Centralized school assignment algorithms must distinguish between applicants with the same preferences and priorities. This is done with randomly assigned lottery numbers, nonlottery tie-breakers like test scores, or both. The New York City public high school match illustrates the latter, using...

Research on child skill formation and related policies typically rely on parent- reported measures of child non-cognitive skills. In this paper, we show that parental assessments of child non-cognitive skills are directly affected by the skills of the parents. We develop a dynamic model of child...

In this paper we highlight an important property of the translog production function for the identification of treatment effects in a model of latent skill formation. We show that when using a translog specification of the skill technology, properly anchored treatment effect estimates are...

This paper proposes a decomposition of the composition effect, i.e. the part of the observed between-group difference in the distribution of some economic outcome that can be explained by differences in the distribution of covariates. Our decomposition contains three types of components: (i) the...

This paper proposes a decomposition of the composition effect, i.e. the part of the observed between-group difference in the distribution of some economic outcome that can be explained by differences in the distribution of covariates. Our decomposition contains three types of components: (i) the...

The economic mobility of individuals and households is of fundamental interest. While many measures of economic mobility exist, reliance on transition matrices remains pervasive due to simplicity and ease of interpretation. However, estimation of transition matrices is complicated by the...

Survey error is known to be pervasive and to bias even simple, but important estimates of means, rates, and totals, such as poverty statistics and the unemployment rate. To summarize and analyze the extent, sources, and consequences of survey error, we define empirical counterparts of key...

We describe methods of combining administrative and survey data to improve the measurement of income. We begin by decomposing the total survey error in the mean of survey reports of dollars received from a government transfer program. We decompose this error into three parts, generalized...

We examine economic mobility in India while rigorously accounting for measurement error. Such an analysis is imperative to fully understand the welfare effects of the rise in inequality that has occurred in India over the past few decades. To proceed, we extend recently developed methods on the...

This study looks at the effects of participating in active labour market policy programs for persons with work disabilities. More in detail, it draws attention to the importance of taking into account the timing of when a work disability has been registered for persons attending ALMP programs....