International surveys of learning achievement and functional literacy are increasingly common. We consider two aspects of the robustness of their results. First, we compare results from four surveys: TIMSS, PISA, PIRLS and IALS. This contrasts with the standard approach which is to analyse a...

This paper addresses two aspects of the model of rational addiction: forward looking behavior and time consistent preferences. It explores smoking by women before, during and after pregnancy using the European Community Household Panel (ECHP). Pregnancy is used as an instrument for a partially...

This paper studies whether anomalies in consumption can be explained by a behavioral model in which agents make predictable errors in forecasting income. We use a micro-data set containing subjective expectations about future income. The paper shows that, the null hypothesis of rational...

Recent empirical research has identified a significant amount of volatility in stock prices that cannot be easily explained by changes in fundamentals; one interpretation is that asset prices respond not only to news but also to irrational "noise trading." We assess the welfare effects and...

Parents in the labor force have balance their work and home life, including the choice of the type of care to provide for their children while they work. In this paper we study the connection between the married women's labor force participation, child care arrangements and the time that...

Is it possible to increase growth and welfare by raising taxes and disposing of the tax revenues? We show this may indeed be the case in a simple model with endogenous technical change, represented by an increase in the variety of intermediate goods.

Is it possible to increase growth and welfare by raising taxes and disposing of the tax revenues? We show this may indeed be the case in a simple model with endogenous technical change, represented by an increase in the variety of intermediate goods.

The aim of this paper is to demonstrate how to obtain robust (with respect to outlying observations) consistent estimates of the linear model when the fundamental orthogonality condition is not fulfilled. With this end in view, we develop two estimation procedures: Two Stage Generalized M (2SGM)...

Models with externalities have become increasingly popular for studying both long-term growth and business-cycle fluctuations. Externalities can lead to indeterminacy, allowing self-fulfilling expectations to determine the equilibrium. This paper argues that the importance of indeterminacy might...