Using an extensive survey that addresses risk factors faced by the population in the shantytowns (favelas) of Fortaleza, Brazil, the aim of this paper is to study risk-taking behavior by youth, focusing on drug use and teenage pregnancy. The paper analyzes the impact of factors such as exposure...

Using Canadian time use data, we exploit variation in local unemployment rates to investigate the cyclical nature of sleep time and show that for both men and women, sleep time decreases when the economy is doing relatively better. Our results suggest that in a recession Canadians sleep an...

In this paper, I use data from the Canadian Labour Force Surveys (LFS), and the 2001 and 2006 Canadian Censuses to estimate the impact of an important labour supply shock on the earnings of young high-school graduates. The abolition of Ontario's Grade 13 generated a very large cohort of...

This paper examines the implication of the decision to give 2006 Census respondents the option of letting Statistics Canada access their income tax files rather than answering income-related questions directly. We find that giving respondents the option to share their income tax files (or not)...

Numerous studies suggest that the value of high school education is large for potential dropouts, yet we know much less about the benefits for students who will go on to postsecondary education. To help fill this gap I measure, using a recent Ontario high school reform, the valueadded (in terms...

This paper provides new evidence of gender differences in response to increased competition, focusing on important life tasks performed in a regular social environment. The analysis takes advantage of a major education reform in Ontario that exogenously increased competition for university...