This study measures the efficiency of government secondary schools in New South Wales, Australia, using a recently developed methodology of two-stage semi-parametric modeling. In contrast to previous research comparing school performance, we control for prior academic achievement of students by...

This paper combines a monetary structural vector-autoregression (SVAR)with a fiscal SVAR for Poland. Fiscal foresight, in the form of implementation lags, is accounted for with respect to both discretionary government spending and tax changes. We demonstrate the importance of combining monetary...

Uncovering gradients is of crucial importance across a broad range of economic environments. Here we consider data-driven bandwidth selection based on the gradient of an unknown regression function. The procedure developed here is automatic and does not require initial estimation of unknown...

We present results from an experiment with multiple public goods, where each good produces benefits only if total contributions to it reach a minimum threshold. The experiment allows us to compare contributions in a benchmark treatment with a single public good and in treatments with more public...

We address a dynamic general equilibrium model where securities are backed by collateralized loans, and borrowers face endogenous liquidity contractions and financial participation constraints. Although the only payment enforcement is the seizure of collateral guarantees, restrictions on credit...

Using personnel data from a large U.S. retail firm, I examine the firm’s response to the 1996 federal minimum wage increase. Compulsory increases in average wages had negative but statistically insignificant effects on overall employment. However, increases in the relative wages of teenagers...

The average quality of spouse an individual marries varies significantly with age at marriage, peaking in the mid-twenties, then declining through the mid-forties, as does the hazard rate of marriage. Using a non-stationary sequential search model, we identify the search frictions that generate...

We present a model in which a policymaker observes trade in a financial asset before deciding whether to intervene in the economy, for example by offering a bailout or monetary stimulus. Because an intervention erodes the value of private information, informed investors are reluctant to take...

There has recently been a dramatic increase in the number of papers that have combined quasi-experimental methods with hedonic property models. This is largely due to the concern that cross-sectional hedonic methods may be severely biased by omitted variables. While the empirical literature has...

We consider the problem of using data from several programs, each implemented at a different location, to compare what their effect would be if they were implemented at a specific location. In particular, we study the effectiveness of nonexperimental strategies in adjusting for differences...