Are the English proficiency and social outcomes of US immigrants the result of their cultural preferences or of more fundamental constraints? Using 2000 census microdata, we relate the English proficiency, marriage, fertility, and residential location variables of immigrants to their age at the...

We exploit a unique outlet-level dataset from a multinational chain with over 2,500 outlets in 43 countries to investigate the effects of labor regulations that protect employment. The dataset contains information on output, materials, and labor costs at a weekly frequency over several years,...

We offer evidence of gender selection within the United States. Analysis of comprehensive birth data shows unusually high boy-birth percentages after 1980 among later children (most notably third and fourth children) born to Chinese and Asian Indian mothers. Based upon linked data from...

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, millions of German expellees were resettled into the new borders of Germany, but not into the parts of Germany that were occupied by France. Using a spatial regression discontinuity framework, I estimate the persistence of the population shock over a...

We report an experiment in 3,000 villages that tested whether incentives improve aid efficacy. Villages received block grants for maternal and child health and education that incorporated relative performance incentives. Subdistricts were randomized into incentives, an otherwise identical...

Citizenship rights are associated with better economic opportunities for immigrants. This paper studies how in a country with a large fraction of temporary migrants the fertility decisions of foreign citizens respond to a change in the rules that regulate child legal status at birth. The...

This paper evaluates the impact of three major expansions in maternity leave coverage in Germany on children's long-run outcomes. To identify the causal impact of the reforms, we use a difference-indifference design that compares outcomes of children born shortly before and shortly after a...

We assess the implications of nonlinearity for IV and FE estimation when the estimated model is inappropriately assumed to be linear. Our application is the causal link between family income and child outcomes. Our nonlinear IV and FE estimates show an increasing, concave relationship between...

We study a Conditional Cash Transfer program in which the cash transfers to the mother only depend on the fulfillment of the national preventive visit schedule by her children born before she registered in the program. We estimate that preventive visits of children born after the mother...

This paper presents results from a randomized controlled trial whereby approximately 1,000 OLPC XO laptops were provided for home use to children attending primary schools in Lima, Peru. The intervention increased access and use of home computers, with some substitution away from computer use...