AEA Research Highlights – Détails, épisodes et analyse

The Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) was launched at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the hopes that it would keep businesses from laying off workers during government shutdown measures taken to contain the spread of the disease.

Initial estimates of the direct impacts have been mixed, with some studies suggesting that the cost was hundreds of thousands of dollars per job saved.

But a paper in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy looked beyond the labor market at a second order effect showing a clear and positive benefit. Authors Sumit Agarwal, Brent W. Ambrose, Luis A. Lopez, Xue Xiao found that the PPP reduced mortgage delinquencies for commercial real estate by roughly $36 billion in 2020 and likely played an important role in averting wider distress in financial markets.

Ambrose recently spoke with Tyler Smith about the impact of PPP loans on the commercial real estate market and ways in which the program could have been better targeted.

In 2005, Austria’s most prominent far-right party proclaimed a “Third Turkish Siege of Vienna.” The campaign warned voters that, like their ancestors who were almost overrun by the Ottoman Empire four centuries ago, they were being culturally invaded by Muslims. The campaigners hoped to use long-past historical events to shape the behavior and sentiments of modern-day voters. But did it work?

The strategy sparked a surge in the far-right’s vote share and a wave of anti-Muslim sentiment, according to a paper in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics. The authors, Christian Ochsner and Felix Roesel, studied areas with ties to the historical trauma of the Sieges of Vienna and explained how political innovators reinvigorated latent xenophobic narratives that mobilized voters.

Ochsner recently spoke with Tyler Smith about the recent political environment in Austria, the use of historical parallels, and the impact on Muslim minorities.

Seven years before the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision ended the legal segregation of Black schoolchildren, California ended the legal segregation of Mexican American schoolchildren.

That decision, known as Mendez v. Westminster, had a rapid impact across the state and led to significant educational benefits, according to a paper in the Journal Economic Literature. 

Authors Francisca M. Antman and Kalena E. Cortes found that in areas more likely to practice segregation, the Mendez decision caused Mexican American children to significantly increase their years of schooling.

Antman recently spoke with Tyler Smith about the history of Mexican American school desegregation and the lessons the authors’ work provides for policymakers.

The bulk of education research focuses on the benefits of the traditional K–12 and higher education systems, while non-traditional programs are relatively understudied. But economists are starting to shine a light on the large returns to investing in adult education.

In a paper in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, authors Blake H. Heller and Kirsten Slungaard Mummafound large earnings gains and more civic engagement among immigrants who participated in an adult program teaching English as a second language (ESL). The benefits of these programs also led to a sizable return for taxpayers.

Heller suggests that, in spite of the polarized space of immigration politics, ESL programs are likely to find traction on both sides of the political aisle because they combine the appeal of people working hard to improve themselves with a social safety net appeal. He recently spoke with Tyler Smith about the need for more research on adult education and the benefits of English language programs.

The United States spends over a billion dollars a year on housing programs that give recently released prisoners a place to stay and modest support before reintegration into society. Yet there is little causal evidence that these programs work.

In a paper in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, author Logan M. Lee estimated whether residential housing programs in Iowa kept prisoners from returning to prison. He found that instead of reducing recidivism, prisoners assigned to halfway houses appeared to have higher rates of reincarceration than those who were paroled. 

Lee recently spoke with Tyler Smith about how he arrived at his estimates and whether or not residential housing programs should be scaled back in the United States.

The costs of Alzheimer’s disease are significant. In 2021, it affected nearly 6 million Americans and accounted for an estimated 8 percent of total US health-care spending—about as much as cancer and heart disease combined. And those numbers are only expected to increase as the population ages.

In a paper in the Journal of Economic Literature, authors Amitabh Chandra, Courtney Coile, and Corina Mommaerts explain how economists can help provide insights into the numerous policy issues that Alzheimer’s disease raises. However, Mommaerts says that the disease also challenges core assumptions in the standard economics tool kit.

She recently spoke with Tyler Smith about cognitive constraints, incentives for providers, and encouraging more innovative treatments for Alzheimer’s disease.

For decades US policymakers have tried to achieve the universal health insurance coverage that many other developed countries enjoy. But despite incremental reforms, based on tweaking health insurance markets, America's uninsured population has remained stubbornly high.

In a paper in the Journal of Economic Perspective, authors Katherine Baicker, Amitabh Chandra, and Mark Shepard argue that economists should move away from the paradigm that has inspired these past reforms and toward an approach that encourages wholesale change. They say that proposals should start from a basic, mandatory health insurance package, which can then be supplemented in markets for health insurance. 

Shepard recently spoke with Tyler Smith about the success of health care systems using this framework in other developed countries and why economists need to rethink their approach to health insurance reform in the United States.

Around the world, female entrepreneurs borrow less than their male counterparts. Many people suggest that the reason for this gap comes down to the fact that women select into less capital-intensive industries.

But in a paper in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, authors J. Michelle Brock and Ralph De Haas show that implicit bias against women leads to more onerous ​​guarantor requirements on loans. The findings come from a lab-in-the-field experiment conducted with over three hundred Turkish loan officers and real-life loan applications.

Brock says that the additional collateral requirements placed on female entrepreneurs could be a significant barrier to women running businesses. But there may be steps that banks can take to mitigate the problem. 

Brock recently spoke with Tyler Smith about her and De Haas’s experiment in Turkey and what lessons policymakers should take away from the results.

A wave of political demonstrations in recent years has grabbed headlines and helped to reshape the political landscape. But it’s an open question as to whether these protest movements actually change opinions in the long run.

In a paper in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, authors Daniel Hungerman and Vivek Moorthy found that activism can have a lasting impact on local communities. In particular, they found that areas with unusually bad weather on the original Earth Day in 1970, which would have presumably lowered the participation rate, saw weaker support for the environment and worse newborn health outcomes 10 to 20 years later.

Hungerman says that while climate change is a global phenomenon, their work is a reminder that bringing people together still makes a difference at the local level.

He recently spoke with Tyler Smith about how the first Earth Day shaped communities’ views about the environment and what his research contributes to the broader conversation around climate change.

Fans have frequently experienced the frustration of event tickets selling out in a matter of minutes and then being resold for twice as much or more. This combination of underpriced tickets in the primary market and rent-seeking speculation in the secondary market has long puzzled economists. 

In a paper in the American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, authors Eric Budish and Aditya Bhave show that auctions are an easy way to fix broken ticket markets by looking at changes Ticketmaster made in 2003.

However, the benefits of using auctions in primary markets are unlikely to be felt by consumers. Budish says that other reforms, such as preventing resales, could be a way for artists and sports teams to reward their die-hard followers.

Budish recently spoke with Tyler Smith about Ticketmaster’s efforts to curb secondary markets with auctions, and how reforming the primary market for tickets benefits sellers as well as society.