We document a significant increase in the sorting of workers by cognitive and non-cognitive skills across Swedish firms between 1986 and 2008. The weight of the evidence suggests that the increase in sorting is due to stronger complementarities between worker skills and technology. In particular, a large fraction of the increase can be explained by the expansion of the ICT sector and a reallocation

Spousal characteristics such as age, height, and earnings are often used in social science research to infer social preferences. For example, a "male taller" norm has been inferred from the fact that fewer wives are taller than their husbands than would occur with random matching. The large proportion of husbands out-earning their wives has similarly been cited as evidence for a "male breadwinner"

We examine intergenerational transmission of health from mothers to children, using a unique dataset that tracks a cohort of children born in the 1980s in the Philippines. We provide causal estimates of the impact of maternal health on child health, and examine the persistence of this relationship from birth through adolescence. Our results suggest that mother’s health continues to impact child health

I study whether human capital investments are based on local rather than national demand, and whether this is explained by migration or information frictions. I analyze three sector-specific shocks with differential local effects, including the dot-com crash, the 2008 financial crisis, and a shock transforming Delaware into an international financial center. I find universities in areas more exposed

The labor supply effects of becoming a grandmother are not well established in the empirical literature. We estimate the effect of becoming a grandmother on the labor supply decision of older workers. Under the assumption that grandmothers cannot predict the exact date of conception of their grandchild, we identify the effect of the first grandchild on employment (extensive margin). Our Timing-of-Events

How eff ective is the minimum wage at raising nondurable household consumption through the redistribution of income towards poor workers? Using novel data on retail sales by county, I exploit variation in the minimum wage rates across states and over time to answer this question. I find that a 10% increase in the minimum wage increases sales by 1.1%. I argue that such a large eff ect is explained by

Depression affects the way that people process information and make decisions, including those involving risk and uncertainty. Our objective is to analyze the way that depressive episodes shape risk preferences and risk-taking behaviors. We are the first to address this issue using large-scale, representative panel data that include both behavioral and stated risk preference measures and a theoretical

Using spatial variation in World War I military fatalities in France, we show that the scarcity of men due to the war generated an upward shift in female labor force participation that persisted throughout the interwar period. Increased female labor supply accounts for this result: deteriorated marriage market conditions for single women and negative income shocks to war widows induced many of these

This paper extends standard models of work-related training by explicitly incorporating workers' locus of control into the investment decision. Our model both differentiates between general and specific training and accounts for the role of workers and firms in training decisions. Workers with an internal locus of control are predicted to engage in more general training than are their external co-workers

We study the dual role of active labour market policies: First, ALMP may perform a screening role by increasing job-finding rates among individuals with good labour market prospects, already prior to programme participation. Second, actual program participation may help individuals with poor labour market prospects. We demonstrate how these effects arise within a search theoretic framework. Utilizing

Noncompete agreements (NCAs), which contractually limit where an employee may work in the event of a job separation, have been recognized as tools employers use to protect nonphysical production assets and to reduce turnover. However, recent evidence that NCAs are widely and increasingly used in low-wage jobs suggests our understanding of NCA use remains incomplete. In this paper, we show that NCAs

This paper studies the causal effect of student internship experience in firms on earnings later in life. We use mandatory firm internships at German universities as an instrument for doing a firm internship while attending university. Employing longitudinal data from graduate surveys, we find positive and significant earnings returns of about 6% in both OLS and IV regressions. The positive returns

We examine how the enforceability of covenants not to compete (CNCs) affects employee mobility and wages of high-tech workers. We expect CNC enforceability to lengthen job spells and constrain mobility, but its impact on wages is ambiguous. Using a matched employer-employee dataset covering the universe of jobs in thirty U.S states, we find that higher CNC enforceability is associated with longer job

This paper provides regression discontinuity evidence on the long-run impacts of a temporary increase in federal transfers to local governments in Brazil. Revenues and expenditures of the communities benefiting from extra transfers increased by about 20 percent during the 4 year period from 1982 to the end of 1985. Previously established schooling and literacy gains of school-age cohorts as well as

Using meta-analysis we find that, on average, sought-after schools do not improve student test scores. A potential explanation for this result is that parents value schools that improve outcomes not well-measured by test scores. We explore this notion using both administrative and survey data from Barbados. Using a regression discontinuity design, preferred schools have better peers but do not improve

We systematically investigate the effect heterogeneity of job search programmes for unemployed workers. To investigate possibly heterogeneous employment effects, we combine non-experimental causal empirical models with Lasso-type estimators. The empirical analyses are based on rich administrative data from Swiss social security records. We find considerable heterogeneities only during the first six

