Economic Perspectives
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The Journal of The Journal of Economic Perspectives Economic Perspectives The Journal of Winter 2015, Volume 29, Number 1 Economic Perspectives Symposium Wealth and Inequality Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, “The Rise and Decline of General Laws of Capitalism” Charles I. Jones, “Pareto and Piketty: The Macroeconomics of Top Income and Wealth Inequality” Wojciech Kopczuk, “What Do We Know about the Evolution of Top Wealth Shares in the United States?” Thomas Piketty, “Putting Distribution Back at the Center of Economics: Reections on Capital in the Twenty-First Century” A journal of the American Economic Association Articles Marion Fourcade, Etienne Ollion, and Yann Algan, “The Superiority of Economists” 29, Number 1 Winter 2015 Volume Allen R. Sanderson and John J. Siegfried, “The Case for Paying College Athletes” David H. Howard, Peter B. Bach, Ernst R. Berndt, and Rena M. Conti, “Pricing in the Market for Anticancer Drugs” Wallace E. Oates and Robert M. Schwab, “The Window Tax: A Case Study in Excess Burden” Andrei Shleifer, “Matthew Gentzkow, Winner of the 2014 Clark Medal” Features Brett M. Frischmann and Christiaan Hogendorn, “Retrospectives: The Marginal Cost Controversy” Recommendations for Further Reading • Correspondence • Editorial Note Winter 2015 The Journal of Economic Perspectives A journal of the American Economic Association Editor Enrico Moretti, University of California at Berkeley Co-editors Gordon Hanson, University of California at San Diego Ulrike Malmendier, University of California at Berkeley Associate Editors Anat Admati, Stanford University Amy Finkelstein, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Adam Looney, US Department of the Treasury Emi Nakamura, Columbia University Richard Newell, Duke University Scott Stern, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Christopher Udry, Yale University Managing Editor Timothy Taylor Assistant Editor Ann Norman Editorial offices: Journal of Economic Perspectives American Economic Association Publications 2403 Sidney St., #260 Pittsburgh, PA 15203 email: [email protected] The Journal of Economic Perspectives gratefully acknowledges the support of Macalester College. Registered in the US Patent and Trademark Office (®). Copyright © 2015 by the American Economic Association; All Rights Reserved. Composed by American Economic Association Publications, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. Printed by R. R. Donnelley Company, Jefferson City, Missouri, 65109, USA. No responsibility for the views expressed by the authors in this journal is assumed by the editors or by the American Economic Association. THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVES (ISSN 0895-3309), Winter 2015, Vol. 29, No. 1. The JEP is published quarterly (February, May, August, November) by the American Economic Association, 2014 Broadway, Suite 305, Nashville, TN 37203-2418. Annual dues for regular membership are $20.00, $30.00, or $40.00 depending on income; for an additional $15.00, you can receive this journal in print. E-reader versions are free. For details and further information on the AEA go to http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/. Periodicals postage paid at Nashville, TN, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to the Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2014 Broadway, Suite 305, Nashville, TN 37203. Printed in the U.S.A. The Journal of Economic Perspectives Contents Volume 29 • Number 1 • Winter 2015 Symposium Wealth and Inequality Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson, “The Rise and Decline of General Laws of Capitalism”. 3 Charles I. Jones, “Pareto and Piketty: The Macroeconomics of Top Income and Wealth Inequality” ...........................................29 Wojciech Kopczuk, “What Do We Know about the Evolution of Top Wealth Shares in the United States?” .................................. 47 Thomas Piketty, “Putting Distribution Back at the Center of Economics: Reflections on Capital in the Twenty-First Century” .................. 67 Articles Marion Fourcade, Etienne Ollion, and Yann Algan, “The Superiority of Economists” ................................................89 Allen R. Sanderson and John J. Siegfried, “The Case for Paying College Athletes” .................................................. 115 David H. Howard, Peter B. Bach, Ernst R. Berndt, and Rena M. Conti, “Pricing in the Market for Anticancer Drugs”. 139 Wallace E. Oates and Robert M. Schwab, “The Window Tax: A Case Study in Excess Burden” ............................................ 163 Andrei Shleifer, “Matthew Gentzkow, Winner of the 2014 Clark Medal” ...... 181 Features Brett M. Frischmann and Christiaan Hogendorn, “Retrospectives: The Marginal Cost Controversy” .................................. 