We estimate month-of-birth effects on cognitive and noncognitive skills, as well as factors relevant to skill formation. Our estimates indicate that younger students in a given grade cohort have lower cognitive and noncognitive skills. To shed light on the underlying mechanisms, we also examine...

Creativity is often highly concentrated in time and space, and across different domains. What explains the formation and decay of clusters of creativity? In this paper we match data on thousands of notable individuals born in Europe between the XIth and the XIXth century with historical data on...

In this paper, we study the determinants and consequences of educational and occupational aspirations. Basing our enquiry on the British NCDS 1958 cohort data, we assess the importance of aspirations for social mobility above and beyond other established determinants. We document educational and...

We compare employment and earnings of British graduates belonging to ethnic minorities to those of white British six months and three and a half years after graduation. Six months after graduation all ethnic minority graduates are less likely than whites to be employed but those who have a job...

We study the effects of performance bonuses in immigrant language training for adults. A Swedish policy pilot conducted in 2009-2010 gave a randomly assigned group of municipalities the right to grant substantial cash bonuses to recently arrived migrants. The results suggest substantial effects...

If individuals become aware of their stereotypes, do they change their behavior? We study this question in the context of teachers' bias in grading immigrants and native children in middle schools. Teachers give lower grades to immigrant students compared to natives who have the same performance...

This paper aims to explain the slow economic convergence between groups of different ancestries in the US, i.e. why these groups experience even less intergenerational mobility than individuals in the same country. It shows how excessively persistent inequality may be a long-lasting outcome of...

This paper develops and estimates a dynamic model where individuals differ in ability and location preference to evaluate the mechanisms that affect the evolution of immigrants' careers in conjunction with their re-migration plans. Our analysis highlights a novel form of selective return...

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