Front Matter

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2015

JEL Classification System

Journal of Economic Literature, September 2015

Do Oil Windfalls Improve Living Standards? Evidence from Brazil

By Francesco Caselli and Guy Michaels

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, January 2013

We use variation in oil output among Brazilian municipalities to investigate the effects of resource windfalls on government behavior. Oil-rich municipalities experience increases in revenues and report corresponding increases in spending on public goo...

Intergenerational Inequality: A Sociological Perspective

[Symposium: Intergenerational Mobility]

By Robert Erikson and John H. Goldthorpe

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Summer 2002

When economists are concerned with the inheritance of inequality, they typically focus on the intergenerational transmission of income or wealth. In contrast, sociologists are more likely to analyze intergenerational mobility between (and immobility in) d...

Assessing the Energy-Efficiency Gap

By Todd D. Gerarden, Richard G. Newell, and Robert N. Stavins

Journal of Economic Literature, December 2017

Energy-efficient technologies offer considerable promise for reducing the financial costs and environmental damages associated with energy use, but it has long been observed that these technologies may not be adopted by individuals and firms to the degr...

Don't Demotivate, Discriminate

By Jurjen J. A. Kamphorst and Otto H. Swank

American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, February 2016

This paper offers a new theory of discrimination in the workplace. We consider a manager who has to assign two tasks to two employees. The manager has superior information about the employees' abilities. We show that besides an equilibrium where the manag...

How Much Are Public School Teachers Willing to Pay for Their Retirement Benefits?

By Maria Donovan Fitzpatrick

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2015

Public sector employees receive large fractions of their lifetime income in the form of deferred compensation. The introduction of the opportunity provided to Illinois public school employees to purchase additional pension benefits allows me to estimate e...

Has Consumption Inequality Mirrored Income Inequality?

By Mark Aguiar and Mark Bils

American Economic Review, September 2015

We revisit to what extent the increase in income inequality since 1980 was mirrored by consumption inequality. We do so by constructing an alternative measure of consumption expenditure using a demand system to correct for systematic measurement error in ...

Asymmetric Auctions with Resale

By Isa Hafalir and Vijay Krishna

American Economic Review, March 2008

We study first- and second-price auctions with resale in a model with independent private values. With asymmetric bidders, the resulting ineffi ciencies create a motive for post-auction trade which, in our model, takes place via monopoly pricing—...

Efficient Transportation Infrastructure Policy

By Clifford Winston

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Winter 1991

This paper offers a perspective on paying for and investing in the transportation infrastructure. The following example illustrates the need to move away from the current national mind set. Pick any pothole-laden, congested two-lane road in an urban area....

Markets: Preserving Funeral Markets with Ready-to-Embalm Laws

By David E. Harrington

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Fall 2007

Thirty-nine states currently have ready-to-embalm laws, which typically require that all firms selling any type of funeral service (even those specializing in cremations) have embalming preparation rooms and all funeral directors be trained as embalmers....

Front Matter

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2016

Shocking Labor Supply: A Reassessment of the Role of World War II on Women's Labor Supply

By Claudia Goldin and Claudia Olivetti

American Economic Review, May 2013

The most prominent feature of the female labor force across the past hundred years is its enormous growth. But many believe that the increase was discontinuous. Our purpose is to identify the short- and long-run impacts of WWII on the labor supply of wome...

Annotated Listing of New Books

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2007

JEL Classification System

Journal of Economic Literature, March 2007

Book Reviews

Journal of Economic Literature, June 2017

Participatory Politics, Social Cooperation, and Economic Stability

By Dani Rodrik

American Economic Review, May 2000

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times: Understanding Pro-cyclical Mortality

By Ann H. Stevens, Douglas L. Miller, Marianne E. Page, and Mateusz Filipski

American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, November 2015

It is well-known that mortality rates are pro-cyclical. In this paper, we attempt to understand why. We find little evidence that cyclical changes in individuals' own employment-related behavior drives the relationship; own-group employment rates are not ...

Network Externality: An Uncommon Tragedy

[Symposium: Network Externalities]

By S. J. Liebowitz and Stephen E. Margolis

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 1994

Economists have defined 'network externality' and have examined putative inframarginal market failures associated with it. This paper distinguishes between network effects and network externalities, where the latter are market failures. The authors argue ...

Policy Watch: Corporate Average Fuel Economy Standards

By Robert W. Crandall

Journal of Economic Perspectives, Spring 1992

Initially, the minimum corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) program was promoted as a policy to reduce U.S. vulnerability to oil shocks. In the past two years, however, concern about global warming has resulted in new political pressures to raise CAFE on...