This paper shows that the finite-dimensional parameters of a monotone-index model can be estimated by minimizing an objective function based on sorting the data. The key observation guiding this procedure is that the sum of distances between pairs of adjacent observations is minimized (over all...

This paper concerns the problem of allocating a binary treatment among a target population based on observed covariates. The goal is to (i) maximize the mean social welfare arising from an eventual outcome distribution, when a budget constraint limits what fraction of the population can be...

This paper concerns the problem of inferring the effects of covariates on intergenerational income mobility, i.e. on the relationship between the incomes of parents and future earnings of their children. We focus on two different measures of mobility- (i) traditional transition probability of...

High-profile universities often face public criticism for undermining academic merit and promoting social elitism/engineering through their admissions-process. In this paper, we develop an empirical test for whether access to selective universities is meritocratic. We assume that students who...

Abstract: We consider empirical measurement of exact equivalent/compensating variation resulting from price-change of a discrete good, using individual-level data. We show that for binary and multinomial choice, the marginal distributions of EV/CV are nonparametrically point-identified solely...

Regular use of effective health-products such as insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITN) by a household benefits its neighbors by (a) reducing chances of infection and (b) raising awareness about product-effectiveness, thereby increasing product-use. Due to their potential social benefits and...

This paper concerns the problem of allocating a binary treatment among a target population based on observed covariates. The goal is to (i) maximize the mean social welfare arising from an eventual outcome distribution, when a budget constraint limits what fraction of the population can be...

This article proposes consistent nonparametric methods for testing the null hypothesis of Lorenz dominance. The methods are based on a class of statistical functionals defined over the difference between the Lorenz curves for two samples of welfare-related variables. We present two specific test...