This study investigates whether models of forward-looking behavior explain the observed patterns of heavy drinking and smoking of men in late middle age in the Health and Retirement Study better than myopic models. We develop and estimate a sequence of nested models which differ by their degree...

Games with asymmetric information play a prominent role in the theoretical literature of malpractice disputes. The common modeling framework in many papers is a game in extensive form which consists of two stages. In the first stage, one agent makes a settlement demand, and the other agent...

The purpose of the paper is to study the incentive and distributional consequences of income taxation in a dynamic model. The framework is estimated under a set of different identifying assumptions using parametric, non-parametric, and semi-parametric techniques. Based on the estimation results,...

Recent econometric studies of the effect of taxes on charitable giving have called into question the behavioral parameters derived from cross-section models. In particular, these studies imply that taxes affect contributions primarily by influencing their timing, not their long-term levels. The...

The goal of this paper is to develop predictions regarding market consequences of peer effects in higher education and to offer empirical evidence about the extent to which those predictions are borne out in the data. We develop a model in which colleges seek to maximize the quality of the...

Research over the past several years has led to development of models characterizing equilibrium in a system of local jurisdictions. An important insight from these models is that plausible single-crossing assumptions about preferences generate strong predictions about the equilibrium...

The use of finite mixture distributions to control for unobserved heterogeneity has become increasingly popular among those estimating dynamic discrete choice models. One of the barriers to using mixture models is that parameters that could previously be estimated in stages must now be estimated...

Large earnings and ability differences exist across majors. This paper seeks to estimate the monetary returns to particular majors as well as find the causes of the ability sorting across majors. In order to accomplish this, I estimate a dynamic model of college and major choice. Even after...

Unequal outcomes for blacks and whites include earnings inequality, which increases with age, and differences in unemployment rates. I develop a matching model with search discrimination and human capital accumulation. Multiple equilibria exist, one with low unemployment rates and steep earnings...

We provide evidence that graduating from college plays a direct role in revealing ability to the labor market. Using the NLSY79, our results suggest that ability is observed nearly perfectly for college graduates. In contrast, returns to AFQT for high school graduates are initially very close to...