Economics Research

Economics Research

Faculty Research at the Department of Economics

The Department of Economics has long been known for our research in experimental economics and in economic history, and we continue to be a world leader in both fields. We’ve recently built one of the world’s best young faculty groups in industrial organization. And we have a smaller but superb group in labor economics. Cutting across these research areas are the department’s strengths in microeconometrics, microeconomics theory, behavioral economics and game theory. The department’s relatively small faculty has published hundreds of research papers, including several dozen articles in the American Economic Review, Econometrica, and the Journal of Political Economy. More than half the department’s faculty members currently hold or have recently held research grants from such organizations as the National Science Foundation, the Agency for Healthcare Research Quality, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Russell Sage Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Our Research Stories

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Economics Research Areas of Expertise

BEHAVIORAL ECONOMICS

ECONOMETRICS

ECONOMICS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

ECONOMIC HISTORY

ECONOMIC THEORY

ECONOMICS OF INFORMATION

ENERGY ECONOMICS

ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS

EXPERIMENTAL ECONOMICS

GAME THEORY

HEALTH ECONOMICS

HOUSEHOLD ECONOMICS AND FINANCE

INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION

INTERNATIONAL ECONOMICS

LABOR ECONOMICS

LAW AND ECONOMICS

MICROECONOMICS

POLITICAL ECONOMY

 

Select Faculty Publications

2019

Andreas Blume, “Eliciting Private Information with Noise: The Case of Randomized Response,” 2019, Games and Economic Behavior 113, 356-380 (with Ernest K. Lai and Wooyoung Lim)

Inga Deimen, “Delegated Expertise, Authority, and Communication,” 2019, American Economic Review 109, 1349-74 (with Dezső Szalay)

Martin Dufwenberg, “Promises, Expectations and Causation,” 2019, Games and Economic Behavior 113, 137-146 (with Giovanni Di Bartolomeo, Stefano Papa, and Francesco Passarelli)

Price Fishback, “Effects of New Deal Spending and the Downturns of the 1930s on Private Labor Markets in 1939/1940,” January 2019, Explorations in Economic History 71, 25-54 (with Xing Liu)

Gautam Gowrisankaran, “‘Nash-in-Nash’ Bargaining: A Microfoundation for Empirical Work,” 2019,  Journal of Political Economy 127, 163-95 (with Allan Collard-Wexler and Robin Lee)

Charles Noussair, “Heterogeneity of Beliefs and Trade in Experimental Asset Markets,” February 2019, Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis 54, 215-245 (with Tim Carle, Yaron Lahav, and Tibor Neugebauer)

Stanley Reynolds, “Who Should Own a Renewable Technology? Ownership Theory and an Application,” March 2019, International Journal of Industrial Organization 63, 213-238 (with Talat Genc)

Julian Romero, “The Evolution of Cooperation: The Role of Costly Strategy Adjustments,” 2019, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 11, 299-328 (with Yaroslav Rosokha)

Evan J. Taylor, “The Long Run Health Consequences of Rural-Urban Migration,” 2019, Quantitative Economics 10, 565-606 (with Janna J. Johnson)

Tiemen Woutersen, “Increasing the Power of Specification Tests,” 2019, Journal of Econometrics 211, 166-175 (with J. A. Hausman)

2018

Andreas Blume, “Failure of Common Knowledge of Language in Common-Interest Communication Games,” 2018, Games and Economic Behavior 109, 132-155.

Martin Dufwenberg, “Lies in Disguise – A Theoretical Analysis of Cheating,” 2018, Journal of Economic Theory 175, 248-64 (with Martin A. Dufwenberg)

Price Fishback, “The Impact of World War II on the Demand for Female Workers in Manufacturing,” 2018, Journal of Economic History 78, 539-574 (with Dina Shatnawi)

Amanda Friedenberg, “Learning About Voter Rationality,” January 2018, American Journal of Political Science 61, 37-54 (with Scott Ashworth and Ethan Bueno de Mesquita)

Hidehiko Ichimura, “Simultaneous Selection of Optimal Bandwidths for the Sharp Regression Discontinuity Estimator,” 2018, Quantitative Economics 9, 441-482 (with Yoichi Arai)

Derek Lemoine “Age-Induced Acceleration of Time: Implications for Intertemporal Choice,” September 2018, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 153, 143–52

