Why do people have kids in developed societies? We propose an empirical test of two alternative theories - children as "consumptionʺ vs. "investmentʺ good. We use as a natural experiment the Italian pension reforms of the 90s that introduced a clear discontinuity in the treatment across...

Education policy-makers and practitioners want to know which policies and practices can best achieve their goals. But research that can inform evidence-based policy often requires complex methods to distinguish causation from accidental association. Avoiding econometric jargon and technical...

This paper considers the problems facing decision-makers using econometric models in real time. It identifies the key stages involved and highlights the role of automated systems in reducing the effect of data snooping. It sets out many choices that researchers face in construction of automated...

Assumptions about explanatory variables and errors are central in regression analysis. For example, the well-known method of ordinary least squares yields consistent and efficient estimators if the underlying error terms are independently, identically, and normally distributed. Additionally, the...

I discuss the econometrics and the economics of past research on the effects of minimum wages on employment in the United States. My intent is to try to identify key questions raised in the recent literature, and some from the earlier literature, which I think hold the most promise for...

In this paper, we study the statistical properties of heterogeneous agent models with incomplete markets. Using a Bewley-Hugget-Aiyagari model we compute the equilibrium density function of wealth and show how it can be used for likelihood inference. We investigate the identifiability of the...

In a standard adverse selection world, asymmetric information about product quality leads to quality deterioration in the market. Suppose that a higher investment level makes the realization of high quality more likely. Then, if consumers observe the investment (but not the realization of...

We study the effect of a declining labor force on the incentives to engage in labor-saving technical change and ask how this effect is influenced by institutional characteristics of the pension scheme. When labor is scarcer it becomes more expensive and innovation investments that increase labor...