Higher prior exposure to water-borne lead among male World War Two U.S. Army enlistees was associated with lower intelligence test scores. Exposure was proxied by urban residence and the water pH levels of the cities where enlistees lived in 1930. Army General Classification Test scores were six...

Lead is a neurotoxin with developmentally harmful effects in children. In the United States, over half of the current flow of lead into the atmosphere is attributable to lead-formulated aviation gasoline (avgas), used in a large fraction of piston-engine aircraft. Deposition of lead from avgas...

This study compares changes in children’s blood lead levels in the United States with subsequent changes in IQ, based on norm comparisons for the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT) given to representative national samples of children in 1984 and 1992. The CogAT norm comparisons indicate shifts...

Exploiting the exogenous variation in user fees caused by a Swedish childcare reform, we are able to identify the causal effect of childcare costs on fertility in a context in which childcare enrollment is almost universal, user fees are low, and labor force participation of mothers is very...

Compensating wages for workplace fatality and accident risks are used to infer the value of a statistical life (VSL), which in turn is used to assess the benefits of human health and safety regulations. The estimation of these wage differentials, however, has been plagued by measurement error...

Urban renewal areas are popular but empirically understudied spatial planning instruments designed to prevent urban decline and induce renewal. We use a quasi-experimental research design to study the effects of 22 renewal areas implemented in Berlin, Germany, to increase housing and living...

Are public sector jobs better than private sector jobs? To answer this question, this paper investigates observed differences in job satisfaction between public- and private-sector workers and disentangles the effect of worker sorting from the one caused by sectorspecific job characteristics. A...

Are public sector jobs better than private sector jobs? To answer this question, this paper investigates observed differences in job satisfaction between public- and private-sector workers and disentangles the effect of worker sorting from the one caused by sector-specific job characteristics. A...

Using a difference-in-differences approach, we exploit a quasi-experiment occurred in a large public university located in Southern Italy, to study whether the introduction of a selective admission test affects two indicators of students’ performances: dropout rate and grade point average...

Microinsurance is widely considered an important tool for sustainable poverty reduction, especially in the face of increasing climate risk. Although index-based microinsurance, which should be free from the classical incentive problems, has attracted considerable attention, uptake rates have...