The Quarterly Journal of Economics
Articles in this Issue
Acknowledgment of Referees
Can Pollution Markets Work in Developing Countries? Experimental Evidence from India
Abstract Market-based environmental regulations are seldom used in low-income countries, where pollution is highest but state capacity is often low. We collaborated with the Gujarat Pol...
Generative AI at Work
Abstract We study the staggered introduction of a generative AI–based conversational assistant using data from 5,172 customer-support agents. Access to AI assistance increases worker pr...
Race to the Bottom: Competition and Quality in Science
Abstract This article investigates how competition to publish first and thereby establish priority affects the quality of scientific research. We begin by developing a model where scien...
Wage Hysteresis and Entitlement Effects: The Persistent Impacts of a Temporary Overtime Policy
Abstract This article studies the unexpected retraction of a U.S. federal policy in 2016 that would have more than doubled the “overtime exemption threshold” from $455 to $913 per week...
Officer-Involved: The Media Language of Police Killings
Abstract This article examines language patterns in U.S. television news coverage of police killings. First, we document that the media use syntactic structures—such as passive voice, n...
The Impact of Being Denied a Wanted Abortion on Women and Their Children
Abstract This article examines the impact of denying a wanted abortion on women and children in Colombia using high-quality administrative microdata and credibly exogenous variation in...
“Something Works” in U.S. Jails: Misconduct and Recidivism Effects of the IGNITE Program
Abstract A long-standing and influential view in U.S. correctional policy is that “nothing works” when it comes to rehabilitating incarcerated individuals. We revisit this hypothesis by...
Exploitation Through Racialization
Abstract I develop a model of the social construction of race. Racial categories emerge from labor conflict when elites privilege intrinsically irrelevant traits to divide workers again...
The Diffusion of New Technologies
Abstract We identify phrases associated with novel technologies using textual analysis of patents, job postings, and earnings calls, enabling us to identify four stylized facts on the d...
The Earnings and Labor Supply of U.S. Physicians
Abstract Is government guiding the invisible hand at the top of the labor market? We use new administrative data to measure physicians’ earnings and estimate the influence of health car...
When Did Growth Begin? New Estimates of Productivity Growth in England from 1250 to 1870
Abstract We estimate productivity growth in England from 1250 to 1870. Real wages over this period were heavily influenced by plague-induced swings in the population. Our estimates acco...
The Effects of Medical Debt Relief: Evidence from Two Randomized Experiments
Abstract Two in five Americans have medical debt, nearly half of whom owe at least $2,500. Concerned by this burden, governments and private donors have undertaken large, high-profile e...
Cognitive Endurance as Human Capital
Abstract Schooling may build human capital not only by teaching academic skills but by expanding the capacity for cognition. We focus specifically on cognitive endurance: the ability to...
Teacher Labor Market Policy and the Theory of the Second Best
Abstract We estimate a matching model of teachers and elementary schools with rich data on teachers' applications and principals' ratings from a large, urban district in North Carolina....
Putting Quantitative Models to the Test: An Application to the U.S.-China Trade War
Abstract The primary motivation behind quantitative work in international trade and many other fields is to shed light on the economic consequences of policy changes and other shocks...