Denmark has accepted refugees from a large variety of countries and for more than four decades. Denmark has also frequently changed policies and regulations concerning integration programs, transfer payments, and conditions for permanent residency. Such policy variation in conjunction with...

We analyze an immigration reform in Denmark that tightened refugee immigrants' eligibility criteria for permanent residency to incentivize their labor market attachment and acquisition of local language skills. Contrary to what the reform intended, the overall employment of those affected...

We examine worker effort as a potential margin of adjustment to a minimum wage hike using unique data on piece rate workers who perform a homogenous task and whose individual output is rigorously recorded. By employing a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits the increase in Florida's...

In this paper, we evaluate the effects of payroll tax changes on firm behavior, by exploiting a unique policy setting in Norway, where a system of geographically differentiated payroll taxes was suddenly abolished due to an EU regulation. We find that firms are only partially able to shift the...

This paper studies a fair trade program in which consumers provide a wage subsidy (bonus) to piece-rate tomato pickers. The total subsidy - determined by sales to participating buyers - is divided among workers based on their relative output: a worker who produces more gets a larger share of the...

Despite the enduring appeal of fair trade activism, little evidence exists on its effectiveness in improving producer welfare. This paper provides evidence on the direct effects of a fair trade premium on its target beneficiaries, using the case of the Penny-Per-Pound, a program that increased...

General polygyny -- near universal marriage and polygyny -- is common in Africa. But why would men marry n wives for 1/n:th of the time instead of monogamously? Downsides include prolonged bachelorhood and a high degree of step-parenting. We point to the African slave trade which...

We exploit two unusual policy features of academic high schools in Seoul, South Korea—random assignment of pupils to high schools within districts and conversion of some existing single-sex schools to the coeducational (coed) type over time—to identify three distinct causal parameters: the...

We examine worker effort as a potential margin of adjustment to a minimum wage hike using unique data on piece rate workers who perform a homogenous task and whose individual output is rigorously recorded. By employing a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits the increase in Florida's...

Does leave-taking matter for young workers' careers? If so, why? We propose the competition effect—relative leave status of workers affecting their relative standing inside the firm—as a new explanation. Exploiting a policy reform that exogenously assigned four-week paid paternity leave to...