A large and highly used number of treatment effects estimators rely on the unconfoundedness assumption ("selection on observables") which is fundamentally non testable. When evaluating the effects of labor market policies, researchers need to observe both variables that affect treatment...

Regional differences in banking integration determined how Japan s Great Recession after 1990 spread across the country. We explain these differences with the emergence of silk reeling as the main export industry after Japan s opening to trade in the 19th century. The silk-exporting prefectures...

Using quarterly worker flow data of U.S. establishments, we find that an unexpected increase in uncertainty reduces hirings and quits, while it raises layoffs. This finding suggests that the real option effect of uncertainty is less important for employment decisions. Hence plants do not freeze...

Numerous studies analyze gender wage differences focusing on gross hourly wages. The analysis of differences in gross wages allows statements on productivity differences between men and women and to quantify the unexplainable wage gap which is often attributed to discrimination. While there is...

Between 1999 and the onset of the economic crisis in 2008 real exchange rates in Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain appreciated relative to the rest of the euro area. This divergence in competitiveness was reflected in the emergence of current account imbalances. Given that exchange rate...

This paper provides a two-part empirical analysis on how actuarial reduction rates for early retirement affect current pension payments in Germany and to what extent the existence and the magnitude of these reduction rates influence people s retirement planning. First, by evaluating a large...

This paper studies the causal effects of graduating from university with an honors degree on subsequent labor market outcomes. While a rich body of literature has focused on estimating returns to human capital, few studies have analyzed returns at the very top of the education distribution. We...

High public debt combined with low capacities of the state to raise taxes and to support markets can put even developed countries into turmoil. However, the existing political economy literature of state capacity, pioneered by Besley and Persson (2009), does not investigate the interaction of...

We re-examin the notion of identifying macroeconomic effects using the narrative approach taking as an application the estimation of tax multipliers. We point out to a test for the checking the adequacy of regressing the narrative measure directly on the outcome variable. This test...

This paper estimates the effects of monetary policy on the UK economy based on a new, extensive real-time forecast data set. Employing the Romer Romer identification approach we first construct a new measure of monetary policy innovations for the UK economy. We find that a one percentage point...