American Economic Journal: Applied Economics

We investigate the wage return to studying economics by leveraging a policy that prevented students with low introductory grades from declaring a major. Students who barely met the grade point average threshold to major in economics earned $22,000 (46 percent) higher annual early-career wages than they would have with their second-choice majors. Access to the economics major shifts students' preferences toward business/finance careers, and about half of the wage return is explained by economics majors working in higher-paying industries. The causal return to majoring in economics is very similar to observational earnings differences in nationally representative data. (JEL A22, I26, J24, J31)

Zachary Bleemer

Aashish Mehta

American Economic Journal Applied Economics

Will Studying Economics Make You Rich? A Regression Discontinuity Analysis of the Returns to College Major

经济学学习会让你致富吗？大学专业回报的回归不连续性分析

We provide first evidence that variations in the expected returns to crime affect the location of property crime. Our identification strategy relies on the widely held perception in the United Kingdom that South Asian households store gold jewelry at home. Price movements on the international market for gold exogenously affect the expected gains from burgling these households. Using a neighborhood-level panel on crime and difference-in-differences, we find that burglaries in South Asian neighborhoods are more sensitive to variations in the gold price than other neighborhoods in the same municipality. We conduct various tests on neighborhood and individual data to eliminate alternative explanations. (JEL D12, D91, J15, K42, R23)

Nils Braakmann

Arnaud Chevalier

Tanya Wilson

Expected Returns to Crime and Crime Location

犯罪预期回报与犯罪地点

This study estimates the effect of improved bureaucrat quality on poverty alleviation by exploring a unique human capital reallocation policy in China—the College Graduate Village Officials (CGVOs) program. We find that introducing CGVOs into the village governance system improves the targeting and implementation of the central government's social assistance programs. CGVOs help eligible poor households understand and apply for relevant subsidies, thus increasing the number of pro-poor program beneficiaries. Further analysis suggests that CGVOs change bureaucrat quality, rather than quantity, of village governance, and their presence reduces elite capture of pro-poor programs. (JEL D73, H83, J24, O17, O18, P25, P26)

Guojun He

Shaoda Wang

Do College Graduates Serving as Village Officials Help Rural China?

大学毕业生担任村官对农村中国有帮助吗？

Using Consumer Expenditure Survey data this paper shows that more educated workers demand more high-skill-intensive services and, to a lesser extent, more very low-skill-intensive services (such as personal services). Additional evidence at the Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA) level shows that this “education elasticity of demand” mechanism can explain part of the correlation between the share of college-educated workers in a city and the employment share of service industries. The parametrization of a simple model suggests that this induced demand shift can explain around 6.5 percent of the relative demand shift in the United States between 1984 and 2002. Similar results are provided for the United Kingdom. (JEL D12, J24, J31, L84)

Marco Leonardi

The Effect of Product Demand on Inequality: Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom

产品需求对不平等的影响：来自美国和英国的证据

This paper reports results from the randomized evaluation of a group-lending microcredit program in Hyderabad, India. A lender worked in 52 randomly selected neighborhoods, leading to an 8.4 percentage point increase in takeup of microcredit. Small business investment and profits of preexisting businesses increased, but consumption did not significantly increase. Durable goods expenditure increased, while “temptation goods” expenditure declined. We found no significant changes in health, education, or women's empowerment. Two years later, after control areas had gained access to microcredit but households in treatment area had borrowed for longer and in larger amounts, very few significant differences persist. (JEL G21, G31, O16, O12, L25, I38)

Abhijit Banerjee

Esther Duflo

Rachel Glennerster

Cynthia Kinnan

The Miracle of Microfinance? Evidence from a Randomized Evaluation

微型金融的奇迹？来自随机评估的证据

The rising rate of chronic disease is a leading driver of the global disease burden. Yet, its determinants are not fully understood. Exploiting the Green Revolution and its expansion in historically groundwater-rich Indian districts, we examine the unanticipated contribution of agricultural productivity growth to the rise in chronic, diet-related diseases. We find that areas with greater adoption of new staple varieties saw an increase in diabetes in men born after the introduction of high-yield crops. We find suggestive evidence that diet is an important mechanism, such as heterogeneous impacts with respect to dietary habits and increases in household calorie consumption. (JEL I12, O13, O15, O31, Q12, Q16)

