National Bureau of Economic Research

The Development of the American Economy (DAE) program was one of the first research programs launched by Martin Feldstein in 1978 when he formalized the modern structure of the NBER.

The mission of the program is to research historical aspects of the American economy. Its members are economic historians whose specific interests span many subfields within economics, including macroeconomics, labor economics, finance, political economy, trade, and industrial organization. Broadly, economic history research comes in two flavors. First, economic historians study the evolution of economic trends that illuminate issues relevant to the modern economy, such as the entry of women in the labor force and the moderation of economic crises over time. Second, economic historians use the natural experiments offered by history to test economic…

Over 6 million children in the United States attend public schools located within 250 meters of a major roadway. In The Effects of Daily Air Pollution on Students and Teachers (NBER Working Paper 33549), Sarah Chung, Claudia Persico, and Jing Liu examine how daily variation in ambient air pollution influences student and teacher behavior in school settings.

They study comprehensive administrative data from a large urban school district in California spanning 2003 to 2020. To address measurement error in pollution exposure and reduce…

The surge in remote work in recent years has transformed labor markets, with potentially important implications for the interaction between workplace flexibility and entrepreneurship. In Hustling from Home? Work from Home Flexibility and Entrepreneurial Entry (NBER Working Paper 33237), John M. Barrios, Yael Hochberg, and Hanyi (Livia) Yi explore whether the increased flexibility provided by work-from-home (WFH) arrangements has affected entrepreneurial decisions. They focus on the COVID-19 pandemic as a natural experiment and analyze how the sudden shift to remote work affected new business creation. Guided…

Naloxone, which reverses the effects of an opioid overdose, is a critical tool for responding to the opioid crisis. However, prior to the 2010s, two barriers hindered its widespread distribution and use in the United States. One was legal access: Naloxone required a prescription from a healthcare provider. Another was that naloxone was administered by injection and therefore required training for proper use. 

In 2010, Illinois became the first state to adopt a dispensing naloxone access law (NAL) that permitted individuals to obtain naloxone directly from pharmacists, eliminating the need for an individual prescription. By 2015, another 35 states had implemented dispensing NALs. These policy initiatives were complemented by the introduction of Narcan, the first FDA-approved naloxone nasal spray, in 2016. This new…