The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the discussion of the effects of published school rankings based on average scores obtained by students on national exams. We study the effectiveness of this (low-stakes) accountability mechanism; we analyze whether students react to these rankings,...

PISA uses a complex sampling procedure based on stratification variables chosen by the participating countries’ authorities. In this paper we analyse the representativeness of the samples used in terms of the distribution of students per grade and track of studies for Portugal. For the three...

Evidence of the statistical significance of profits in Q regressions remains one of the principal findings in the empirical investment literature. This result is taken to support the view that capital market imperfections are an important element for understanding investment. This paper...

Understanding the nature of financial frictions faced by firms is relevant for both monetary and fiscal policy experiments. Empirical investment studies commonly find that proxies for firms' internal funds are significant as explanatory variables, particularly in the Q-theory based regression...

We take the standard machine replacement model and introduce uncertainty about the productivity differential of new vintages made available as time passes. In particular, agents are uncertain about the quality of their match with a new vintage until they adopt it. Uncertainty allows us to...

Evidence of the statistical significance of profits in Q regressions remains one of the principal findings in the empirical investment literature. This result is taken to support the view that capital market imperfections are an important element for understanding investment. This paper...