Articles by John List
Latent Human Capital: How Early Investments in Parents Buffer Against Future Schooling Shocks
We thank Kristin Troutman, Adeline Sutton, Tim First and several research assistants in the Behavioral and Experimental Economics (BEE) Research Group for valuable research assistance. This research was funded by the Kenneth and Anne Griffin Foundation, the Arnold Foundation and by NIH grant 1R01DK114238. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Copy Citation Shruti Jha, John A. List, Rebecca C.
FTC v. Meta: The Importance of Quantitative Evidence in Antitrust
The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) brought an antitrust lawsuit against Meta in 2021, claiming that Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp had allowed it to monopolize a relevant market for apps providing “Personal Social Network Services” and that consumers had been harmed because the acquisitions allowed Meta to increase ad loads imposed on Facebook and Instagram app users. However, the FTC’s market definition was not based on quantitative evidence and its assertion of har ...
The Value of Behavioral Policies
We thank numerous scholars and seminar participants for helpful discussions. For outstanding research assistance, we thank David Franks, Silvia Amalia Meneghesso, Sara Bernadoni, Massimo Biavardi, and Roberto Fani. Some of the data in this paper were collected in an earlier working paper called “Judging Nudging: Understanding the Welfare Effects of Nudges Versus Taxes”. The present paper collects new data, expands the analysis to five markets, and develops a new theoretical framework.
Designing Around Selection: Identification and Inference Under Multi-Dimensional Unobserved Heterogeneity
We thank the following for useful conversations and feedback: Brad Larsen, Barton Hamilton, Stephen Ryan, Rob Clark, Dan Sacks, Jean-Francois Houde, Barry Nalebuff, Jakub Kastl, Ismael Mourifie, Phil Haile, Joachim Freyberger, and seminar participants at BYU-Marriott School Finance, Queen’s U, Princeton, U of Miami, and Southern Methodist U.
Two Selection Problems, One Bias Term: Experimental Sign-Up Is Treatment Choice in Disguise
I thank Justin Holz, Andrew Robert Kennedy, Paul Kirch, Magne Mogstad, and Julia Seither for helpful discussions and comments. Participants at the Economic Science Association also provided useful feedback. All errors are my own. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Copy Citation John A.
李斯特：告别增长幻觉，找到规模化的“势能开关”-虎嗅网
在如今的商业世界，缔造一次令人惊叹的奇观事件或推出一款先锋单品，已不再是企业的终极护城河；真正的考验，在于如何让品牌的吸引力穿越周期，实现持续的规模化。无论是顶尖的奢侈品集团还是消费电子企业，它们都面临着相同的命题：当不可复制的“天才大脑”更替时，如何通过完善的商业体系，将那一抹独特的魔力沉淀为可规模化的“食谱”。对于科技巨头而言同样如此，跨越单一业务线、持续造血并建立壁垒已成常态。“做大”且“做稳”，是所有商业生命体在尝到甜头后的本能渴望。 眼下，AI浪潮正以前所未有的速度重塑商业叙事，“所有行业都值得被AI重做一遍”的口号催生了无数狂热的“一人公司”。在这个充斥着指数级增长神话和极致“内卷”的高压环境中，人们极易产生一种错觉：只要踩中风口，“从1到N”的扩张会如同“从0到1”那般充满奇迹且顺理成章。然而，现实却往往以势能的急剧流失收场。规模化，究竟是一门靠直觉“打破常规”的艺术，还是一项可被精准验证的科学？ “实地实验经济学之父”约翰·A.李斯特（John A.List）在其著作《势能效应》（The Voltage...
Make science more reliable: study people as they go about their lives
Natural field experiments might involve studying how shoppers respond to in-store changes, such as moving where products are displayed.Credit: Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Public policy is full of initiatives that did not work out as hoped. Take Scared Straight, a programme run by more than 30 US states between 1978 and 2015 that aimed to dissuade at-risk teenagers from becoming hardened criminals by bringing them face-to-face with people incarcerated in maximum-security prisons1,2.
Don’t Give Up on Lab Experiments: Why the Field Still Needs the Lab
This article is drawn from various parts of my textbook: Experimental Economics, Theory and Practice. In writing that text I came to appreciate that in economics we are only in the early innings of the maturation of the experimental approach. I eventually came to the question: why would we want to give up on a major creator of knowledge? That question, and the subsequent answer to why we should not, led to this study.
Experimental Economics
A landmark practical guide from the twenty-first-century pioneer in economics. Experimental economics—generating and interpreting data to understand human decisions, motivations, and outcomes—is today all but synonymous with economics as a discipline. The advantages of the experimental method for understanding causal effects make it the gold standard for an increasingly empirical field.
