The dispersion of individual returns to experience, often referred to as heterogeneity of income profiles (HIP), is a key parameter in empirical human capital models, in studies of life-cycle income inequality, and in heterogeneous agent models of life-cycle labor market dynamics. It is commonly...

Administrative data from a large and diverse community college are used to examine if underrepresented minority students benefit from taking courses with underrepresented minority instructors. To identify racial interactions we estimate models that include both student and classroom fixed...

This paper provides a complete characterization of optimal contracts in principal-agent settings where the agent's action has persistent effects. We model general information environments via the stochastic process of the likelihood-ratio. The martingale property of this performance metric...

This dissertation is comprised of three papers. In Chapter 1 I analyze if career heterogeneity in terms of life-cycle earnings, occupational mobility and unemployment is predominantly driven by skills acquired prior to labor market entry or by decisions made and shocks accumulated over the...

The dispersion of individual returns to experience, often referred to as heterogeneity of income profiles (HIP), is a key parameter in empirical human capital models, in studies of life-cycle income inequality, and in heterogeneous agent models of life-cycle labor market dynamics. It is commonly...

Embedding consumer experimentation with a product or service into a market environment, we find that unregulated contracts induce too few returns or cancella tions, as they do not internalize a pecuniary externality on other firms in the market. Forcing firms to let consumers learn longer by...

We study the wage and employment effects of a German place-based policy using a research design that exploits conditionally exogenous EU-wide rules governing the program parameters at the regional level. The place-based program subsidi- zes investments to create jobs with a subsidy rate that...

Our paper evaluates recent regulatory proposals mandating the deferral of bonus payments and claw-back clauses in the financial sector. We study a broadly applicable principal agent setting, in which the agent exerts effort for an immediately observable task (acquisition) and a task for which...