Reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule III drug would lead to measurably higher social welfare.

Universities that abandon temporary pandemic test-optional policies and return to requiring standardized test scores for admissions will create measurably enhanced opportunities for potentially high-achieving students from low-income backgrounds.

Question A: An $8 cap on late fees for credit cards, as proposed by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, would lead to a substantial reduction in overall costs for consumers.

Question B: Requiring that all credit card fees and interest rates be transparent, prominently displayed, and easily searchable online would lead to a substantial reduction in overall costs for consumers.

Question C: Consumers would be measurably better off if efforts to reduce the impact of so-called ‘junk fees’ across the economy concentrated on making fees more transparent than on capping specific types of fees.

Question A: Prohibiting firms from imposing employment contract provisions that prevent workers from moving to a competitor or starting a competing business would lead to a substantial increase in wages in the affected industries.

Question B: A ban on non-compete clauses would lead to a measurable increase in innovation.

Question C: A ban on non-compete clauses would lead to a measurable reduction in firms’ investment in staff training.

Question A: Given the centrality of semiconductors to the manufacturing of many products, securing reliable supplies should be a key strategic objective of national policy.

Question B: Restrictions on exports of semiconductors and related high-tech equipment to China will substantially improve US technological leadership.

Question A: The administration’s loan relief plan will not have a substantial impact on inflation in either direction.

Question B: A longer-term impact of the administration’s loan relief plan is likely to be substantially higher tuition fees at some universities.

Question C: A longer-term impact of the administration’s loan relief plan is likely to be measurably higher student debt burdens in anticipation of future forgiveness.

Question A: The current $7,500 tax credit for purchasing electric vehicles is regressive.

Question B: To encourage greater take-up of electric vehicles, public expenditure on infrastructure to support them (such as charging stations) is likely to be more cost-effective than providing equivalent amounts as tax credits/purchase rebates for buyers.

Question A: Laws restricting access to abortion are likely to have a negative impact on women's educational attainment, labor market participation, and earnings, particularly those in households of lower socio-economic status.

Question B: States that ban abortion are likely to suffer significant economic losses.

Question A: Increased unionization of the American workforce would give a noticeable boost to the earnings of current workers who become eligible to be members.

Question B: Increased unionization of the American workforce would give a noticeable boost to wages for the median household.

Question C: Increased unionization of the American workforce would have a net positive effect on employment.

Question A: It would serve the US economy well to make it unlawful for companies with revenues over $1 billion to offer goods or services for sale at an “unconscionably excessive price” during an exceptional market shock.

Question B: It would serve the US economy well if companies making quarterly SEC filings were obliged to include a tabulation of all price changes of goods or services sold, together with the associated cost changes.

Stablecoins that are not fully backed by either central bank reserves or government securities with minimal price volatility are inherently vulnerable to runs.

Question A: A windfall tax on the profits of large oil companies – with the revenue rebated to households – would provide an efficient means to protect the average US household from rising energy costs.

Question B: Temporary suspension of state and federal gas taxes would lead to a meaningful and immediate reduction in consumer prices at the pump.

Question A: Efforts to achieve the goal of reaching net-zero emissions of greenhouse gases by 2050 will be a major drag on global economic growth.

Question B: Voluntary national targets are unlikely to be an effective mechanism for achieving sharp reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.

Question C: Agreement on a significant global price floor for all carbon emissions would be an effective step towards achieving sharp reductions in emissions.

Mandating staff vaccinations and/or regular testing at big employers would promote a faster and stronger economic recovery.

Question A: In an economy open to capital flows, monetary policy can only be effective with a floating exchange rate.

Question B: For emerging and developing economies open to the world capital market, a flexible exchange rate confers little advantage over a pegged exchange rate in terms of economic stability.

Question C: The key feature making the US a more natural optimum currency area than the euro area is higher labor mobility.

Sound policy would involve increasing significantly the currently near-zero price of emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Question A: Until mass vaccination is achieved, any additional government spending going directly to households should focus on keeping low-income individuals and families safe and healthy rather than on boosting current economic activity.

Question B: If the goal is to boost current economic activity, targeting checks at households making less than $75,000 per year would be more cost-effective than providing checks to higher income households as well.

Question A: The UK economy is likely to be at least several percentage points smaller in 2030 than it would have been if the country had remained in the European Union.

Question B: The aggregate economy of the 27 countries still in the EU is likely to be at least several percentage points smaller in 2030 than if the UK had not left.

Requiring Facebook to divest WhatsApp and Instagram is likely to make society better off.

Question A: Google's dominance of the market for internet search arose mainly from a combination of economies of scale and a quality algorithm.

Question B: In light of Google’s dominance, its current operating practices could have a substantial negative effect on social welfare in the long run.

Question C: The nature of the market dominance of technology giants in the digital economy warrants either the imposition of some kind of regulation or a fundamental change in antitrust policy.

Question A: The US economy would be substantially stronger today if the state and local ‘stay-at-home’ orders had been more uniform and lasted longer in the first half of the year.

Question B: The economy will receive a substantial boost as soon as K-12 schools can be safely opened in person nationwide.

Question A: Political conflict plays a key role in shaping economic decisions, policies and outcomes.

Question B: The US has a smaller social welfare system than other rich countries in part because it is more heterogeneous by race and ethnicity.

Question A: Clearing the market for surgical face masks using prices is detrimental to the public good.

Question B: Laws to prevent high prices for essential goods in short supply in a crisis would raise social welfare.

Question C: Governments should buy essential medical supplies at what would have been the market price and redistribute according to need rather than ability to pay.

Question A: With the economy in lockdown, low-income workers who are above the poverty line will suffer a relatively bigger hit to their incomes than those further up the distribution (even accounting for all government support schemes).