Salience and (Non-)Buyer's Remorse: Optimal Nonlinear Pricing with Cognitively Constrained Consumers
We thank Michael Grubb, Bradley Larsen, John Horn, Michael Cuna, Ali Hortacsu, and Xavier Gabaix for useful conversations and feedback, as well as seminar participants at WashU-Olin, the North American Summer Meetings of the Econometric Society, and the IIOC meetings. At the time the experimental phase of this research was conducted, John List served as Chief Economist at Lyft, and Muir and Sun were full-time employees of the company. None of the authors are currently employed by Lyft.
Consumer Demand and Market Competition with Time-Intensive Goods
We thank Bill Kluender and Donovan Kaddis for providing outstanding research assistance and Lars Sørgård for helpful comments. This RCT was registered as AEARCTR-0016397 (Goodman et al., 2026). The authors worked on behalf of Meta in connection with the antitrust litigation Federal Trade Commission v. Meta Platforms, Inc., and Klein et al v. Meta Platforms, Inc., and received financial compensation in the form of consulting fees.
The Economics of Scaling Early Childhood Programs: Lessons from The Chicago School
This special issue was a direct result of the generous funding from the Griffin Incubator. Thanks to the hundreds of participants in the inaugural Griffin Incubator who deepened our understanding of early childhood investment and scaling. We are in the early innings of a science that promises to flourish: the science of using science. This study was enhanced by comments from Brent Hickman and Juanna Joensen.
Introducing The SPEAK: A Scalable Computer-Adaptive Tool to Measure Knowledge of Early Human Development
Copy Citation Caroline Gaudreau, Dani Levine, John A. List, and Dana Suskind, "Introducing The SPEAK: A Scalable Computer-Adaptive Tool to Measure Knowledge of Early Human Development," NBER Working Paper 34349 (2025), https://doi.org/10.3386/w34349. Copy to Clipboard
Five Facts About the First-Generation Excellence Gap
We are grateful to the North Carolina Education Research Data Center for data access. We thank Evan Rose for sharing code. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. John A. List John List is the Chief Economist at Walmart but this research is not part of work at Walmart. Related
Navigating the College Affordability Crisis: Insights from College Savings Accounts
This study and its related surveys obtained IRB approval from University of Chicago: IRB21-1268 and IRB22-1436. We thank John Mitchell and the staff at the Illinois State Treasurer’s Office staff for their collaboration, Jesse Orr for impeccable project management, and Franco Albino for research assistance. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. John A.
Using AI to Generate Option C Scaling Ideas: A Case Study in Early Education
We gratefully acknowledge the team effort making this research project possible. For excellent research assistance, we thank Nicholas Chen, Harikesan Balachandran, and Clare Smith. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. John A. List John List is the Chief Economist at Walmart but this research is not part of work at Walmart.
The next generation of experimental research with LLMs - Nature Human Behaviour
Large language models (LLMs) can enhance experimental research via the design and implementation of studies, and data analysis. When available, we suggest using LLM-based tools that require no coding skills and only a simple human–AI interaction. We discuss the social risks associated with this integration.
The Role of Risk and Ambiguity Preferences on Early-Childhood Investment: Evidence from Rural India
Skip to main content We are deeply grateful to James Heckman for his generous feedback. We also thank participants in the Advances with Field Experiments conference and seminar participants at the Center for the Economics of Human Development and the Experimental Economics Seminar at the University of Chicago for their valuable insights.
The Importance of Infrastructure for Scalable Policy Solutions
In “Will It Scale?” (Issues, Fall 2024), Omar Al-Ubaydli and John A. List rightly underscore the complex nature of scaling successful programs. In light of this thoughtful work, I would like to expand on the critical role that investing in program infrastructure plays in supporting scalable solutions. Infrastructure is essential for scaling interventions effectively because it helps programs adapt to variability in policy and economic contexts while maintaining program fidelity.
Reading Dostoevsky Behind Bars (Update)
It was 20 years ago this week that Reginald Dwayne Betts was released from prison. And that’s a great excuse to replay our conversation from 2023. This is a very special episode for me. I had never met Dwayne before this conversation, but I was so impressed by him that we stayed in touch, became friends, and I’ve even joined the board of the organization Freedom Reads. He’s truly one of the most remarkable and likable people that I’ve ever known.
The Experimentalist Looks Within: Toward an Understanding of Within-Subject Experimental Designs
This study was created to honor the memory of Gary Charness. It draws heavily from my forthcoming textbook (List, 2025); in particular, Chapters 3 and 10. Gary’s drive for better experimental methods and enhanced understandings was an inspiration to us all. Faith Fatchen and Francesca Pagnotta ably assisted. Any errors are my own. The views expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Related
Toward an Understanding of Discrimination When Multiple Channels Exist
We are grateful to Charlie Brobst, Charles Shi and Franco Albino for excellent research assistance. We thank Carlos Gomez-Gonzalez, Nobuyuki Hanaki and Marco Henriques Pereira for their helpful comments. We thank the participants of the Workshop on Economics of Institutions and Organizations at OSIPP and participants of the EEA-ESEM 2024 Meeting. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. John A.
