This paper studies the effects of school vouchers in Chile, which adopted a nationwide school voucher program 25 years ago. Chile has a relatively unregulated, decentralized, competitive market in primary and secondary education and therefore provides a unique setting in which to study how...

In 1980, Chile dramatically reformed its retirement system, replacing what was an old insolvent PAYGO program with a new structure that relies heavily on funded defined contribution individual accounts. In addition, eligibility and benefit requirements were standardized, and a safety net for...

This dissertation analyzes the effect of the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) on the labor force participation rates of married women with children. This Act required employers to treat pregnancy in the same way as a temporary disability. The effect of the PDA is assessed using two...

A recent data set from the city of Changsha is used to estimate the impact of social support programs on employment for low-income urban workers in China. The Chinese urban household registration system i(hukou),/i which determines whether an individual is eligible for social support programs,...

While the Surgeon General's Consumer Guide lists weight-gain as an important relapse trigger, the 2001 Surgeon General's Report on Women and Smoking concludes, paradoxically, that actual weight-gain during cessation does not appear to predict relapse. This dichotomous view reflects longstanding...

In this paper we examine how children affect happiness and relationships within a family by analyzing two unique questions in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth's 1997 cohort. We find that (a) presence of children is associated with a loss of spousal love; (b) loss of spousal love is...

What criteria should be used to evaluate the impact of a new employee wellness program when the initial vendor contract expires? Published academic literature focuses on return-on-investment as the gold standard for wellness program evaluation, and a recent meta-analysis concludes that wellness...