193 Timothy Taylor, “Recommendations for Further Reading” .................207 Correspondence: “Fair Trade Coffee,” Victor V. Claar and Colleen E. Haight . 215 Editorial Note: “Correction to Richard S. Tol’s ‘The Economic Effects of Climate Change’” .......................................... 217 Statement of Purpose The Journal of Economic Perspectives attempts to fill a gap between the general interest press and most other academic economics journals. The journal aims to publish articles that will serve several goals: to synthesize and integrate lessons learned from active lines of economic research; to provide economic analysis of public policy issues; to encourage cross-fertilization of ideas among the fields of economics; to offer readers an accessible source for state-of-the-art economic thinking; to suggest directions for future research; to provide insights and read- ings for classroom use; and to address issues relating to the economics profession. Articles appearing in the journal are normally solicited by the editors and associate editors. Proposals for topics and authors should be directed to the journal office, at the address inside the front cover. Policy on Data Availability It is the policy of the Journal of Economic Perspectives to publish papers only if the data used in the analysis are clearly and precisely documented and are readily available to any researcher for purposes of replication. Details of the computations sufficient to permit replication must be provided. The Editor should be notified at the time of submission if the data used in a paper are proprietary or if, for some other reason, the above requirements cannot be met. Policy on Disclosure Authors of articles appearing in the Journal of Economic Perspectives are expected to disclose any potential conflicts of interest that may arise from their consulting activities, financial interests, or other nonacademic activities. Journal of Economic Perspectives Advisory Board Janet Currie, Princeton University Franceso Giavazzi, Bocconi University Claudia Goldin, Harvard University Robert E. Hall, Stanford University Greg Ip, Wall Street Journal Hongbin Li, Tsinghua University John Roemer, Yale University Paul Romer, New York University Howard Rosenthal, New York University Journal of Economic Perspectives—Volume 29, Number 1—Winter 2015—Pages 3–28 The Rise and Decline of General Laws of Capitalism† Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson conomists have long been drawn to the ambitious quest of discovering the general laws of capitalism. David Ricardo, for example, predicted that capital E accumulation would terminate in economic stagnation and inequality as a greater and greater share of national income accrued to landowners. Karl Marx followed him by forecasting the inevitable immiseration of the proletariat. Thomas Piketty’s (2014) tome, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, emulates Marx in his title, his style of exposition, and his critique of the capitalist system. Piketty is after general laws that will demystify our modern economy and elucidate the inherent problems of the system—and point to solutions. But the quest for general laws of capitalism is misguided because it ignores the key forces shaping how an economy functions: the endogenous evolution of technology and of the institutions and the political equilibrium that influence not only technology but also how markets function and how the gains from various different economic arrangements are distributed. Despite his erudition, ambition, and creativity, Marx was led astray because of his disregard of these forces. The same is true of Piketty’s sweeping account of inequality in capitalist economies. In the next section, we review Marx’s conceptualization of capitalism and some of his general laws. We then turn to Piketty’s approach to capitalism and his general laws. We will point to various problems in Piketty’s interpretation of the economic relationships underpinning inequality, but the most important shortcoming is that, ■ Daron Acemoglu is Elizabeth and James Killian Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. James A. Robinson is Wilbur A. Cowett Professor of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Their email addresses are [email protected] and [email protected]. † To access the Appendix and Data Appendix, visit http://dx.doi.org/10.1257/jep.29.1.3 doi=10.1257/jep.29.1.3 4 Journal of Economic Perspectives though he discusses the role of certain institutions and policies, he allows neither for a systematic role of institutions and political factors in the formation of inequality nor for the endogenous evolution of these institutional factors. This implies that his general laws have little explanatory power. We illustrate this by first using regression evidence to show that Piketty’s central economic force,