampened fluctuations. We show that a simple model of indiv...

Perspectives on The Rise and Fall of American Growth

By Robert J. Gordon

American Economic Review, May 2016

This paper summarizes the book and assesses the reviews contained in the four contributed papers. Gregory Clark provides convincing arguments that extend the book's forecast that future technological change will be slower. Nicholas Crafts shows declining ...

The Rise and Fall of Disability Insurance Enrollment in the Netherlands

[Symposium: Disability Insurance]

By Pierre Koning and Maarten Lindeboom

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2015

As recently as 15 years ago, the high level of Disability Insurance (DI) enrollment was considered to be one of the major social and economic problems of the Netherlands; indeed, the Netherlands was characterized as the country with the most out-of-contro...

Liquidity Traps and Jobless Recoveries

By Stephanie Schmitt-Grohé and Martín Uribe

American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, January 2017

This paper proposes a model that explains the joint occurrence of liquidity traps and jobless growth recoveries. Its key elements are downward nominal wage rigidity, a Taylor-type interest rate feedback rule, the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates...

Customary Norms, Inheritance, and Human Capital: Evidence from a Reform of the Matrilineal System in Ghana

By Eliana La Ferrara and Annamaria Milazzo

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2017

We study the role of traditional norms in land allocation and human capital investment. We exploit a policy experiment in Ghana that increased the land that children from matrilineal groups could inherit from their fathers. Boys exposed to the reform rece...

The Market for Blood

By Robert Slonim, Carmen Wang, and Ellen Garbarino

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 2014

Donating blood, "the gift of life," is among the noblest activities and it is performed worldwide nearly 100 million times annually. The economic perspective presented here shows how the gift of life, albeit noble and often motivated by altruism, is heavi...

Expectations and Perceptions in Developing Countries: Their Measurement and Their Use

By Orazio P. Attanasio

American Economic Review, May 2009

Natural Expectations and Macroeconomic Fluctuations

[Symposium: Macroeconomics after the Financial Crisis]

By Andreas Fuster, David Laibson, and Brock Mendel

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2010

A large body of empirical evidence suggests that beliefs systematically deviate from perfect rationality. Much of the evidence implies that economic agents tend to form forecasts that are excessively influenced by recent changes. We present a parsimonious...

Task-Specific Human Capital

By Robert Gibbons and Michael Waldman

American Economic Review, May 2004

Online Ad Auctions

By Hal R. Varian

American Economic Review, May 2009

Inputs in the Production of Early Childhood Human Capital: Evidence from Head Start

By Christopher R. Walters

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, October 2015

This paper uses data from a randomized evaluation of Head Start to answer two questions: (i) How much do short-run causal effects vary across Head Start centers? and (ii) Do observed inputs explain this variation? I find that the cross-center standard dev...

Investing Cash Transfers to Raise Long-Term Living Standards

By Paul J. Gertler, Sebastian W. Martinez, and Marta Rubio-Codina

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2012

Using data from a randomized experiment, we find that poor rural Mexican households invested part of their cash transfers from the Oportunidades program in productive assets, increasing agricultural income by almost 10 percent after 18 months of benefits...

Optimal Incentives for Teams

By Yeon-Koo Che and Seung-Weon Yoo

American Economic Review, June 2001

Much of the existing theory of incentives describes a static relationship that lasts for just one transaction. This static assumption is not only unrealistic, but the resulting predictions appear to be at odds with many work organizations. The current pap...

Crises and Prices: Information Aggregation, Multiplicity, and Volatility

By George-Marios Angeletos and Iván Werning

American Economic Review, December 2006

Crises are volatile times when endogenous sources of information are closely monitored. We study the role of information in crises by introducing a financial market in a coordination game with imperfect information. The asset price aggregates dispersed...

The Contingent Valuation Debate: Why Economists Should Care

[Symposium: Contingent Valuation]

By Paul R. Portney

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1994

The contingent valuation method, wherein sample surveys are used to elicit individuals' willingness to pay for certain types of policies, is playing an important role in government decision-making. The most prominent applications are in the valuation of d...

What Is a Barrier to Entry?

By Preston R. Fee, Hugo M. Mialon, and Michael A. Williams

American Economic Review, May 2004

The Impact of Attending a School with High-Achieving Peers: Evidence from the New York City Exam Schools

By Will Dobbie and Roland G. Fryer Jr.

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, July 2014

This paper uses data from three prominent exam high schools in New York City to estimate the impact of attending a school with high-achieving peers on college enrollment and graduation. Our identification strategy exploits sharp discontinuities in the adm...

Corporate Finance and the Legacy of Miller and Modigliani

By Sudipto Bhattacharya

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 1988

[This is a comment on "The Modigliani-Miller Propositions after Thirty Years" by Merton H. Miller in this same issue.] The influence of the Modigliani-Miller (1958) propositions on capital structure and the Miller-Modigliani (1961) theses on dividend poli...

Cross-Country Evidence on the Relationship between Overwork and Skilled Women's Job Choices

By Patricia Cortes and Jessica Pan

American Economic Review, May 2017

This paper examines the relationship between the prevalence of overwork and skilled women's labor force participation and occupational choice. Using country-level variation, we find a negative relationship between the share of males working 50+ hours a we...