{"title":"A Model of the Attention Economy: Data, Platforms, and Discovery","authors":"Daniel Chen","doi":"10.1257/aer.20240651","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20240651","url":null,"abstract":"This paper develops a dynamic model of the attention economy featuring two interlinked markets: a product market, where consumers have limited awareness of firms, and an attention market, where platforms attract attention by investing in free services (e.g., social media, streaming, podcasts) and sell targeted ads using data on consumer preferences. The model provides a tractable framework in which platform investment, ad-driven discovery, product demand, and ad revenue are jointly determined. The effects of data and interoperability policies can reverse over time, platform quality may be inefficiently high or low, and the rise of data-rich digital advertising can coincide with a declining ad revenue-to-GDP ratio. (JEL D43, D44, D58, D83, L86, M37)","PeriodicalId":48472,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"177 1","pages":"3802-3836"},"PeriodicalIF":10.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149093189","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Screening and Segmenting: A Consumer Surplus Perspective","authors":"Dirk Bergemann,Tibor Heumann,Michael C. Wang","doi":"10.1257/aer.20250206","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20250206","url":null,"abstract":"We analyze consumer surplus when a monopolist can adjust both prices and product qualities across segments, engaging in secondand third-degree price discrimination simultaneously. We characterize the consumer-optimal segmentation and show that it has a striking structure: Consumers with the same value receive the same quality in every segment, though prices differ. Under mild conditions, any segmentation harms consumers if and only if demand is sufficiently more elastic than supply. Hence, potential benefits for consumers depend critically on demand and supply elasticities. These findings have implications for regulatory policy regarding price discrimination and market segmentation. (JEL D42, D83, K21, L12, L15)","PeriodicalId":48472,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"9 1","pages":"3768-3801"},"PeriodicalIF":10.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149093210","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Who Marries Whom? The Role of Segregation by Race and Class","authors":"Benjamin Goldman,Jamie Gracie,Sonya R. Porter","doi":"10.1257/aer.20250115","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20250115","url":null,"abstract":"Americans rarely marry outside their race or class group, a pattern with well-documented implications for inequality and intergenerational mobility. Limited exposure may partly explain these low intergroup marriage rates. We instrument for exposure using variation in childhood neighborhoods based on whether other race and class groups had more opposite-sex children of similar age. Exposure increases interclass (high- and low-parent income) marriage but has no detectable effect on interracial (White and Black) marriage. A spatial marriage model predicts that residential segregation—one of many forms of exposure—accounts for more than one-third of marital sorting by class but less than 5 percent by race. (JEL J12, J15, J62, R23)","PeriodicalId":48472,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"1 1","pages":"3623-3673"},"PeriodicalIF":10.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149093185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Social Push and the Direction of Innovation","authors":"Elias Einiö,Josh Feng,Xavier Jaravel","doi":"10.1257/aer.20231417","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20231417","url":null,"abstract":"What are the implications of unequal access to innovation careers for the direction of innovation and inequality? Leveraging novel linked datasets in the United States and Finland, we document that innovators create products more likely to be purchased by consumers like them in terms of gender, socioeconomic status, and age. Homophily exists both within narrow product categories and across industries and has been stable in recent decades. Incorporating this “social push” channel into a growth model, we estimate that unequal access to innovation careers has a large effect on cost of living inequality and long-run growth. (JEL D63, J16, L26, M13, O31, O33, O47)","PeriodicalId":48472,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"31 1","pages":"3875-3909"},"PeriodicalIF":10.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149093187","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Truth Elicitation in a Nonstrategic Environment","authors":"Jacob Glazer,Ariel Rubinstein","doi":"10.1257/aer.20251879","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20251879","url":null,"abstract":"A principal decides which party deserves a prize. Only the parties observe the state that determines who is deserving. The principal gives each party a text describing the conditions under which that party deserves the prize and asks each to report the state. The parties are nonstrategic. Each activates a known cheating procedure whose outcome depends on the state and on the text. Implementation is achieved if, whenever the parties disagree, the liar is identified by the “one-way cheating principle”: The truthful party is the unique party who could not have produced his story had the rival's story been true. (JEL D82, D91)","PeriodicalId":48472,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"6 1","pages":"3942-3958"},"PeriodicalIF":10.