How does the distribution of power within the household affect the nutrition of its members? In 1998, the largest social program in rural Mexico (PROGRESA) designed a random experiment for the purpose of evaluation. Exploiting the experimental nature of the data, I estimate calorie demand...

This paper considers the use of statistical profiling to allocate persons to alternative options within government programs, or to participation or non-participation in programs. Profiling has been used in the United States to allocate unemployment insurance (UI) claimants to reemployment...

My dissertation is composed of two essays in Labor Economics. The first chapter examines how employers learn about workers' unobserved productivity when learning is asymmetric between incumbent and outside firms. I develop an asymmetric employer learning model in which endogenous job mobility is...

In the first chapter I study racial differences in the impact of education on labor income volatility. Using panel data on black and white males from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics I find that education reduces labor income volatility more for blacks than for whites. The central...

One of the major problems in developing countries is that of unemployment and underemployment. Thus the use of active labor market policies constitutes a very significant part of the policy debate. This dissertation analyzes the training component of one such policies in Mexico: PROBECAT-SICAT...

My thesis explores the following question: how workers of different skill are allocated across jobs and unemployment over the business cycle. I am interestedin understanding the "over-qualification" of workers that occurs during periods of high unemployment, as increased congestion in the labor...