Despite the key role played by political payoffs in theory, very little is known empirically about the types of payoffs that motivate politicians. The purpose of this paper is to bring some light into this. I estimate causal effects of being elected in a local election on monetary returns. The...

We analyze the impact of the UK national minimum wage (NMW) on the employment of young workers. The previous literature found little evidence of an adverse impact of the NMW on the UK labor market. We focus on the age-related increases in the NMW at 18 and 22 years of age. Using regression...

Product quality is often unobservable ex-ante and consumers rely on experts’ judgments, sometimes coming under the form of ratings or awards. Do awards affect consumers’ choices or they are conferred to the most popular products? To disentangle this issue, we use data of the most important...

A partir de 1996, la politique de développement rural française définit des zones de revitalisation rurale (ZRR) : les entreprises de moins de 50 salariés peuvent y bénéficier d'exonérations de charges à condition (entre autres) d'augmenter leur effectif salarié. Ces zones regroupent...

This study examines the effects of the extension of compulsory schooling from 5 to 8 years in Turkey in 1997 – which involved substantial investment in school infrastructure – on schooling outcomes and, in particular, on the equality of these outcomes between men and women, and urban and...

Purpose – The goal of the paper is to investigate how reservation wages of older unemployed welfare recipients change once they are no longer subject to standard job search requirements. Design/methodology/approach – The authors apply a regression discontinuity design. Findings –...

In this paper we analyze the impact of the Gates Millennium Scholarship Program on several outcome variables using a regression discontinuity design. We find that GMS recipients have lower college loan debt and parental contributions toward college expenses and work fewer hours during college...

To correct market failures due to the presence of negative externalities associated with energy consumption, governments have adopted a variety of policies, including taxes, subsidies, regulations and standards, and information-based policies. For example, labels that clearly convey energy...

Knowledge of how consumers react to different quality signals is fundamental for understanding how markets work. We study the online market- place for Android apps where we compare the causal effects on demand from two quality related signals; other consumers' stated and revealed preferences...

This paper assesses the impact of a free complementary health insurance plan introduced in 2000 in France on healthcare utilisation and healthcare expenditures. This free plan pays off most of out-of-pocket expenses and is entitled to the 10% poorest households in France. In order to tackle the...