Discussion Boards

Fully Grown, by Dietrich Vollrath, published 2020 by the University of Chicago Press, book web site here: https://growthecon.com/fully/ . The provocative thesis of this book doesn't inoculate it from criticism. In critically assessing the book, three themes emerge. First, weakness in the application or interpretation of theory. Second, problems constructing graphs and interpreting descriptive statistics. Third, a lack of organic knowledge, or, better put, inorganic presentations of basic ideas. The first shows up in Chapters 5, 11, and 16. The second shows up in Chapter 2 (the interpretation of Figures 2.1 and 2.2), Chapter 13 (a subtle but consequential error in constructing Fig. 13.2), and Ch. 15 (statistical misinterpretation). The third shows up in two different examples in Chapter 4, which must be seen to be believed. Throughout the book, arguments are sloppily constructed and sloppily supported, and Ph.D.-level economists should be able to recognize that--whether you specialize in micro or macro. Give this book a look, see if you can recognize the things I am referring to, and place your thoughts in comments.

New Information on Information Disclosure through Restaurant Hygiene Grading, by Daniel Ho, Zoe Ashwood, and Cassandra Handan-Nader, in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, 2019, right here: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20180230 . This paper is an extended takedown of an earlier paper by Ginger Jin and Philip Leslie, The Effect of Information on Product Quality: Evidence from Restaurant Hygiene Grade Cards, in the Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2003, right here: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/118/2/409/1899578 . Jin and Leslie's reply is here: https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20180543 . The takedown is devastating, the reply disingenuous. Experimental content is at the heart of the matter. Place your thoughts in comments. I'll go first!

Do Retail Mergers Affect Competition? Evidence from Grocery Store Retailing, Daniel Hosken, Luke Olson, and Loren Smith, in the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, 2018, right here: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jems.12218 . This article addresses a fundamental question--the effects of horizontal mergers on price--and obtains uncontroversial conclusions. However, its results are implausible, with this implausibility obscured by the presentation. It wonderfully illustrates the problems you can get into by organizing your study around the estimation of a coefficient rather than the explanation of the dependent variable. Place your thoughts in comments.