Value-added (VA) models measure the productivity of agents such as teachers or doctors based on the outcomes they produce. The utility of VA models for performance evaluation depends on the extent to which VA estimates are biased by selection, for instance by differences in the abilities of...

We show that characterizing the effects of housing on portfolios requires distinguishing between the effects of home equity and mortgage debt. We isolate exogenous variation in home equity and mortgages by using differences across housing markets in house prices and housing supply elasticities...

We estimate the causal effect of each county in the U.S. on children's incomes in adulthood. We first estimate a fixed effects model that is identified by analyzing families who move across counties with children of different ages. We then use these fixed effect estimates to (a) quantify how...

We show that the neighborhoods in which children grow up shape their earnings, college attendance rates, and fertility and marriage patterns by studying more than seven million families who move across commuting zones and counties in the U.S. Exploiting variation in the age of children when...

Low-income families in the United States tend to live in neighborhoods that offer limited opportunities for upward income mobility. One potential explanation for this pattern is that families prefer such neighborhoods for other reasons, such as affordability or proximity to family and jobs. An...

Using 41 million observations on savings for the population of Denmark, we show that the impacts of retirement savings policies on wealth accumulation depend on whether they change savings rates by active or passive choice. Subsidies for retirement accounts, which rely upon individuals to take...

We survey the literature on social insurance, focusing on recent work that has connected theory to evidence to make quantitative statements about welfare and optimal policy. Our review contains two parts. We first discuss motives for government intervention in private insurance markets, focusing...