A fundamental question for education policy is whether outcomes-based accountability including comprehensive educator evaluations and a closer relationship between effectiveness and compensation improves the quality of instruction and raises achievement. We use synthetic control methods to study...

We provide new evidence that cash transfers following the birth of a first child can have large and long-lasting effects on that child's outcomes. We take advantage of the January 1 birthdate cutoff for U.S. child-related tax benefits, which results in families of otherwise similar children...

This paper estimates teachers' impacts on their students' future criminal justice contact (CJC). Using a unique data set linking the universe of North Carolina public school data to administrative arrest records, we find a standard deviation of teacher effects on students' future arrests of 2.7...

This paper studies the causal impacts of public universities on the outcomes of their marginally admitted students. I use administrative admission records spanning all 35 public universities in Texas, which collectively enroll 10 percent of American public university students, to systematically...

A recent critique of using teachers' test score value-added (TVA) is that teacher quality is multifaceted; some teachers are effective in raising test scores, others are effective in improving long-term outcomes. This paper exploits an institutional setting where high school teachers are randomly...

Macroeconomic models often incorporate some form of wage stickiness to help account for employment fluctuations. However, a recent literature calls in to question this approach, citing evidence of new hire wage cyclicality from panel data studies as evidence for contractual wage flexibility for...

We examine whether greater Medicaid generosity encourages mobility towards riskier but better jobs in higher paid occupations and industries. We use Current Population Survey Data and exploit variation in Medicaid thresholds across states and over time through the 1990s and 2000s. We find that...

We document several facts about workforce transitions from the informal to the formal sector in Vietnam, a fast growing, industrializing, and low-income country. First, younger workers, particularly migrants, are more likely to work in the formal sector and stay there permanently. Second, the...

Why is unemployment higher for younger individuals? We address this question in a frictional model of the labor market that features learning about occupational fit. In order to learn the occupation in which they are most productive, workers sample occupations over their careers. Because young...

This paper traces career transitions of federal and state U.S. banking regulators from a large sample of publicly available curricula vitae, and provides basic facts on worker flows between the regulatory and private sector resulting from the revolving door. We find strong countercyclical net...