Will It Scale?
During the bloodiest battles of the First World War, a young French sergeant named André Maginot was injured in the fighting, earning him a medal for valor. He later rose to the position of French minister of war and became famous for building a series of defensive fortifications along the Franco-German border. The design of the Maginot Line, as it came to be known, was not the result of abstract musings.
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? Toward an Understanding of Fade-out in Early Childhood Education Programs
We thank Shruti Jha, Anya Samek, Adeline Sutton, and Kristin Troutman. We are grateful to Marco Castillo, Justin Holz, and Xianglong Kong for helpful comments and discussion. Yujin Lee and Francesca Pagnotta provided outstanding research assistance. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Related
12 Best Practices for Leveraging Generative AI in Experimental Research
We appreciate insightful comments from Kyle Boutilier, Brian Jabarian, Alex Kim, and Connor Murphy. All errors are our own. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. John A. List John List is the Chief Economist at Walmart but this research is not part of work at Walmart.
Toward an Understanding of the Economics of Prosumers: Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment
This RCT was registered in the American Economic Association Registry for randomized control trials under trial number AEARCTR-0011882. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. John A. List John List is the Chief Economist at Walmart but this research is not part of work at Walmart.
Megastudy shows that reminders boost vaccination but adding free rides does not - Nature
Abstract Encouraging routine COVID-19 vaccinations is likely to be a crucial policy challenge for decades to come. To avert hundreds of thousands of unnecessary hospitalizations and deaths, adoption will need to be higher than it was in the autumn of 2022 or 2023, when less than one-fifth of Americans received booster vaccines1,2. One approach to encouraging vaccination is to eliminate the friction of transportation hurdles.
Toward an Understanding of the Economics of Misinformation: Evidence from a Demand Side Field Experiment on Critical Thinking
The opinions and conclusions expressed herein are solely those of the authors and should not be construed as representing the opinions or policies of the sponsoring agencies and research partners. We thank Gustavo Castillo and Maximilian Hippold for their excellent research assistance. This study was reviewed by the University of Chicago IRB and granted an exemption (IRB22-1217).
Optimally generate policy-based evidence before scaling - Nature
Abstract Social scientists have increasingly turned to the experimental method to understand human behaviour. One critical issue that makes solving social problems difficult is scaling up the idea from a small group to a larger group in more diverse situations. The urgency of scaling policies impacts us every day, whether it is protecting the health and safety of a community or enhancing the opportunities of future generations.
My Favorite Economics Books From 2023
You are reading Monday Morning Economist, a free weekly newsletter that explores the economics behind pop culture and current events.
Here's how generative AI can benefit scientific experiments
Opinion Tech and InnovationOct 9, 2023 Generative AI can enable scientists to overcome, at scale, longstanding scientific issues surrounding experiments. Image: REUTERS/Lori Shepler Professor of Economics, University of California, Santa Barbara Howard and Nancy Marks Principal Researcher, University of Chicago Booth Business School Kenneth C.
Generation Next: Experimentation with AI
Skip to main content The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. We thank Daniel Carey and Rishane Dassanayake for excellent research assistance. Related
Reading Dostoevsky Behind Bars
My guest today, Reginald Dwayne Betts is the MacArthur “genius award” winner, founder of the nonprofit Freedom Reads, a poet, and a graduate of Yale Law School. He’s accomplished all that despite the fact that he spent more than eight years in prison from the age of 16 to 24.
Multiple testing with covariate adjustment in experimental economics
5 EPILOGUE As policymakers continue to increase their demands for evidence and make decisions based on science, the scientific community is relied on to provide sound advice. One core issue that continues to plague the fluid transference of true insights from researchers to policymakers is a large false discovery rate. In this paper, we extend the approach of List et al. (2019) to exploit observed, baseline covariates to obtain more powerful inferences.
Judging Nudging: Understanding the Welfare Effects of Nudges Versus Taxes
While behavioral non-price interventions (“nudges”) have grown from academic curiosity to a bona fide policy tool, their relative economic efficiency remains under-researched. We develop a unified framework to estimate welfare effects of both nudges and taxes. We showcase our approach by creating a database of more than 300 carefully hand-coded point estimates of nonprice and price interventions in the markets for cigarettes, influenza vaccinations, and household energy.
Toward an Understanding of Tax Amnesties: Theory and Evidence from a Natural Field Experiment
The experiment reported in this paper is registered at the AEA's Social Science Registry under AEARCTR-0006612. We would like to thank Ledys Feliz, Antonio Giraldi, and Maria Rodriguez for their help with the data.