Charles Noussair, “Predictably Angry: Facial Cues Provide a Credible Signal of Destructive Behavior,” July 2018, Management Science 64, 3352-3364 (with Boris van Leeuwen, Theo Offerman, Sigrid Suetens, Jeroen van de Ven, and Matthijs van Veelen)

Mauricio Varela, “The Costs of Growth: Accelerated Growth and Crowd-Out in the Mexican Supermarket Industry,” 2018, International Journal of Industrial Organization 61, 1-62

Stanley Reynolds, “Price Caps, Oligopoly, and Entry,” October 2018, Economic Theory 66, 707-745 (with David Rietzke)

Julian Romero, “Constructing strategies in the indefinitely repeated prisoner’s dilemma game,” May 2018, European Economic Review 104, 185-219 (with Yaroslav Rosokha)

2017

Andreas Blume, “Pre-Play Communication with Forgone Costly Messages: Experimental Evidence on Forward Induction,” 2017, Experimental Economics 20, 368-395 (with Peter H. Kriss and Roberto A. Weber)

Martin Dufwenberg, “Honesty and Informal Agreements,” 2017, Games and Economic Behavior 102, 269-85 (with Maroš Servátka & Radovan Vadovič)

Price Fishback, “How Successful Was the New Deal?  The Microeconomic Impact of New Deal Spending and Lending Policies,” December 2017, Journal of Economic Literature 55, 1435-85.

Amanda Friedenberg, “Accountability and information in elections,” 2017, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics 9, 95-138 (with Scott Ashworth and Ethan Bueno de Mesquita)

Antonio Galvao, “Measurement errors in quantile regression models,” 2017, Journal of Econometrics, 198, 146-164 (with Sergio Firpo and Suyong Song)

Ashley Langer, “From Gallons to Miles: A Disaggregate Analysis of Automobile Travel and Externality Taxes,” 2017, Journal of Public Economics 152 (with Vikram Maheshri and Clifford Winston)

Derek Lemoine, “Steering the Climate System: Using Inertia to Lower the Cost of Policy,” 2017, American Economic Review 107, 2947–57 (with Ivan Rudik)

Charles Noussair, “Exposure to Poverty and Productivity,” January 26, 2017, Public Library of Science (PLOS-1) 12, 1 – 19 (with Patricio Dalton and Victor Gonzalez-Jimenez)

Julian Romero, “What makes voters turn out: The effects of polls and beliefs,” 2017, Journal of the European Economic Association 16, 825-856 (with Marina Agranov, Jacob K. Goeree, and Leeat Yariv)

Mauricio Varela, “On the Competitive Effects of Multi-Market Contact,” 2017, European Economic Review 100, 116-142 (with Guy Arie and Sarit Markovich)

2016

Andreas Blume, “Coordination with Decentralized Costly Communication,” 2016, Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 130, 225-241 (with Peter H. Kriss and Roberto A.Weber)

Martin Dufwenberg, “Thanks but No Thanks: A New Policy to Reduce Land Conflict,” 2016, Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 77, 31-50 (with Gunnar Köhlin, Peter Martinsson, and Haileselassie Medhin)

Amanda Friedenberg, “Lexicographic beliefs and assumption,” 2016, Journal of Economic Theory 163, 955-985 (with Eddie Dekel and Marciano Siniscalchi)

Derek Lemoine, “Economics of Tipping the Climate Dominoes,” 2016, Nature Climate Change 6, 514–19 (with Christian P. Traeger)

Charles Noussair, “Futures Markets, Cognitive Ability and Mispricing in Experimental Asset Markets,” October 2016, Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 130, 166 – 179 (with Steven Tucker and Yi Long Xu)

Stanley Reynolds, “Intermittency and the Value of Renewable Energy,” August 2016, Journal of Political Economy 124, 1187-1234 (with Gautam Gowrisankaran and Mario Samano)

Julian Romero, “Get out the (costly) vote: Institutional design for greater participation,” 2016, Economic Inquiry 54, 1963-1979 (with Dino Gerardi, Margaret A. McConnell, and Leeat Yariv)

Mo Xiao, “Reputation Premium and Reputation Management: Evidence from the Largest e-Commerce Platform in China,” 2016, International Journal of Industrial Organization 46, 63-76 (with Ying Fan and Jiandong Ju)