Question B: With the economy in lockdown, existing gaps in access to quality education between high- and low-income households will be exacerbated.

Question C: The mortality impact of Covid-19 is likely to fall disproportionately on disadvantaged socio-economic groups.

Question A: Replacing the current US health insurance system (including employer-based health insurance, ACA exchange policies, and Medicaid) with universal ‘Medicare for All’ (mandatory enrollment in a modified version of the existing traditional Medicare program with drug coverage and no cost-sharing of any form, and current Medicare reimbursement rates) funded by federal taxes would lead to lower aggregate medical debt among patients.

Question B: Replacing the current US health insurance system as outlined in a) would lead to lower aggregate innovation in the pharmaceutical industry.

Question C: Replacing the current US health insurance system as outlined in a) would improve health outcomes for the majority of the population.

Question A: Having companies run to maximize shareholder value creates significant negative externalities for workers and communities.

Question B: Appropriately managed corporations could create significantly greater value than they currently do for a range of stakeholders – including workers, suppliers, customers and community members – with negligible impacts on shareholder value.

Question C: Effective mechanisms for boards of directors to ensure that CEOs act in ways that balance the interests of all stakeholders would be straightforward to introduce.

Question A: The first required class for undergraduate economics majors at my university accurately reflects the way that economists think about a range of economics problems.

Question B: The first required class for undergraduate economics majors at my university addresses the most pressing economic issues in the US.

Selecting candidates for membership of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) based primarily on their political views would lead to worse monetary policy outcomes than has been the case over the last 15 years.

Question A: Forcing Amazon to divest Whole Foods now would be in the public interest.

Question B: Acquisitions by large tech platforms where there are risks of anti-competitive effects like those posed by Amazon’s acquisition of Whole Foods should not be permitted.

Question C: Large tech platforms, such as Amazon Marketplace and Google Search, should be designated as ‘platform utilities' and broken apart from any participant on that platform.

Question A: Countries that borrow in their own currency should not worry about government deficits because they can always create money to finance their debt.

Question B: Countries that borrow in their own currency can finance as much real government spending as they want by creating money.

Raising the top federal marginal tax on earned personal income to 70% (and holding the rest of the current tax code, including the top bracket definition, fixed) would raise substantially more revenue (federal and state, combined) without lowering economic activity.

Because global supply chains are more important now, import tariffs are likely substantially more costly than they would have been 25 years ago.

The European Union often uses its antitrust powers to protect EU-based firms from international competition, rather than to promote greater competition in European markets.

Restricting eligibility for senior government economic-policy posts by requiring a graduate degree in economics would reduce the chances for good public policy outcomes.

Question A: Without changes in policy, a rising share of people who are over age 65 will exert a substantial downward influence on per capita real GDP in western European countries.

Question B: In European countries where the share of those over 65 is rising, there are net social benefits to adjusting retirement ages for state-financed (including pay-as-you-go) pension systems upwards, so that revised retirement ages better reflect longer life expectancies.

Question A: The concept of “maximum sustainable employment” is well defined enough to be used beneficially in economic policymaking.

Question B: Right now the US economy is operating below maximum sustainable employment.

Question A: If the US enacts a tax bill similar to those currently moving through the House and Senate — and assuming no other changes in tax or spending policy — US GDP will be substantially higher a decade from now than under the status quo.

Question B: If the US enacts a tax bill similar to those currently moving through the House and Senate — and assuming no other changes in tax or spending policy — the US debt-to-GDP ratio will be substantially higher a decade from now than under the status quo.

Insights from psychology about individual behavior – examples of which include limited rationality, low self-control, or a taste for fairness – predict several important types of observed market outcomes that fully-rational economic models do not.

The influx of refugees into Germany beginning in the summer of 2015 will generate net economic benefits for German citizens over the succeeding decade.

Because labor markets across different sectors are connected, rising productivity in manufacturing leads the cost of labor-intensive services — such as education and health care — to rise.

Question A: Since 1980, whenever substantial growth effects have been required to make a tax reform plan revenue neutral, the actual outcome has invariably been a fall in tax revenue as a share of GDP.

Question B: The tax reform plan proposed by President Trump this week would likely pay for itself through higher economic growth.

Question A: US share prices have risen since Donald Trump’s election victory at least partly because the policies he seems poised to implement are likely to increase US after-tax corporate profits.

Question B: US share prices have risen since Donald Trump’s election victory at least partly because the policies he seems poised to implement are likely to increase US real GDP growth.

The Council of Economic Advisors is likely to give the US president better policy advice if the Chair and Members of the CEA have published peer-reviewed economics research.

Long run fiscal sustainability in the US will require some combination of cuts in currently promised Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security benefits and/or tax increases that include higher taxes on households with incomes below $250,000.

Question A: Allowing US-based employers to hire many more immigrants with advanced degrees in science or engineering would lower (at least temporarily) the premium earned by current American workers with similar degrees.

Question B: Allowing US-based employers to hire many more immigrants with advanced degrees in science or engineering would raise per capita income in the US over time.

The ratio of the 90th to the 10th percentile of the US income distribution has been unaffected by the Federal Reserve's unconventional monetary policies since the financial crisis.

The “Cadillac tax” on expensive employer-provided health insurance plans will reduce costly distortions in US health care if it is allowed to take effect as scheduled in 2018.

Large movements in monthly oil prices, either up or down, are driven primarily by speculators, as opposed to changes in the current (and planned) supply or demand for oil.

Question A:

Expanding health insurance to more people through the ACA’s public subsidies and Medicaid expansion will reduce total healthcare spending in the economy.