Sheetal Sekhri

Gauri Kartini Shastry

The Curse of Plenty: The Green Revolution and the Rise in Chronic Disease

富足的诅咒：绿色革命与慢性疾病的增加

I study discrimination arising from individual experiences of employers with worker groups. I present a model in which employers are uncertain about the productivity of one of two groups and learn through hiring. Positive experiences lead to positive biases, which correct themselves by leading to more hiring and learning. Negative experiences decrease hiring and learning, preserving negative biases, which can cause persistent discrimination. The model explains prejudice as incorrect statistical discrimination and generates novel predictions and policy implications. I then illustrate experience-based discrimination in an experimental labor market, finding support for key model predictions. (JEL D83, J23, J24, J31, J71, M51)

Louis-Pierre Lepage

Experience-Based Discrimination

基于经验的歧视

Innovative firms must trade off disclosing to investors and maintaining secrecy from competitors. We study this trade-off in a sample of IP licenses mandatorily disclosed by US public firms, whose contents can be temporarily redacted. Hand classifying the redacted information, we find that firms with valuable IP in competitive markets redact IP information more often. Markets react positively to the redaction of IP information, consistent with theoretical predictions rationalizing a separating equilibrium in which nondisclosure signals more valuable IP. Our results suggest that credible nondisclosure partially resolves information frictions for innovative public firms when facilitated by sophisticated investors. (JEL D22, D82, G38, L24, O32, O34)

Gaurav Kankanhalli

Alan Kwan

Kenneth Merkley

The Paradox of Innovation Nondisclosure: Evidence from Licensing Contracts

创新保密悖论：来自许可合同的证据

The gender gap in STEM widens during high school due both to differences in student choices and institutional barriers to accessing STEM education. Using rich data from Mexico City's centralized assignment system and a structural model of high school choice, we document strong demand for elite STEM programs and relatively weak demand for non-elite STEM programs. Decomposition and counterfactual simulations demonstrate that most of the gap is due to gendered choices, with males more strongly preferring STEM. Test-based assignment restricts elite STEM access for females, who have lower placement test scores despite similar low-stakes exam scores. (JEL I21, I24, I26, J16, J24, O15)

Diana Ngo

Andrew Dustan

Preferences, Access, and the STEM Gender Gap in Centralized High School Assignment

偏好、机会与集中高中分配中的STEM性别差距

Noisy workplaces common in low- and middle-income countries can impair workers' cognitive functions. However, whether this lowers earnings depends on the importance of these functions for productivity and whether workers understand these effects. I study these questions with two randomized experiments in Nairobi, Kenya. I find a noise increase of 7 dB reduces productivity in a textile training course by 3 percent, impairs cognitive function, but does not affect effort. I also find willingness to pay for quiet working conditions does not depend on whether pay depends on performance, suggesting participants are not aware that quiet would increase their productivity. (JEL D12, J24, J28, J31, J81, O15, Q53)

Joshua T. Dean

Noise, Cognitive Function, and Worker Productivity

噪音、认知功能与工人生产率

Abbreviation	Am. Econ. J. Appl. Econ.
Journal Impact	5.42
Quartiles(Global)	ECONOMICS(Q1)

ISSN	1944-9828, 1945-7782, 1945-7790
h-index	109
Top Journals	Yes

Publication Information	Publisher: American Economic Association，Publishing cycle: ，Journal Type: journal，Open Access Journals: No
Basic data	Year of publication: 2009，Proportion of original research papers: ，Self Citation Rate:， Gold OA Rate:

American Economic Journal: Applied Economics

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