Papers from the coursework reading lists, each with a plain-language explainer.
Every paper on the coursework reading lists, with the citation, a link to the original and an explainer: the question, the data, the identification strategy, the main results, and why it is on the list. Six have full interactive explainers (look for the badge). Browse by course, by field, or by the method a paper teaches (the topic tags). Want a paper added or an explainer improved? Say so on the Empirical Methods board.
▶ Interactive explainers only 6
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Banerjee, Abhijit, Angus Deaton, and Esther Duflo (2004). American Economic Review (Papers & Proceedings), 94(2): 326–330
A purpose-built survey of 100 hamlets in Udaipur district: what health, health care and household wealth actually look like in one of India’s poorest areas, and how to measure them.
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Interactive explainer Somanathan, E., Rohini Somanathan, Anant Sudarshan, and Meenu Tewari (2021). Journal of Political Economy, 129(6): 1797–1827
Worker-level data from Indian factories and a national panel of plants: hot days lower output and raise absenteeism, climate control mitigates it, and annual plant output falls with temperature.
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Interactive explainer Davis, Lucas W. (2008). Journal of Political Economy, 116(1): 38–81
Mexico City banned most cars from the road one weekday a week. Hourly pollution-monitor data show no improvement in air quality; the evidence points to households buying extra cars.
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Green, Donald P., Oliver Hyman-Metzger, Gaurav Sood, and Michelle A. Zee (2023). Journal of Political Economy Microeconomics, 1(3): 506–
A replication and extension of Washington (2008) across sixteen congresses: no daughter effect before the period she studied, and none after it.
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Washington, Ebonya L. (2008). American Economic Review, 98(1): 311–332
Conditional on the number of children, each daughter makes a US congressperson vote more liberally on women’s issues, especially reproductive rights — the sex of a child as a natural experiment.
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Interactive explainer Cutler, David, and Grant Miller (2005). Demography, 42(1): 1–22
Using the staggered arrival of filtration and chlorination in major US cities, the paper attributes roughly half of the 1900–1936 mortality decline to clean water.
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Interactive explainer Almond, Douglas (2006). Journal of Political Economy, 114(4): 672–712
Cohorts in utero during the 1918 influenza pandemic had lower schooling, income and health decades later — the classic “fetal origins” natural experiment.
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Fearon, James D., Macartan Humphreys, and Jeremy M. Weinstein (2015). American Political Science Review, 109(3): 450–469
Does a community-driven reconstruction programme make villages better at cooperating? A randomised programme in northern Liberia, measured with a public-goods game rather than a survey.
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Banerjee, Abhijit V., Esther Duflo, and Rachel Glennerster (2008). Journal of the European Economic Association, 6(2–3): 487–500
An incentive scheme to cut nurse absence in Udaipur worked at first, then was hollowed out by the local administration — a lesson in how implementation can undo a well-designed treatment.
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Interactive explainer Björkman, Martina, and Jakob Svensson (2009). Quarterly Journal of Economics, 124(2): 735–769
A randomised community-monitoring intervention in 50 Ugandan health dispensaries: report cards and community meetings raised staff effort, use of services and child health.