This paper examines the consequences of data error in data series used to construct aggregate indicators. Using the most popular indicator of country level economic development, the Human Development Index (HDI), we identify three separate sources of data error. We propose a simple statistical...

This paper examines the consequences of data error in data series used to construct aggregate indicators. Using the most popular indicator of country level economic development, the Human Development Index (HDI), we identify three separate sources of data error. We propose a simple statistical...

This paper examines the consequences of data error in data series used to construct aggregate indicators. Using the most popular indicator of country level economic development, the Human Development Index (HDI), we identify three separate sources of data error. We propose a simple statistical...

Microcredit has expanded rapidly since its beginnings in the last 1970s, but whether and how much it reduces poverty is the subject of intense debate. Generally it depends on how the program is implemented and the set of policies that regulate it. In this spirit, microcredit impacts in the...

The cacao industry has played an important role in terms of export earnings and employment opportunities in Indonesia since 1980s. It is the main source of income for more than one million smallholder farmers in Indonesia, who are considered poor. Most planted areas of cacao are in Eastern...

We introduce a fast and inexpensive method to rule out potential barriers to adopting a technology. We use this method to asses the role of exogeneous contract enforcement as a barrier to market for Kenya's French Bean export market. We survey 240 farmers in Kirinyaga County, Kenya who were...

This paper considers measurement error from a new perspective. In surveys, response errors are often caused by the fact that respondents recall past events and quantities imperfectly. We explore the consequences of recall errors for such key econometric is- sues as the identification of marginal...

England has very volatile house prices. Using survey data spanning multiple house-price cycles over nearly forty years, we document the association between house prices and homeownership at age thirty. We then use synthetic cohort methods to assess whether differences in early ownership rates...

We use income survey data linked with tax records at the individual level for Estonia to estimate the determinants and extent of income tax compliance in a novel way. Unlike earlier studies attributing income discrepancies between such data sources either to tax evasion or survey measurement...

The central vs. local nature of high-school exit exam systems can have important repercussions on the labor market. By increasing the informational content of grades, central exams may improve the sorting of students by productivity. To test this, we exploit the unique German setting where...