This paper shows that the standard and deferred filtration structural models of corporate default are isomorphic, allowing the insights of the standard full information setting to be carried over to the more complex case of asymmetric information. It shows that the accounting lag, which provides...

This paper addresses questions about the structure of the economy and financial markets raised by recent research on the term structure. The work of Duffee (2012) and Joslin, Preibsch and Singleton (2012) suggests that macroeconomic variables affect risk premia rather than bond yields, which are...

The UK state pension (which depends only on age) includes an option to defer take up which yields either a subsequent lump sum or higher weekly pension. We analyse the joint decisions on pension deferral and intertemporal labour supply/participation in a life cycle setting. We show that deferral...

This paper investigates the non-pecuniary benefits of education in terms of several individuals' health outcomes, health-damaging and health-improving behaviors,and preventive care. We exploit a reform which raised compulsory schooling by three years in Italy to identify the causal effect of...

Home equity has a strong impact on individual health. In UK household panel data home equity lowers the likelihood of home owners exhibiting a broad range of medical conditions. This is due to increased use of private health care, reduced hours of work and increased exercise. Home equity, unlike...

This study presents credible estimates for the causal effect of a variation in obesity on employment. By exploring random assignment of a weight loss intervention based on monetary rewards, I provide convincing evidence that weight loss positively affects the employment prospects of obese women...

We provide new evidence on the extent to which the demand for cigarettes is derived from the demand for weight control (i.e. weight loss or avoidance of weight gain). We utilize nationally representative data that provide the most direct evidence to date on this question: individuals are...

When a treatment in difference in differences (DD) is applied to a group of individuals with a time-constant qualifiÂ…cation/eligibility such as gender or race, there is no issue of choosing to be (un-)treated. But if the qualiÂ…fication is time-varying, then the individuals may alter...

This paper addresses the problem of point identification in the presence of measurement error in discrete variables; in particular, it considers the case of having two “noisy†indicators of the same latent variable and without any prior information about the true value of the variable...

Research has shown that birth weight has a lasting impact on adult outcomes such as education and earnings. This paper examines the role of nutritional intake in utero on academic achievement in childhood, which may provide a link between birth weight and adult outcomes, and further investigates...