This study examines the labor-market returns of skill signals. We identify the labor-market effect of grade point averages (GPA) by leveraging a nationwide change in the scaling of grades in Danish universities. Results show that a reform-induced increase in GPA that is unrelated to ability...

In this paper, we describe a novel iterative procedure called SISTA to learn the underlying cost in optimal transport problems. SISTA is a hybrid between two classical methods, coordinate descent ("S"-inkhorn) and proximal gradient descent ("ISTA"). It alternates between a phase of exact...

The empirical literature on employer learning assumes that employers learn about unobserved ability differences across workers as they spend time in the labor market. This article describes testable implications that arise from this basic hypothesis and how they have been used to quantify the...

We conduct a randomized controlled trial with households of secondary school students in Bangladesh to investigate how parents adjust their investments in response to three educational interventions: an informational campaign about an educational phone application, an internet data subsidy, and...

This paper addresses the steep learning curve in Machine Learning faced by noncomputer scientists, particularly social scientists, stemming from the absence of a primer on its fundamental principles. I adopt a pedagogical strategy inspired by the adage "once you understand OLS, you can work your...

A pre-condition for employer learning is that signals at labor market entry do not fully reveal graduates' productivity. I model various distinct sources of signal imperfection - such as noise and multi-dimensional types - and characterize their implications for the private return to skill...

We examine how informational frictions impact schooling and work outcomes. To do so, we estimate a dynamic structural model where individuals face uncertainty about their academic ability and productivity, which respectively determine their schooling utility and wages. Our framework accounts for...

Field evidence suggests that people belonging to the same group often behave similarly, i.e., behaviour exhibits social interaction effects. We conduct an experiment that avoids the identification problem present in the field. Our novel design feature is that each subject simultaneously is a...