The Quarterly Journal of Economics
Articles in this Issue
A Cognitive Theory of Reasoning and Choice
Abstract We present a theory of choice in which attention to the features of options is determined by the decision maker’s categorization of the current problem in a set of problems...
Business, Liquidity, and Information Cycles
Abstract Stock markets play a dual role: they provide information about firms’ fundamentals, which improves resource allocations, and they provide liquidity. We propose a setting in...
Public Services Under Private Management
Abstract Theory predicts that outsourcing public services to the private sector can reduce costs and improve efficiency but can also induce cost-cutting and compromise quality. We as...
The Power of Proximity to Coworkers
Abstract How does proximity to coworkers affect training and productivity? We study software engineers at a Fortune 500 firm from 2019 to 2024, leveraging two shocks to proximity: th...
International Reserve Management Under Rollover Crises
Abstract This article investigates how a government should manage international reserves when it faces the risk of a rollover crisis. We ask: Should the government accumulate reserve...
Praying for Rain
Abstract We study rainmaking as an instrumental religious belief. We present a model in which a religious leader tries to persuade people to believe. Praying for rain can persuade on...
Why Doesn’t the United States Have National Health Insurance? The Political Role of the American Medical Association
Abstract This article examines how the American Medical Association (AMA) helped shape the development of the U.S. health insurance system in the critical period after World War II....
The Effects of Mandatory Profit-Sharing on Workers and Firms: Evidence from France
Abstract Since 1967, all French firms with more than 100 employees have been required to share a fraction of their excess profits with their employees. Through this scheme, firms wit...
Collusion with Optimal Information Disclosure
Abstract Motivated by recent concerns surrounding the use of third-party pricing algorithms by competing firms, we study repeated Bertrand competition where market demand or the cost...
Codification, Technology Absorption, and the Globalization of the Industrial Revolution
Abstract This article examines the global adoption of technology in the late nineteenth century. We construct several novel data sets to test the idea that the codification of techni...
“Compensate the Losers?” Economic Policy and the Origins of U.S. Partisan Realignment
Abstract We argue that the Democratic Party’s evolution on economic policy helps explain partisan realignment by education. First, we document that educated Americans differentially...
The Effects of Gender Integration on Men: Evidence from the U.S. Military
Abstract Do men negatively respond when women first enter an occupation? We answer this question by studying the end of one of the final explicit occupational barriers to women in th...
Technology Sophistication Across Establishments
Abstract We study technology sophistication using a novel approach that measures the sophistication of the most advanced (MAX) and the most widely used (MOST) technologies in key bus...
Making the Invisible Hand Visible: Managers and the Allocation of Workers to Jobs
Abstract Why do managers matter for firm performance? This article provides evidence of the critical role of managers in matching workers to jobs within the firm using the universe o...
Peer Effects and the Gender Gap in Corporate Leadership: Evidence from MBA Students
Abstract Women continue to be underrepresented in corporate leadership positions. This article studies the role of social connections in women’s career advancement. We investigate wh...