In 2013, Tanzania introduced "Big Results Now in Education", a low-stakes accountability program that published both nationwide and within-district school rankings. Using data from the universe of school performance from 2011-2016, we identify the impacts of the reform using a difference-in-differences estimator that exploits the differential pressure exerted on schools at the top and bottom of their

We investigate the impact of the Social Security Annual Earnings Test (AET) on the employment decisions of older Americans. The AET reduces Social Security benefits by one dollar for every two dollars earned above the exempt amount. Using a differences-in-differences design, we find that the employment rate of those predicted to become subject to the AET decreases substantially relative to those not

We estimate the effect of mobile money adoption on consumption smoothing, poverty and human capital investments in Tanzania. We exploit the rapid expansion of the mobile money agent network between 2010 and 2012 and combine this with idiosyncratic shocks from variation in rainfall over time and across space in an instrumented DiD methodology. We find that adopter households are able to smooth consumption

We exploited two major reforms in the regulation of professional services implemented in Italy since the 2000s in order to examine the impact on the intergenerational transmission of occupations. We built an OECD-style indicator of strictness of regulation for 14 occupations and three different cohorts (i.e. before and after each reform). Then, using a difference-in-differences strategy, we exploited

Productive assets promote the economic well-being of the rural poor. However, where cultural obligations and market frictions limit the exchange or ability to relinquish such assets, they may restrict access to high-return economic opportunities and undermine asset benefits causing a microeconomic parallel to the ‘resource curse’. Using an instrumental variables strategy and variation arising from

This paper investigates to what extent assortative mating contributes to intergenerational earnings persistence. I use an errors-in-variables model to demonstrate how pooling of partners’ ‘potential’ earnings affects intergenerational earnings persistence, and simulate persistence under different assumptions about assortative mating and women’s earnings distribution. Using Swedish data on cohorts born

In 2010, primary school in Malawi began in September, three months earlier than in 2009. We test whether this change forced poor households to sell crops early, before output prices reach their peak. Difference-in-difference and triple difference specifications show that the cumulative value of crop sales made before September was significantly higher in 2010 than in 2009. The effect is limited to

We analyze late-career teacher turnover induced by pension incentives. Using longitudinal data with performance measures for Tennessee public school teachers, we find higher quality teachers are less likely to retire conditional on age and experience. To quantify the effects of pension incentives, we estimate a structural model for retirement and find that high quality teachers have a lower disutility

We use data on a large sample of Swedish-born adoptees and their biological and adopting parents to decompose the persistence in health inequality across generations into pre-birth and post-birth components. We use three sets of measures for health outcomes in the second generation: mortality, measures based on data on hospitalization and, finally, measures using birth outcomes for the third generation

The opioid epidemic is a national public health emergency. As the number of fatal overdoses and drug abuse skyrocket, children of opioid-dependent parents are at increased risk of being neglected, abused or orphaned. While a few studies have examined the effects of policies restricting prescription drug supply on drug abuse, we know less about the effects these policies may have on children of opioid-dependent

In low-income countries, primary school students often fall far below grade level and primary dropout rates remain high. Further, in some countries, educators encourage their weaker students to drop out before reaching the end of primary school. These educators hope to avoid the negative attention that authorities direct to a school when its students perform poorly on the primary leaving exams that

We explore the nonprofit earnings penalty. To separate the influence of demand and supply, we leverage workers who change employers in administrative tax data. The average nonprofit worker earns 5.5 percent less than the average for-profit worker. Supply-side factors (worker selection) contribute 80 percent of the nonprofit differential. The remaining 20 percent is from demand (a nonprofit penalty)

Up to three-fourths of college students can be classified as “non-traditional”, yet whether typical policy interventions improves their education and labor market outcomes is understudied. I use a regression discontinuity design to estimate the impacts of a state financial aid program aimed towards non-traditional students. Eligibility has no impacts on degree completion for students intending to enroll

We study how leadership experiences before labor market entry affect subsequent labor market performance, using a regression discontinuity design to isolate the causal effects. The design is applied to elections of representatives at Swedish student union (SU) councils. Archive data on winning and losing candidates at three major Swedish universities are mapped to register data on their subsequent

We consider the effects of student ability, college quality, and the interaction between the two on academic outcomes and earnings, using data on two cohorts of college enrollees. Student ability and college quality strongly improve degree completion and earnings for all students. We find evidence of meaningful complementarity between student ability and college quality in degree completion at four

Using novel variation in special education and English Language Learner classification from admissions lotteries, I find that students can achieve large academic gains without specialized services. Enrolling in a Boston charter school doubles the likelihood that students lose their special education or English Language Learner status, but exposes students to a high-performing general education program