This paper empirically evaluates the effects of college admissions policies on high school student performance. To this end, I build a model where high school students decide their level of effort and whether to take the college admissions test, taking into consideration how those decisions may...

I develop and structurally estimate a non-stationary overlapping generations equilibrium model of employment and workers' health insurance and wage compensation, to investigate the determinants of rising inequality in health insurance and wages in the U.S. over the last 30 years. I find that...

This paper examines the extent to which the positive relationship between personal wealth and entry into entrepreneurship is due to financing constraints. I exploit a tax reform and use unique micro-data from Denmark to study how exogenous changes in the cost of external finance shape both the...

This paper studies the determinants of children’s scores on tests of cognitive achievement in math and reading. Using rich longitudinal data on test scores, home environments, and schools, we implement alternative specifications for the production function for achievement and test their...

This paper posits a notion of the value of an individual’s human capital and the associated return on human capital. These concepts are examined using U.S. data on male earnings and financial asset returns. We decompose the value of human capital into a bond, a stock and a residual value...

Asymmetric information is an important source of inefficiency when assets (like firms) are transacted. The two main sources of this asymmetry are unobserved idiosyncratic characteristics of the asset (for example, quality) and unobserved idiosyncratic choices (actions done by the current...

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs have spread worldwide as a new form of social assistance for the poor. Previous evaluations of CCT programs focus mainly on rural settings, and little is known about their effects in urban areas. This paper studies the short-term (one and two-year)...

In this paper, we propose a new approach to the empirical study of the relationships among schooling, youth employment and youth crime which provides a comprehensive analysis of the dynamic interactions among these choices and exposure to the criminal justice system. The empirical framework...

We analyze the dynamics of worker mobility in the United States over the 1968-1993 period at various levels of occupational and industry aggregation. We find a substantial overall increase in occupational and industry mobility over the period and document the levels and time trends in mobility...