Judging Nudging: Understanding the Welfare Effects of Nudges Versus Taxes
David Franks went above and beyond with excellent research assistance and project management. Without his efforts the project would have never drawn to completion. We also thank Silvia Amalia Meneghesso and Roberto Fani for additional support. Hunt Allcott, Doug Bernheim, Luca Braghieri, Nicola Gennaioli, Nicola Pavoni and seminar participants at CESifo, the NBER Public Economics meeting, Frankfurt School, and the University of Chicago provided remarks that shaped our work.
High-Frequency Location Data Show That Race Affects the Likelihood of Being Stopped and Fined for Speeding
Prior research on speeding has found that for those stopped, driver race substantially affects the punishment for speeding. Yet a fundamental limitation of past studies is that race could also influence the probability of being stopped by police. For example, if officers stop minorities irrespective of speed but only stop the worst‐offending white drivers, comparing drivers stopped is an analysis of fundamentally different groups.
How Experiments with Children Inform Economics
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The Four-Day Work-Week Is (Almost) Here
The three-day weekend may soon be a reality—but only if policymakers can think of proper countermeasures against voltage drops. Source link
The Four-Day Work-Week Is (Almost) Here
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The Four-Day Work-Week Is (Almost) Here
Many governments, such as Iceland and the UK, are experimenting with three-day weekends. There’s a perception that all sides can benefit from such policies: Workers get more time off and superior mental health; companies get higher productivity and lower wage demands. In 2023, many of these scientific studies will indeed show indications that the three-day weekend is a good idea and, consequently, some governments will enact national policies. This transition, however, will fail—due to bad science.
High-Frequency Location Data Shows That Race Affects the Likelihood of Being Stopped and Fined for Speeding
Prior research finds that, conditional on an encounter, minority civilians are more likely to be punished by police than white civilians. An open question is whether the actual encounter is related to race. Using high-frequency location data of rideshare drivers operating on the Lyft platform in Florida, we estimate the effect of driver race on traffic stops and fines for speeding.
Il principio Anna Karenina | Perché alcune grandi idee sono destinate a fallire? - Linkiesta.it
Lev Tolstoj inizia il suo romanzo Anna Karenina con il celebre incipit: «Le famiglie felici si somigliano tutte; ogni famiglia infelice, invece, è infelice a modo suo». Proprio a partire da questa frase Jared Diamond ha reso celebre il “principio Anna Karenina”, in base al quale imboccare qualunque tipo di scorciatoia garantisce il sicuro fallimento di un’idea, mentre il successo nel realizzare un’idea dipende proprio dall’evitare tutte le possibili scorciatoie.
The Human Perils of Scaling Smart Technologies: Evidence from Field Experiments
We thank Dylan Brewer, Fiona Burlig, Ken Gillingham, Michael Greenstone, Koichiro Ito, David Jimenez-Gomez, Juanna Joensen, David Novgorodsky, Mar Reguant, Florian Rundhammer, CaseyWichman, and seminar participants at the Advances with Field Experiments Conference, Heartland Environmental and Resource Economics Workshop, Federal Communications Commission, EPIC Faculty Workshop, NBER Environmental and Energy Economics Summer Institute, and Harvard Seminar in Environmental Economics and Policy...
Behavioral Scientist Writing Workshop Spring/Summer 2022
This May and June, we’re hosting a series of writing workshops open to everyone. The workshops will focus on writing and communicating behavioral science. But as the saying goes, “writing is thinking,” so many of the lessons will generalize to any form of communication that you hope to make stronger, clearer, and more incisive. Below you’ll find more about the session content, format, and schedule. You can register for the workshops here.
Seat Belts Demonstrate the Spillover Effect
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Caveat Venditor: The simple economics of membership programs
As consumers, we are constantly making choices about where to buy stuff we need, be it Walmart versus Target or McDonalds versus Burger King. Increasingly, companies are creating membership programs to invoke customer loyalty. After all, a sticky consumer is a consumer for life.
Why It’s So Hard to Scale a Great Idea
For the last several years, I’ve been at the forefront of a movement known as implementation science, or the science of scaling. In this work, we are trying to understand why some products, companies, and social programs thrive as they grow, while others peter out. When a seemingly promising idea loses efficacy or profitability as it expands, we call it a “voltage drop.” These failures to scale never happen because of one single reason.
Research Lead: A Traffic Intervention Backfires, How Love in Literature Tracks Economic Development, and More
“Can behavioral interventions be too salient? Evidence from traffic safety messages” “1669 DEATHS THIS YEAR ON TEXAS ROADS,” read a digital highway sign along the interstate. If you had to guess, what impact do you think this would have on your driving? Twenty-eight states use a similar program, where highway signs display the number of state-wide traffic deaths so far that year, reaching over 100 million drivers annually.
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