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149093233","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Fighting for Growth: Labor Scarcity and Technological Progress during the British Industrial Revolution","authors":"Hans-Joachim Voth,Bruno Caprettini,Alex Trew","doi":"10.1257/aer.20240393","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20240393","url":null,"abstract":"We establish a link between labor scarcity and the adoption of laborsaving technology in industrializing England. During the Napoleonic Wars, more than 10 percent of the male population served in the armed forces. Where recruitment was heavy, more machines economizing on labor were adopted. Naval recruitment, instrumented by warships' coastal access, provides exogenous variation in labor scarcity and suggests that the link between labor shortages and adoption is causal. Where mechanical skills were abundant, the impact of labor scarcity on adoption appears to be larger. (JEL J24, N13, N43, N63, N73, O14, O31)","PeriodicalId":48472,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"26 1","pages":"3837-3874"},"PeriodicalIF":10.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149093234","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Thomas Cornelissen,Christian Dustmann,Uta Schönberg
{"title":"Knowledge Spillovers, Competition, and Individual Careers","authors":"Thomas Cornelissen,Christian Dustmann,Uta Schönberg","doi":"10.1257/aer.20230714","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20230714","url":null,"abstract":"Exposure to better peers in the workplace can influence career trajectories through two opposing channels: positively, via knowledge spillovers, and negatively, through competition for advancement. We disentangle these effects by studying untrained labor market entrants and distinguishing between coworkers in the same occupation with whom they are likely to compete versus those with whom they are unlikely to compete. We find robust evidence of persistent knowledge spillovers but also identify countervailing competition effects of comparable magnitude. Both effects are more pronounced for men than for women. (JEL D83, J16, J24, M53, M54, O33)","PeriodicalId":48472,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"64 1","pages":"3910-3941"},"PeriodicalIF":10.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149093188","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Taxing Top Wealth: Migration Responses and Their Aggregate Economic Implications","authors":"Katrine Jakobsen,Henrik Kleven,Jonas Kolsrud,Camille Landais,Mathilde Munoz","doi":"10.1257/aer.20241596","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20241596","url":null,"abstract":"Using administrative data from Scandinavian countries, we provide evidence on international migration responses to wealth taxes and evaluate their aggregate economic implications. We find significant migration responses among the wealthy: A 1 percentage point increase in the top wealth tax rate decreases the stock of wealthy taxpayers by about 2 percent. A large fraction of the wealthy are business owners, and their businesses are negatively affected by owner out-migration. The aggregate effects are nevertheless modest: The migration responses to a 1 percentage point increase in the top wealth tax rate reduce employment by 0.02 percent, investments by 0.07 percent, and value added by 0.10 percent. (JEL D31, E22, E24, F22, H24, L26, K34)","PeriodicalId":48472,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"47 1","pages":"3674-3720"},"PeriodicalIF":10.7,"publicationDate":"2026-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"149093186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Defying Distance? The Provision of Medical Services in the Digital Age","authors":"Amanda Dahlstrand","doi":"10.1257/aer.20240756","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20240756","url":null,"abstract":"Digital platforms reduce geographic frictions, enabling better matching between service providers and users. I quantify reallocation gains in Swedish online health care, using nationwide time-conditional random assignment between patients and physicians. Matching high-risk patients with doctors effective at reducing Emergency Room visits lowers such visits by 4.4 percent (SE 1.3); reallocations also reduce Counter-Guideline antibiotics by 3.1 percent (1.4). I find limited trade-offs in matching; horizontal differentiation among doctors and varied patient needs allow improvement in multiple outcomes simultaneously. Efficiency-enhancing reallocations also affect equity. The findings highlight the potential for care reorganization aligning provider heterogeneity with patient needs when geographic constraints are lifted. (JEL C78, H51, I11, I13, I14, I18)","PeriodicalId":48472,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"14 1","pages":"3464-3509"},"PeriodicalIF":10.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148901917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Environmental Bias of Corporate Income Taxation","authors":"Luigi Iovino,Thorsten Martin,Julien Sauvagnat","doi":"10.1257/aer.20241765","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20241765","url":null,"abstract":"We study the relationship between corporate income taxation and carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions in the United States. We show CO 2 -intensive firms benefit more from the tax advantage of debt and pay lower income taxes on their capital income. Building on these new facts, we provide evidence that a cut in the corporate income tax rate leads to a larger expansion of clean firms. We develop a multisector general equilibrium model that accounts for our evidence and quantify the impact of corporate tax reforms on aggregate emissions. A policy that eliminates the tax advantage of debt could reduce aggregate emissions without affecting GDP. (JEL D22, G32, H25, H32, Q52, Q54, Q58)","PeriodicalId":48472,"journal":{"name":"American Economic Review","volume":"62 1","pages":"3510-3551"},"PeriodicalIF":10.7,"publicationDate":"2026-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148901919","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}