Does the lack of wealth constrain parents' investments in the human capital of their descendants? We conduct a fifty-year followup of an episode in which such constraints would have been plausibly relaxed by a random allocation of wealth to families. We track descendants of those eligible to win...

This paper formulates a structural dynamic programming model of preschool investment choices of altruistic parents and then empirically estimates the structural parameters of the model using the NLSY79 data. The paper finds that preschool investment significantly boosts cognitive and...

Participation of beneficiaries in the monitoring of public services is increasingly seen as a key to improving their efficiency. In India, the current government flagship program on universal primary education organizes both locally elected leaders and parents of children enrolled in public...

An estimated 20 million children born each year are at risk of brain damage from in utero iodine deficiency, the only micronutrient deficiency known to have significant, non-reversible effects on cognitive development. Cognitive damage from iodine deficiency disorders (IDD) has potentially...

We present evidence on whether and how a household's behavior is influenced by the presence and characteristics of its extended family. Using household panel data from the Progresa program in rural Mexico, we exploit information on the paternal and maternal surnames of heads and spouses in...

Commitment devices offer an opportunity to restrict future choices. However, if severe restrictions deter participation, weaker restrictions may be a more effective means of changing behavior. We test this using a school-based commitment savings device for educational expenses in Uganda. We...

The intergenerational transmission of human capital and the extent to which policy interventions can affect it is an issue of importance. Policies are often evaluated on either short term outcomes or just in terms of their effect on individuals directly targeted. If such policies shift outcomes...

This paper develops a model to study the aggregate effects of labor market frictions in an open economy through their impact on the growth and investment decisions of firms. The model features interactions between firms' dynamic fixed investments in exporting and search frictions with job-to-job...

This paper develops a theory in which society-wide economic outcomes shape individual aspirations, which affect the investment incentives of individuals. Through its impact on investments, aspirations in turn affect ambient social outcomes. We explore this two-way link. A central feature is that...

In the past two decades, China's manufacturing exports have grown spectacularly, U.S. imports from China have surged, but U.S. exports to China have increased only modestly. Using representative, longitudinal data on individual earnings by employer, we analyze the effect of exposure to import...