We propose a specification test for a wide range of parametric models for the conditional distribution function of an outcome variable given a vector of covariates. The test is based on the Cramer-von Mises distance between an unrestricted estimate of the joint distribution function of the data,...

Researchers are often interested in estimating the causal effect of some treatment on individual criminality. For example, two recent relatively prominent papers have attempted to estimate the respective direct effects of marriage and gang participation on individual criminal activity. One...

This paper provides a meta-analysis of 55 empirical studies estimating the employment effects of minimum wages in 15 industrial countries. It strongly confirms the notion that the effects of minimum wages are heterogeneous between countries. As possible sources of heterogeneity, it considers the...

This paper examines the long-term impacts on health and healthy behaviors of two of the oldest and most widely cited U.S. early childhood interventions evaluated by the method of randomization with long-term follow-up: the Perry Preschool Project (PPP) and the Carolina Abecedarian Project (ABC)....

Targeted employment subsidy programs are commonly employed by governments. This study examines one such initiative that rebated unemployment insurance premiums for net new insurable employment for youth aged 18 to 24. Using microdata from two datasets to estimate the labour market impacts of...

This paper is concerned with testing the time series implications of the capital asset pricing model (CAPM) due to Sharpe (1964) and Lintner (1965), when the number of securities, N, is large relative to the time dimension, T, of the return series. In the case of cross-sectionally correlated...

In this paper, we build a new test of rational expectations based on the marginal distributions of realizations and subjective beliefs. This test is widely applicable, including in the common situation where realizations and beliefs are observed in two different datasets that cannot be matched....

Standard income inequality indices can be interpreted as a measure of welfare loss entailed in departures from equality of outcomes, for egalitarian social welfare functions defined on the distribution of outcomes. But such a welfare interpretation has been criticized for a long time on the...

We examine empirically the impacts of labor market policies - in terms of unemployment insurance (UI) and active labor market programs (ALMP) - on the duration and outcome of job search and on the quality of a subsequent job. We find that time invested in job search tends to pay off in the form...

We consider the possibility that demographic variables are measured with errors which arise because household surveys measure demographic structures at a point-in-time, whereas household composition evolves throughout the survey period. We construct and estimate sharp bounds on household size...