A Fast Literature Search Engine based on top-quality journals, by Dr. Mingze Gao.

• Aghion, P., Bergeaud, A., & Van Reenen, J. (2023). The Impact of Regulation on Innovation. American Economic Review, 113, 2894–2936.

  We present a framework that can be used to assess the equilibrium impact of regulation on endogenous innovation with heterogeneous firms. We implement this model using French firm-level panel data, where there is a sharp increase in the burden of labor regulations on companies with 50 or more employees. Consistent with the model's qualitative predictions, we find a fall in the fraction of innovating firms just to the left of the regulatory threshold. Furthermore, we find a reduction in the innovation response of firms to demand shocks just below the threshold. Regulation reduces aggregate innovation by 5.7 percent.

  View on www.aeaweb.org
• Ali, S. N., Battilana, S. C., Bernheim, B. D., & Bloedel, A. W. (2023). Who Controls the Agenda Controls the Legislature. American Economic Review, 113, 3090–3128.

  We model legislative decision-making with an agenda setter who can propose policies sequentially, tailoring each proposal to the status quo that prevails after prior votes. Voters are sophisticated, and the agenda setter cannot commit to future proposals. Nevertheless, the agenda setter obtains her favorite outcome in every equilibrium regardless of the initial default policy. Central to our results is a new condition on preferences, manipulability, that holds in rich policy spaces, including spatial settings and distribution problems. Our findings therefore establish that, despite the sophistication of voters and the absence of commitment power, the agenda setter is effectively a dictator.

  View on www.aeaweb.org
• Barnichon, R., & Mesters, G. (2023). A Sufficient Statistics Approach for Macro Policy. American Economic Review, 113, 2809–2845.

  The evaluation of macroeconomic policy decisions has traditionally relied on the formulation of a specific economic model. In this work, we show that two statistics are sufficient to detect, often even correct, nonoptimal policies, i.e., policies that do not minimize the loss function. The two sufficient statistics are (i) forecasts for the policy objectives conditional on the policy choice and (ii) the impulse responses of the policy objectives to policy shocks. Both statistics can be estimated without relying on a specific structural economic model. We illustrate the method by studying US monetary policy decisions.

  View on www.aeaweb.org
• Brodeur, A., Carrell, S., Figlio, D., & Lusher, L. (2023). Unpacking P-hacking and Publication Bias. American Economic Review, 113, 2974–3002.

  We use unique data from journal submissions to identify and unpack publication bias and p-hacking. We find initial submissions display significant bunching, suggesting the distribution among published statistics cannot be fully attributed to a publication bias in peer review. Desk-rejected manuscripts display greater heaping than those sent for review; i.e., marginally significant results are more likely to be desk rejected. Reviewer recommendations, in contrast, are positively associated with statistical significance. Overall, the peer review process has little effect on the distribution of test statistics. Lastly, we track rejected papers and present evidence that the prevalence of publication biases is perhaps not as prominent as feared.

  View on www.aeaweb.org
• Card, D., Chan, D. C., & Taylor, L. (2023). Is There a VA Advantage? Evidence from Dually Eligible Veterans. American Economic Review, 113, 3003–3043.

  We study public versus private provision of health care for veterans aged 65 and older who may receive care provided by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and in private hospitals financed by Medicare. Utilizing the ambulance design of Doyle et al. (2015), we find that the VA reduces 28-day mortality by 46 percent (4.5 percentage points) and that these survival gains are persistent. The VA also reduces 28-day spending by 21 percent and delivers strikingly different reported services relative to private hospitals. We find suggestive evidence of complementarities between continuity of care, health IT, and integrated care.

  View on www.aeaweb.org
• Genicot, G., & Ray, D. (2023). Measuring Upward Mobility. American Economic Review, 113, 3044–3089.

  We conceptualize and measure upward mobility over income or wealth. At the core of our exercise is the Growth Progressivity Axiom: transfers of instantaneous growth rates from relatively rich to poor individuals increases upward mobility. This axiom, along with mild auxiliary restrictions, identifies an "upward mobility kernel" with a single free parameter, in which mobility is linear in individual growth rates, with geometrically declining weights on baseline incomes. We extend this kernel to trajectories over intervals. The analysis delivers an upward mobility index that does not rely on panel data. That significantly expands our analytical scope to data-poor settings.

  View on www.aeaweb.org
• Ida, T., Ito, K., & Tanaka, M. (2023). Selection on Welfare Gains: Experimental Evidence from Electricity Plan Choice. American Economic Review, 113, 2937–2973.

  We study a problem in which policymakers need to screen self-selected individuals by unobserved heterogeneity in social welfare gains from a policy intervention. In our framework, the marginal treatment effects and marginal treatment responses arise as key statistics to characterize social welfare. We apply this framework to a randomized field experiment on electricity plan choice. Consumers were offered welfare-improving dynamic pricing with randomly assigned take-up incentives. We find that price-elastic consumers—who generate larger welfare gains—are more likely to self-select. Our counterfactual simulations quantify the optimal take-up incentives that exploit observed and unobserved heterogeneity in selection and welfare gains.

  View on www.aeaweb.org
• Mulhern, C. (2023). Beyond Teachers: Estimating Individual School Counselors’ Effects on Educational Attainment. American Economic Review, 113, 2846–2893.

  Counselors are a common school resource for students navigating complicated and consequential education choices. I estimate counselors' causal effects using quasi-random assignment policies in Massachusetts. Counselors vary substantially in their effectiveness at increasing high school graduation and college attendance, selectivity, and persistence. Counselor effects on educational attainment are similar in magnitude to teacher effects, but they flow through improved information and assistance more than cognitive or noncognitive skill development. Counselor effectiveness is most important for low-income and low-achieving students, so improving access to effective counseling may be a promising way to increase educational attainment and close socioeconomic gaps in education.

  View on www.aeaweb.org
• Allen, R. C., Bertazzini, M. C., & Heldring, L. (2023). The Economic Origins of Government. American Economic Review, 113, 2507–2545.

  We test between cooperative and extractive theories of the origins of government. We use river shifts in southern Iraq as a natural experiment, in a new archeological panel dataset. A shift away creates a local demand for a government to coordinate because private river irrigation needs to be replaced with public canals. It disincentivizes local extraction as land is no longer productive without irrigation. Consistent with a cooperative theory of government, a river shift away led to state formation, canal construction, and the payment of tribute. We argue that the first governments coordinated between extended households which implemented public good provision.

  View on www.aeaweb.org
• Bhaskar, D., McClellan, A., & Sadler, E. (2023). Regulation Design in Insurance Markets. American Economic Review, 113, 2546–2580.

  Regulators often impose rules that constrain the behavior of market participants. We study the design of regulatory policy in an insurance market as a delegation problem. A regulator restricts the menus of contracts an informed firm is permitted to offer, the firm offers a permitted menu to each consumer, and consumers choose contracts from offered menus. If consumer types and firm signals are ordered in a way that reflects coverage need, the regulator can leverage the firm's information by forcing the firm to offer specified additional options on each menu. Several extensions illustrate the practical application of our results.

  View on www.aeaweb.org