A novel experiment is used to show that the effect of a policy on the level of cooperation is greater when it is chosen democratically by the subjects than when it is exogenously imposed. In contrast to the previous literature, our experimental design allows us to control for selection effects...

This chapter provides a selective review of some contemporary approaches to program evaluation. One motivation for our review is the recent emergence and increasing use of a particular kind of "program" in applied microeconomic research, the so-called Regression Discontinuity (RD) Design of...

We estimate the demand for a videocalling technology in the presence of both network effects and heterogeneity. Using a unique dataset from a large multinational firm, we pose and estimate a fully dynamic model of technology adoption. We propose a novel identification strategy based on...

We ask whether failing one or more of the state-mandated high-school exit examinations affects whether students graduate from high school. Using a new multi-dimensional regression-discontinuity approach, we examine simultaneously scores on mathematics and English language arts tests. Barely...

In this paper, we propose an extension of the productivity decomposition method developed by Olley & Pakes (1996). This extension provides an accounting for the contributions of both firm entry and exit to aggregate productivity changes. It breaks down the contribution of surviving firms into a...

Many believe that "big data" will transform business, government and other aspects of the economy. In this article we discuss how new data may impact economic policy and economic research. Large-scale administrative datasets and proprietary private sector data can greatly improve the way we...

Haavelmo's seminal 1943 paper is the first rigorous treatment of causality. In it, he distinguished the definition of causal parameters from their identification. He showed that causal parameters are defined using hypothetical models that assign variation to some of the inputs determining...

We introduce a simple and robust approach to answering two key questions in empirical auction analysis: discriminating between models of entry and quantifying the revenue gains from improving auction design. The approach builds on Bulow and Klemperer (1996), connecting their theoretical results...

Recent studies based on US data have provided evidence to suggest that the 'quarter of birth' (QOB) may be endogenous and that the use of QOB as an instrumental variable will consequently produce inconsistent estimates (see Buckles and Hungerman, 2013). Such potential endogeneity is addressed in...

Publication bias in economics may lead to selective specification searches that result in overreporting in the published literature of results consistent with economists' priors. In reassessing the published time-series studies on the employment effects of minimum wages, some recent research has...