This paper estimates economic returns to physical capital and inherent ability among Indonesian fishermen using a natural experiment. By exploiting the quasi-random variation in the length of fishing boats generated by an aid program among survivors of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, it is found...

Households face earnings risk which is non-normal and varies by age and over the income distribution. We show that allowing for these rich features of earnings dynamics, in the context of a structurally estimated life-cycle portfolio choice model, helps to rationalize the limited participation...

We quantify firm heterogeneity in skill returns and present direct evidence of worker–firm complementarities. Within a model of firms' demand for cognitive and noncognitive attributes we show that identification depends on the availability of skill measures. Linking administrative data to test...

Human capital contracts give private investors the right to share of students' future earnings in return for a financial contribution during their studies. Although still rarely used, human capital contracts could not only help to completement limited public funding for higher education but...

Human capital contracts give private investors the right to a share of students' future earnings in return for a fi nancial contribution during their studies. Although still rarely used, human capital contracts could not only help to complement limited public funding for higher education but...

Risk averse investors have to be compensated in higher expected returns when facing investments with higher risk. Education is an important investment therefore we use the results for 16 countries to test the positive relationship between return to education and the risk involved in this...

We investigate the impact of obstetrician supervision, as opposed to midwife supervision, on the short-term health of low-risk newborns. We exploit a unique policy rule in the Netherlands that creates a large discontinuity in the probability of a low-risk birth being attended by an obstetrician...

Medical innovation enhances labor health, promotes human capital productivity, and influences asset prices. Using a manually collected dataset on drug approvals to identify medical innovation, I first confirm its direct impact on human capital -- a higher medical innovation shock predicts a...

Using the Great Recession of 2007-2009 as a quasi-natural experiment, we find that CEOs' work experience is significantly related to firm stock performance while their endowed traits play a limited role in the recession. No CEO characteristics matter during the pre-recession period. CEOs who...