AEA Research Highlights

<p >The place where a child grows up in America shapes their economic future to a significant degree. One long-suspected explanation is racial segregation, but proving whether segregation actually causes worse...

<p >More than two billion people around the world do not have safe drinking water at home. Piped water infrastructure remains out of reach for much of the developing world, and cheaper alternatives like chlorine tablets...

<p >Asian Americans are the fastest-growing racial group in the United States and are on track to become the largest immigrant group by 2050. Yet, researchers have devoted much less attention to this population than to...

<p >W. E. B. Du Bois is remembered as a civil rights leader, sociologist, and author of The Souls of Black Folk. But before he became famous for his empirical studies of Black life in America, Du Bois was a graduate...

<p >Guidance counselors generally advise college applicants to diversify their applications across schools they believe to be safeties, matches, and reaches. Yet, prevailing economic theories of school choice suggest...

<p >Between 1997 and 2011, opioid dispensing in the United States more than tripled, fueling what would become the deadliest drug epidemic in American history. This surge in the supply of opioids was concentrated among...

<p >The launch of Sputnik by the Soviet Union in October 1957 led to a geopolitical crisis that reshaped American science policy. Within months, Congress established NASA, and by 1961, President Kennedy committed the...

<p >Most Americans agree that housing costs are too high, often blaming developers and landlords. Many feel that the problem can be solved with price controls, development restrictions, and mandates on providing...

<p >Despite decades of civil rights legislation, many Black and White Americans, as well as other minorities, continue to live in racially homogeneous neighborhoods, with significant implications for access to quality...

<p >For decades, the United States enjoyed what some called an exorbitant privilege—the ability to spend more than it earned without accumulating much debt to the rest of the world. But that privilege has ended.</p> <p...

<p >US household income has grown significantly, but much of that growth seems to be at the very top of the distribution. Just how much inequality has increased and why it is growing is a topic of debate among...

<p >Drug prices have become a hot-button issue in the United States, with politicians across the spectrum agreeing that American consumers pay too much for prescription medications. But bringing down drug prices raises...

<p >Civil conflict has plagued much of Africa, with ethnically diverse countries experiencing particularly high rates of violence. Yet within these nations, patterns vary, leading to questions of why some groups rebel...

<p >The Clean Air Act has been an essential tool for reducing air pollution in the United States. But standard estimation methods may overstate its impact, according to a paper in the American Economic Journal: Economic...

<p >The patchwork nature of America's public safety net has evolved over centuries, shaped by political winds and changing views on poverty. Understanding this complicated history may help shed light on the core...