The most common forms of government-mandated job displacement insurance are Severance Pay (SP; lump-sum payments at layoff) and Unemployment Insurance (UI; periodic payments contingent on nonemployment). While there is a vast literature on UI, SP programs have received much less attention, even...

A growing body of research shows that firms' employment and wage-setting policies contribute to wage inequality and pay disparities between groups. We measure the effects of these policies on racial pay differences in Brazil. We find that nonwhites are less likely to work at establishments that...

A growing body of evidence documents that policies can affect household behaviors persistently, even if they are no longer in place. This paper studies the importance of such "hysteresis" - the failure of an effect to reverse itself as its underlying cause is reversed - for the welfare...

We investigate the link between hospital performance and managerial education by collecting a large database of management practices and skills in hospitals across nine countries. We find that hospitals that are closer to universities offering both medical education and business education have...

We measure the behavior of 1,114 CEOs in six countries parsing granular CEO diary data through an unsupervised machine learning algorithm. The algorithm uncovers two distinct behavioral types: "leaders" and "managers". Leaders focus on multi-function, high-level meetings, while managers focus on...

It is widely believed that the presence of a large informal sector increases the efficiency cost of social programs - transfer and social insurance programs - in developing countries. We evaluate such claims for policies that have been heavily studied in countries with low informality -...

We collect data on operations, targets and human resources management practices in over 1,800 schools educating 15-year-olds in eight countries. Overall, we show that higher management quality is strongly associated with better educational outcomes. The UK, Sweden, Canada and the US obtain the...

We exploit a 2004 credit reform in Brazil that simplified the sale of repossessed cars used as collateral for auto loans. We show that the change has led to larger loans with lower spreads and longer maturities. The reform expanded credit to riskier, low-income borrowers for newer, more...

We analyze the link between economic conditions and the quality of suicide terrorism. While the existing empirical literature shows that poverty and economic conditions are not correlated with the quantity of terror, theory predicts that poverty and poor economic conditions may affect the...