Reading List
ECON 13191/Honors Seminar 28222
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I. |
The problem of inferring causal relationships from
observational data – two examples |
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Please read the
introduction to Freakonomics |
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Hotz, V. Joseph, “Teenage Childbearing
and Its Life Cycle Consequences:
Exploiting a Natural Experiment,” Journal
of Human Resources, 40(3), 2005, 683-715. Please read the first two pages and look at Table 1 [download] |
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Levitt, Steven, “Using
Election Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime,” American Economic Review, 87(3), 1997,
270-290. Please read the introduction [download] |
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II. |
Methods for identifying causal relationships in
economics |
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A. |
Experiments |
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Bertrand, Marianne and Sendhil Mullainathan, “Are Emily and
Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal?
A Field Experiment on Labor Market Discrimination,” American Economic Review, 94(4), 2004,
991-1013. [download] Also, read Chapter 6 of Freakonnomics |
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Fisman, Raymond, et al.,
“Gender Differences in Mate Selection:
Evidence from a Speed Dating Experiment,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121(2), 673-697. [download] |
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Niederle, Muriel and Lise
Vesterlund, “Do Women Shy Away from Competition? Do Men Compete Too Much?” Quarterly
Journal of Economics, 122(3), 2007, 1067-1101. [download] |
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Ausubel, Lawrence, “Adverse
Selection in the Credit Card Market,” Working Paper, Department of Economics,
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Sexton,
Mary and J. Richard Hebel. "A Clinical Trial of Change in Maternal
Smoking and Its Effect on Birth Weight" JAMA, February 17, 1984,
251(7): pp 911-915. [download] Permut,
Thomas, and J. Richard Hebel. "Simultaneous-Equation Estimation in a
Clinical Trial of the Effect of Smoking on Birth Weight" Biometrics,
June 1989, 45: pp 619-622. [download] |
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B. |
Natural experiments and quasi experimental variation |
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Angrist, J.D., and W.N.
Evans, “Children and Their Parents’ Labor Supply: Evidence from Exogenous
Variation in Family Size,” American Economic Review, 88(3), 1998,
450-477. [download] |
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Hotz, V. Joseph, “Teenage
Childbearing and Its Life Cycle Consequences:
Exploiting a Natural Experiment,” Journal
of Human Resources, 40(3), 2005, 683-715. [download] |
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Angrist,
J.D., "Lifetime Earnings and the |
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Sacerdote, Bruce, “How
Large Are the Effects from Changes in Family Environment? A Study of Korean American Adoptees,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 121(1),
2007, 119-157. [download] Also, please read Chapter 5
of Freakonomics |
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C. |
Using States and Cities as Laboratories |
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Ayres, Ian and Steven
Levitt, “Measuring Positive Externalities from Unobserved Victim Precaution: An Empirical Analysis of Lojak,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 115(3),
2000, 755-789. [download] |
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Acemoglu, D., J. Angrist,
“Consequences of Employment Protection? The Case of the American with
Disabilities Act,” Journal of Political Economy, 109(5), 2001. [download] |
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Card, David, “The Impact of
the Mariel Boatlift on the |
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Card, David, and Alan
Krueger, "Minimum Wages and Employment: A Case Study of the Fast Food
Industry in |
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III. |
Using these tools to identify some important
behavioral relationships |
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A. |
Detecting Corruption and Identifying its Causes |
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Duggan, M., and Steven
Levitt, “Winning Isn’t Everything:
Corruption in Sumo Wrestling,” American
Economic Review, 92(5), 2002, 1594-1605. [download] Please read Chapter 1 of Freakonomics |
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Fisman, Ray and Edward
Miguel, “Corruption, Norms and Legal Enforcement: Evidence from Diplomatic Parking Tickets,”
September 2007, Journal of Political
Economy, forthcoming. [download] |
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B. |
Why have crime rates dropped and some interesting
results about crime |
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Please read Chapter 4 of
Freakonomics Levitt, Steven, “Understanding Why Crime Fell in
the 1990s: Four Factors that Explain
theDecline and Six That Do Not,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18(1),
2004, 163-190. [download] |
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Levitt, Steven, “Using
Election Cycles in Police Hiring to Estimate the Effect of Police on Crime,” American Economic Review, 87(3), 1997,
270-290. [download] |
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Knowles, John, Nicola Persico
and |
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C. |
The Abortion/Crime Debate |
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Donohue, John, and Steven Levitt,
“The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(2), 2001, 379-420. [download] |
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Pop Eleches, Cristian, “The
Impact of Changes in Abortion Regime on Socio-Economic Outcomes of
Children: Evidence from Joyce, Ted, “Did Abortion
Lower Crime?” Journal of Human Resources, 44(1), 2004, 1-28. [download] |
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D. |
Explaining the Rise in Obesity |
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Cutler, David, Edward Glaeser and Jesse Shapiro,
“Why Have Americans Become More Obese?”
