How does the financial aid allocation mechanism affect student behavior? We provide a framework for quantifying the impact of financial aid on student debt, academic capital, and labor market outcomes. We specify and estimate a dynamic discrete choice model of simultaneous education, work, and...

A regression model is considered where earnings are explained by schooling and ability. It is assumed that schooling is measured with error and that there are no data on ability. Regressing earnings on observed schooling then yields an estimate of the return to schooling that is subject to...

This paper examines the fertility transition through a new lens: the extensive margin. Parents with high levels of children might substitute quality for quantity as the constraints on quality relax or those on quantity tighten. However, along the extensive margin, the quantity-quality trade-off...

We provide an axiomatization-based justification for applying the Owen value to decompose R2 in OLS models if prior knowledge can be used to form groups of regressor variables. The assumptions made by the axioms are not only plausible with respect to the variables but also clarify the meaning of...

This paper decomposes differences in poverty incidence (head count ratio) using estimates from a regression equation, synthesizing the approaches proposed in World Bank (2003) and Yun (2004). A significance test is developed for characteristics and coefficients effects when decomposing...

Consider an observed binary regressor D and an unobserved binary variable D*, both of which affect some other variable Y. This paper considers nonparametric identification and estimation of the effect of D on Y , conditioning on D* = 0. For example, suppose Y is a person's wage, the unobserved D...

Using parametric return autocorrelation tests and non parametric variance ratio statistics show that the UK and US short-term interest rates are unit root processes with significant mean reverting components. Congruent with this empirical evidence, we develop a new continuous time term structure...

Since the early 1990s, the number of papers estimating econometric models and using other quantitative techniques to try to understand different aspects of the Chinese economy has mushroomed. A common feature of some of these studies is the use of neoclassical theory as the underpinning for the...

In contrast to his contribution to other areas, Shubhashis Gangopadhyay's contributions to our understanding of poverty are often thought of as indirect consequences of the main themes of his work. Yet in more than 15 published papers Gangopadhyay directly takes on poverty, including its...

Omitted variable bias (OVB) of OLS estimators is a serious and ubiquitous problem in social science research. Often researchers use the direction of the bias in substantive arguments or to motivate estimation methods to deal with the bias. This paper offers a geometric interpretation of OVB that...