We study whether student-advisor gender and race composition matters for publication productivity of Ph.D. students in South Africa. We consider all Ph.D. students in STEM graduating between 2000 and 2014, after the recent systematic introduction of doctoral programs in this country. We...

Concern exists that public funding of science is increasingly risk averse. Funders have addressed this concern by soliciting the submission of high-risk research to either regular or specially designed programs. Little evidence, however, has been gathered to examine the extent to which such...

The scholarly impact of academic research matters for academic promotions, influence, relevance to public policy, and others. Focusing on writing style in top-level professional journals, we examine how it changes with age, and how stylistic differences and age affect impact. As top-level...

Using data describing all "Top 5" economics journal publications from 1969-2018, we examine what determines which authors produce less as they age and which retire earlier. Sub-field has no impact on the rate of production, but interacts with it to alter retirement probabilities. A positive,...

We examine the dynamics of a country's growth, consumption, and sovereign debt, assuming that the government is myopic and wants to maximize short-term, self-interested spending. Surprisingly, government myopia can increase a country's access to external borrowing. In turn, access to borrowing...

We study a unique grading policy at a large US public university allowing students to mask their letter grades into a "Pass", after having observed their original grade. Using administrative transcript records, we find that female students are substantially less likely to mask their grades than...

In recent decades, Chinese researchers have become preeminent contributors to the scientific enterprise, as reflected by the number of publications originating from Chinese research institutions. China's rise in science has the potential to push forward the global frontier, but mere production...

In Fall 2014, Wellesley College began mandating pass/fail grading for courses taken by first-year, first-semester students, although instructors continued to record letter grades. We identify the causal effect of the policy on course choice and performance, using a...

While the direct impacts of minimum wage changes on employment have received considerable attention, these policy changes have the potential to impact skill attainment by changing the opportunity cost of college enrollment. Using institutional data on college enrollment and program completion,...

How do college students and postsecondary institutions react to changes in skill demand in the U.S. labor market? We quantify the magnitude and nature of response in the 4-year sector using a new measure of labor demand at the institution-major level that combines online job ads with geographic...