The most common forms of government-mandated job displacement insurance are Severance Pay (SP; lump-sum payments at layoff) and Unemployment Insurance (UI; periodic payments contingent on non-employment). While there is a vast literature on UI, SP programs have received much less attention, even...

Cash transfer programs have expanded widely in developing countries and have been credited for sizable reductions in poverty. However, their potential disincentive effects on beneficiaries' labor supply have spurred a heated policydebate. This paper studies the impact of a large-scale program...

In many countries safety nets consist predominantly of universal subsidies on food and fuel. A key question for policy makers willing to shift to targeted safety nets is under what conditions middle-class citizens would be supportive of redistributive programs. Results from a behavioral...

There is little evidence from impact evaluation studies of ambitious residential energy conservation programs, especially in developing countries. In this paper, I investigate the short- and long-term impacts of the most ambitious electricity conservation program to date. This was an innovative...

There is little evidence on the impacts of ambitious energy conservation programs, which aim at large reductions in energy use. Ambitious programs are more likely to trigger lumpy adjustments inherent in the use of energy (e.g., appliance stock or habits). In this paper, I estimate the impacts...

A growing body of research shows that firms' employment and wage-setting policies contribute to wage inequality and pay disparities between groups. We measure the effects of these policies on racial pay differences in Brazil. We find that nonwhites are less likely to work at establishments that...

A key assumption in regression discontinuity analysis is that units cannot manipulate the value of their running variable in a way that guarantees or avoids assignment to the treatment. Standard identification arguments break down if this condition is violated. This paper shows that treatment...