 

2015

Martin Dufwenberg, “Legalizing Bribe Giving,” 2015, Economic Inquiry 53, 836-53 (with Giancarlo Spagnolo)

Price Fishback, “The Multiplier for Federal Spending in the States During the Great Depression,” March 2015, Journal of Economic History 75, 125-162 (with Valentina Kachanovskaya)

Gautam Gowrisankaran, “Mergers When Prices Are Negotiated: Evidence from the Hospital Industry” 2015, American Economic Review 175, 172-203 (with Aviv Nevo and Robert Town)

Daniel J. Herbst, “Peer effects on worker output in the laboratory generalize to the field,” 2015, Science 350, 545-549 (with Alexandre Mas)

Ashley Langer, “The Intergenerational Transmission of Automobile Brand Preferences,” December 2015, Journal of Industrial Economics, 63, 763-793 (with Soren Anderson, Ryan Kellogg, and James Sallee)

Charles Noussair, “Cooperation in a Dynamic Fishing Game,” May 2015, American Economic Review Papers and Proceedings 105, 408 – 413 (with Jan Stoop and Daan van Soest)

Julian Romero, “The effect of hysteresis on equilibrium selection in coordination games,” 2015,  Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 111, 88-105.

Evan J. Taylor, “The Impact of the Great Migration on Mortality of African Americans: Evidence from the Deep South,” 2015, American Economic Review 105, 477-503 (with Dan A. Black, Seth G. Sanders, and Lowell J. Taylor)

Mo Xiao, “Competition and Subsidies in the Deregulated U.S. Local Telephone Industry,” 2015,  RAND Journal of Economics 46, 751-776 (with Ying Fan)

Andreas Blume and Oliver Board. (2013). “Language Barriers,” Econometrica, 81(2): 781-812.

Inga Deimen and Dezsoe Szalay. (2019). "Delegated Expertise, Authority, and Communication," American Economic Review, 109 (4): 1349-74.

Pierpaolo Battigalli and Martin Dufwenberg. “Belief-Dependent Motivations and Psychological Game Theory,” Journal of Economic Literature, forthcoming.

Martin Dufwenberg and Mark Stegeman (2002). “Existence and Uniqueness of Maximal Reductions under Iterated Strict Dominance,” Econometrica 70, 2007-23.

Price Fishback.  “How Successful Was the New Deal?  The Microeconomic Impact of New Deal Spending and Lending Policies” (2017).  Journal of Economic Literature 55(4):  1435-85.

Price Fishback and Shawn Kantor. (2000).  Prelude to the Welfare State:  The Origins of Workers' Compensation.  Chicago:  University of Chicago Press.

Adam Brandenburger, Amanda Friedenberg, and H. Jerome Keisler. (2008).  “Admissibility in Games”
Econometrica, 76 (2): 307–352.

Amanda Friedenberg. (2019). “Bargaining Under Strategic Uncertainty: The Role of Second-Order Optimism. Econometrica, 87 (6): 1835-1865.

Christina M. Dalton, Gautam Gowrisankaran and Robert Town. (2020). “Salience, Myopia and Complex Dynamic Incentives: Evidence from Medicare Part D.” The Review of Economic Studies, 87: 822-869. 

Gautam Gowrisankaran, Aviv Nevo and Robert Town. (2015). “Mergers When Prices Are Negotiated: Evidence from the Hospital Industry.” American Economic Review, 175(1): 172-203. 

Daniel Herbst and Alexandre Mas. (2015).  "Peer effects on worker output in the laboratory generalize to the field." Science, 350:545-549.

James J. Heckman, Hidehiko Ichimura and  Petra E. Todd. (1997).  “Matching as an econometric evaluation estimator: Evidence from evaluating a job training programme,” The Review of Economic Studies, 64 (4), 605-654.

Hidehiko Ichimura, (1993). “Semiparametric least squares (SLS) and weighted SLS estimation of single-index models,” Journal of Econometrics, 58 (1-2), 71-120.

Christopher T. Robertson, Andy Yuan, Wendan Zhang and Joiner, K.A. (2020). “Distinguishing moral hazard from access for high cost healthcare under insurance,” PlosOne, 15:4, 1-14.

