How can information substitute or complement financial incentives such as Pigouvian subsidies? We answer this question in a large-scale field experiment that cross-randomizes energy efficiency subsidies with information about the financial savings of LED lighting. Information has two effects: It...

Active Labour Market Policies often exclusively target towards the long-term unemployed. Although it might be more efficient to intervene earlier in order to prevent long-term unemployment rather than to cure it, the climate of austerity in Eurozone countries is spreading a tendency to further...

We estimate the effect of an increase in time cost on the return behavior of blood donors. Using data from the Australia Red Cross Blood Service, we ask what happens when pro-social behavior becomes more costly. Exploiting a natural variation in which donor wait times are random, we use the...

Governments are showing an increasing interest in quantitative models that give insights into the determinants of unemployment duration. Yet, these models oftentimes do not explicitly take into account that unemployment prospects are influenced by personality characteristics that are not being...

We estimate the effect of an increase in time cost on the return behavior of blood donors. Using data from the Australia Red Cross Blood Service, we ask what happens when pro-social behavior becomes more costly. Exploiting a natural variation in which donor wait times are random, we use the...

What do markets for voluntary climate protection imply about people's valuations of en- vironmental protection? I study this question in a large-scale field experiment (N=255,000) with a delivery service, where customers are offered carbon offsets that compensate for emissions. To estimate...

We study the labor supply implications of the Old-Age Pension Act (OPA) of 1908, which, for the first time, provided pensions to older people in the UK. Using recently released census data covering the entire population, we exploit variation at the newly created age-based eligibility threshold....

This paper analyzes the impact of load factor, facility and generator types on the productivity of Korean electric power plants. In order to capture important differences in the effect of load policy on power output, we use a semiparametric smooth coefficient (SPSC) model that allows us to model...

We study semiparametric two-step estimators which have the same structure as parametric doubly robust estimators in their second step, but retain a fully nonparametric specification in the first step. Such estimators exist in many economic applications, including a wide range of missing data and...

Nonparametric techniques are usually seen as a statistic device for data description and exploration, and not as a tool for estimating models with a richer economic structure, which are often required for policy analysis. This paper presents an example where nonparametric flexibility can be...