We study the effect of early life exposure to above average levels of rainfall on adult mental health. While we find no effect from pre-natal exposure, post-natal positive rainfall shocks decrease average Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression (CESD) mental health scores by 15 percent and...

We uncover evidence of substantial heterogeneity in the growth experience of countries using a structural threshold regression methodology. Our findings suggest that studies that seek to promote mono-causal explanations in the institutions versus geography debate in growth are potentially misleading

We employ a structural threshold regression methodology to investigate the heterogeneous effects of debt on growth using public debt as a threshold variable as well as several other plausible variables. Our methodology allows us to address three sources of model uncertainty that characterize...

We examine the role of early childhood health in human capital accumulation. Using a unique data set from Ghana with comprehensive information on individual, family, community, school quality characteristics and a direct measure of intelligence together with test scores, we examine the long term...

Using the first release of the three-wave, four-year General Social Survey panel dataset, we track changes in attitudes towards redistribution and government from 2006 to 2010 to find that decreases in demand for redistribution are associated with decreases in confidence in government after the...

The importance of (early) parental investments in children's cognitive and noncognitive outcomes is a question of deep policy significance. However, because parental investments are arguably endogenous, it is a great challenge to empirically estimate their importance. This paper exploits a rich...

This paper contributes to the literature investigating the impact of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity on firm value. To do so, we exploit a large sample of 65,521 M&A deals globally from the Communications, Technology, Energy and Utilities sectors in the years of 2000 to 2010. We focus on...

In this paper, we go beyond traditional measures of cognitive abilities (IQ) in explaining labor market and social outcomes in developing countries. We exploit a rich dataset from Ghana that provides information on demographics, labor market outcomes, and a direct measure of cognitive ability...

In this paper, we explore nonlinearities in the intergenerational mobility process using threshold regression models. We uncover evidence of threshold effects in children's outcomes based on parental education and cognitive and non-cognitive skills as well as their interaction with offspring...

This paper revisits the influential work by Chetty, Hendren, Kline, and Saez (2014) who attempt to explain the variation in intergenerational mobility across commuter zones in the US (i.e., spatial mobility) using nine classes of variables. We employ Bayesian model averaging methods that allow...