Christopher T. Robertson, K. Aleks Schaefer, Daniel Scheitrum, Sergio Puig and Keith Joiner. (2020). “Indemnifying  Precaution:  Economic insights for regulation of a highly-infectious disease,” Journal of the Law and the Biosciences, 7:1, 1-14.

Wesley Blundell, Gautam Gowrisankaran and Ashley Langer. (2020). “Escalation of Scrutiny: The Gains from Dynamic Enforcement of Environmental Regulations,“ American Economic Review, 110(8), 2558-85

Ashley Langer, Vikram Maheshri and Clifford Winston. (2017). “From Gallons to Miles: A Disaggregate Analysis of Automobile Travel and Externality Taxes,” Journal of Public Economics, 152.

Derek Lemoine. (2021). “The Climate Risk Premium: How Uncertainty Affects the Social Cost of Carbon,” Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists 8 (1): 27–57.

Derek Lemoine and Christian Traeger. (2014). “Watch Your Step: Optimal Policy in a Tipping Climate,” American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 6 (1): 137–66.

Ernan Haruvy, Yaron Lahav, and Charles Noussair. (2017).  “Traders’ Expectations in Asset Markets: Experimental Evidence,” American Economic Review, 97 (5): 1901-1920.

David Masclet, Charles Noussair, Steven Tucker, and Marie-Claire Villeval. (2003).  “Monetary and Non-Monetary Punishment in the Voluntary Contributions Mechanism,” American Economic Review, 93: 366-380.

Sebastian Galiani, Alvin Murphy and Juan Pantano. (2015). “Estimating Neighborhood Choice Models: Lessons from a Housing Assistance Experiment,” American Economic Review, 2015, 105 (11): 3385-341.

Barton H. Hamilton, Emily Jungheim, Brian McManus and Juan Pantano. (2018).  “Health Care Access, Costs and Treatment Dynamics: Evidence from In Vitro Fertilization,” American Economic Review, 108 (12): 3725-3777.

Gautam Gowrisankaran, Stanley S. Reynolds and Mario Samano. (2016).  “Intermittency and the Value of Renewable Energy,” Journal of Political Economy, 124(4): 1187-1234

Jamie Brown Kruse, Stephen Rassenti, Stanley S Reynolds and Vernon L. Smith. (1994).  “Bertrand-Edgeworth Competition in Experimental Markets,” Econometrica, 62(2): 343-371.

Julian Romero and Yaroslav Rosokha. (2019). "The Evolution of Cooperation: The Role of Costly Strategy Adjustments," American Economic Journal, Microeconomics, 11 (1): 299-328.

Julian Romero. (2015). "The effect of hysteresis on equilibrium selection in coordination games", Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 111: 88-105.

Janna Johnson and Evan J. Taylor. (2019). “The Long Run Health Consequences of Rural-Urban Migration.” Quantitative Economics, 10(2): 565-606.

Dan A. Black, Seth G. Sanders, Lowell J. Taylor and Evan J. Taylor. (2015). “The Impact of the Great Migration on Mortality of African Americans: Evidence from the Deep South,” American Economic Review, 105(2) 477-503.

Mark Walker and John Wooders. (2001). “Minimax Play at Wimbledon,” American Economic Review, (91):1521-1539.

Tiemen Woutersen and Jerry Hausman. (2019). "Increasing the Power of Specification Tests," Journal of Econometrics, 211:166-175.

Avi Goldfarb and Mo Xiao. (2011). "Who Thinks about the Competition: Managerial Ability and Strategic Entry in US Local Telephone Markets," American Economic Review, 101(7): 3130-3161.

Joseph V. Hotz, V. and Mo Xiao. (2011). “The Impact of Regulation on Supply and Quality of Care in the Childcare Market,” American Economic Review, 101(5): 1775-1805.

Labs and Institutes

Economic Science Laboratory

Home to leading experimental research and teaching in social science, ESL creates synthetic economic settings where scholars can build their understanding of important issues in economics as well as disciplines like accounting, management and marketing.

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Institute for Behavioral Economics

At the IBE, psychological insights come together with economic analysis, blending the disciplines' strengths with sophisticated analytical tools. Behavioral economics has become one of the fastest-growing fields in economics, and the IBE pushes the edge of the field even further.

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