This article decomposes the observed gaps in educational attainment and school-to-work transitions between grandchildren of natives and immigrants in Belgium into (i) differences in observed family endowments and (ii) a residual “pure ethnic gap”. It innovates by explicitly taking delays in...

The external influence of scholarly activity has to date been measured primarily in terms of publications and citations, metrics that also dominate the promotion and grant processes. Yet the array of scholarly activities visible to the outside world are far more extensive and recently developed...

This paper highlights the potential for joint OECD (or non-OPEC) carbon taxes to reduce OPEC’s monopoly rent and provide benefit to non-OPEC countries provided jointly agreed trigger strategies are adhered to. In traditional economic theory, the primary purpose of a carbon tax is to...

This paper presents a study of backward and forward patent citations in patents granted to firms and institutions in the Netherlands by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The study establishes different patterns of patent citation in recent Dutch patents belonging to...

The European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) is a rotational panel provided by Eurostat that covers important variables over all EU Member States. Unfortunately, Eurostat provides separate data sets which do not cover all waves. Furthermore, information on monthly...

Critics of international student comparisons argue that results may be influenced by differences in the extent to which countries adequately sample their entire student populations. In this research note, we show that larger exclusion and non-response rates are related to better country average...

Today 2.6 billion people in developing countries rely on biomass as primary cooking fuel, with profound negative implications for their well-being. Improved biomass cooking stoves are alleged to counteract these adverse effects. This paper evaluates take-up and impacts of low-cost improved...

We present results from a field experiment designed to measure the importance of managerial commitment to a contract within a firm that pays its workers piece rates. In the tree planting industry the piece rate paid to workers is determined as a function of the difficulty of the terrain to be...

We conduct a field experiment in a naturally occurring labor environment and track whether the performance of workers responds to unexpected wage increases. Specifically, we investigate how the timing of wage increases affects efforts. We find that workers’ performance is about 11% higher for...

People respond to those who ask. Within the charitable fundraising community, the power of the ask represents the backbone of most fundraising strategies. Despite this, the optimal design of communication strategies has received less formal attention. For their part, economists have recently...