Journal of Economic Perspective,
2003. [download] |
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Schanzenbach, D.W., "Do School Lunches
Contribute to Childhood Obesity," |
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E. |
Is Outsourcing Good or Bad? |
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Mankiw, Greg and Philip
Swagel, “The Politics and Economics of Offshore Outsourcing,” Journal of Monetary Economics, 53,
2006, 1027-1056. [download] |
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Bhagwati, Jagdish, Arvind
Panagariya and T.N. Srinivasan, “The Muddles Over Outsourcing,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 18(4),
2004, 93-114. [download] |
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F. |
Students should boycott manufacturers that use child
labor, right? |
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Edmunds, Eric, “The
Economics of Consumer Actions Against Products with Child Labor Content,” Child Labor World Atlas, 2007.
[download] |
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G. |
Game theory, the prisoner’s dilemma and nuclear
strategy |
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I will distribute some
notes describing game theory, Nash equilibriums and the prisoner’s dilemma |
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Axelrod, Robert, “Effective
Choice in the Prisoner’s Dilemma,” Journal
of Conflict Resoution, 24(1), 1980, 3-25. [download] |
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Lave, Lester, “An Empirical
Approach to the Prisoner’s Dilemma Game,” Quarterly
Journal of Economics, 76(3), 1962, 424-436. [download] |
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Schelling, Thomas, “The
Future of Arms Control,” Operations
Research, 9(5), 1961, 722-731. [Download]
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Schelling, Thomas, Nobel
Prize Address, December 8, 2005, “An Astonishing 60 Years: The Legacy of |
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Suri, Jeremy, “The Nukes of
October: Richard Nixon’s Secret plan
to Bring Peace to |
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H. |
Global Warming |
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Portney, Paul, “Market-Based
Approaches to Environmental Policy,” Resources, [download] |
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Schelling, Thomas, “Some
Economics of Global Warming,” American
Economic Review, 82(1), 1992, 1-14. [download] |
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“The Pigou Club Manifesto,”
Greg Mankiw’s Blog, http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/10/pigou-club-manifesto.html |
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I. |
Should Smokers Pay Higher Taxes? |
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Gruber, J, "Tobacco at the Crossroads: The Past and Future of Smoking
Regulation in the |
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Manning, WB, EB Keeler, JP Newhouse, EM Sloss, J
Wasserman. The taxes of sin. Do smokers and drinkers pay their way? JAMA 1989 Mar 17, 261(11):1604-1609. [download] |
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Viscusi, W. Kip, Smoking: Making the Risky
Decision, 1992, pages 3-15, 61-70. [download part 1][download part 2] |
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J. |
A Short Primer on Health Care Reform. Why are Individual Mandates are so Popular
and the Importance of Adverse Selection. |
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You should spend some time
looking over the health care reform proposals of Obama, Clinton, Edwards,
plus examine the |
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Gruber, Jon, “ |
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Akerlof, George A., “The
Market for Lemons: Quality Uncertainty
and the Market Mechanism,” Quarterly
Journal of Economics, 84(3), 1970, 488-500. [download] |
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Simon, Kosali, “Adverse Selection in Health
Insurance Markets? Evidence from State
Small-Group Health Insurance Reforms,” Journal
of Public Economics, 89, 2005, 1865-1877. [download] |
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K. |
Pricing the Priceless: the Value of a Statistical Life and its use
in Policy |
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Viscusi, W. Kip, “The Value
of Life in Legal Contexts: Survey and
Critique,” American Law and Economics
Review, 2(1), 2000, 195-222. [download] |
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Viscusi, W. Kip,
“Regulating the Regulators,” The |