The present paper follows the rationality of the Human Capital Theory to explain the heterogeneity of returns to schooling in a policy evaluation model with the purpose of testing whether people are blocked in any way (credit constraints, uncertainty or other market environment conditions) when...

This paper presents a method for estimating returns to schooling that takes into account that returns may be heterogeneous among agents and that educational decisions are made sequentially. A sequential decision model is interesting because it explicitly considers that the level of education of...

This paper investigates four topics. (1) It examines the different roles played by the propensity score (probabilitiy of selection) in matching, instrumental variable and control functions methods. (2) It contrasts the roles of exclusion restrictions in matching and selection models. (3) It...

We estimate a remittance model in which we address endogeneity and reverse causality relationships between immigrants' remittances, pre-transfer income and consumption. In order to take into account the fact that a large share of individuals do not remit, instrumental variable variants of the...

This paper studies educational choices in a signaling setting in segmented labor markets. We show that in the presence of heterogeneous working ability imperfectly correlated with schooling costs, equilibria characterized by overeducation may arise. The quality of education is crucial in...

This paper examines the empirical regularity that in Canada business cycle peaks and federal elections have tended to arise together over the long post-Confederation time period following 1867. We argue that rather than being simultaneous, the two events are related sequentially and that...

We extend existing estimators for duration data that suffer from non-random sample selection to allow for time-varying covariates. Rather than a continuous-time duration model, we propose a discrete-time alternative that models the effects of sample selection at the time of selection across all...

Economic theory advocates marginal cost pricing for efficient utilisation of transport infrastructure. A growing body of literature has emerged on the issue of marginal infrastructure wear and tear costs, but the majority of the work is focused on costs for infrastructure maintenance. Railway...

This paper examines the regularity that business cycle peaks and federal elections often arise together in parliamentary democracies as it applies to Canadian data over the post Confederation time period (1870 onwards). Breaking the simultaneity of these two events and properly identifying...

We estimate a remittance model in which we address endogeneity and reverse causality relationships between remittances, pre-transfer income and consumption. In order to take into account the fact that a large share of individuals do not remit, instrumental variable variants of the double-hurdle...