Conventional difference-in-differences (DID) methods that are used to estimate the effect of a treatment rely on important identifying assumptions. Identification of the treatment effect in a DID framework requires some assumption relating trends for controls and treated in absence of treatment,...

We study the optimal provision of unemployment insurance (UI) in a framework that distinguishes between consumption and expenditure. We derive a "sufficient statistics" formula for optimal UI that is expressed terms of observable variables and can therefore be used in applied work. Recent...

The core assumption to identify the treatment effect in difference-in-differences estimators is the so-called Parallel Paths assumption, namely that the average change in outcome for the treated in the absence of treatment equals the average change in outcome for the non-treated. We define a...

In order to understand what motivates parents to send their children to work, I apply a collective household model introducing child labor explicitly. Using data from Mexico, I estimate the mothers' bargaining power separately from the other parameters of the model. This parameter is then used...

We show that under standard assumptions a Tullock contest with asymmetric information has a pure strategy Bayesian equilibrium. Moreover, two-player common-value Tullock contests in which one of the players has an information advantage have a unique equilibrium. In equilibrium both players exert...

Using a large and rich data set from administrative sources, we study the effects of children on mothers’ employment and earnings in Spain. By being able to pinpoint the event of multiple births along a twenty-year panel of women’s work history, we address two methodological hurdles in this...

This paper provides a farm sector comparison of relative levels of capital input for seventeen OECD countries for the period 1973-2011. The starting point for construction of a measure of capital input is the measurement of capital stock. Estimates of depreciable capital are derived by...

This paper introduces an agency relationship into a dynamic game with informational externalities. Two principals bargain with their respective agents about the production cost which is the private information of the agents and is correlated between them. We find that the agency relationship...

This paper introduce a list of desirable efficiency properties that any a patent system should have in order to enhance innovation, trade competitiveness, employment mobility and economic growth. We briefly overview the literature on patents and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the...

Using a club theory approach, this paper provides an equilibrium model in which traders must belong to at least one bourse in order to trade assets. We show, by means of examples, that: 1) traders’ complementarities in preferences and endowments can determine the formation of both large...