The so-called leverage hypothesis is that negative shocks to prices/ returns affect volatility more than equal positive shocks. Whether this is attributable to changing financial leverage is still subject to dispute but the terminology is in wide use. There are many tests of the leverage...

This paper develops and applies a Bayesian approach to Exploratory Factor Analysis that improves on ad hoc classical approaches. Our framework relies on dedicated factor models and simultaneously determines the number of factors, the allocation of each measurement to a unique factor, and the...

We develop a general class of nonparametric tests for treatment effects conditional on covariates. We consider a wide spectrum of null and alternative hypotheses regarding conditional treatment effects, including (i) the null hypothesis of the conditional stochastic dominance between treatment...

This paper formulates and estimates multistage production functions for children's cognitive and noncognitive skills. Skills are determined by parental environments and investments at different stages of childhood. We estimate the elasticity of substitution between investments in one period and...