This study investigates whether models of forward-looking behavior explain the observed patterns of heavy drinking and smoking of men in late middle age in the Health and Retirement Study better than myopic models. We develop and estimate a sequence of nested models which differ by their degree...

The evolution of education spending in California has received plenty of attention by both academics and practitioners after this state's education finance reform of the 1970's. The impact on public education spending of the demographic trends associated with immigration has not been thoroughly...

Less than 10 percent of executives in large publicly traded firms are women. On average female executives earn less than male executives, and hold less senior positions. They retire earlier. This paper is an empirical study of these differences based on panel of about 2,500 firms and 16,000...

We develop a pure moral hazard model, and a closely related hybrid one, where there are both hidden actions and hidden information, to derive the restrictions from optimal contract theory that characterize set identification. In pure moral hazard models, the expected utility of managers is...

Fewer women than men become executive managers. They earn less, hold more junior positions, and attrit faster. We compiled a large panel data set on executives and formed a career hierarchy to analyze promotion and compensation rates. Given executive rank and background, women are paid more than...

I analyze a stylized consumption-based asset pricing model that features heterogeneous agents and household capital, and discover a novel recession risk factor related to the cross-sectional second moments of the corresponding investments into such home capital. In order to fully isolate the...