There is increasing research on the impact of social norms on economic behavior. The research to date has a number of limitations: 1) it has not de-coupled the impact of the norm and the knowledge required to understand how to change behavior based upon it; and 2) it has not understood the...

In this paper, we design and field a low-cost, easily-replicable financial education program called “Five Steps,” covering five basic financial planning concepts that relate to retirement. We conduct a field experiment to evaluate the overall impact of “Five Steps” on a probability...

Sparked by the recent “great recession” and the role of financial markets, considerable interest exists among researchers within both the academic community and the public sector in modeling and measuring systemic risk. In this essay I draw on experiences with other measurement agendas to...

Using National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997, we estimate the long-term impact of an early career recession on various health outcomes and health-related behaviors. The early career recession is measured by the state-specific unemployment rate in the year of labor market entry. Using an...

Over the last 30 years in the U.S., less educated workers have experienced a sharp decline in health insurance coverage rate and stagnant wage growth. In contrast, more educated workers' health insurance coverage rate has stayed relatively stable and their wages have rapidly grown. This paper...

Almost a third of US children ages 2-19 are deemed overweight or obese, and part of the problem is the habitual decision to consume high calorie, low nutrient foods. We propose that the school lunchroom provides a ‘teachable moment’ to engage children in making healthful choices. We conduct...

Poor water quality and sanitation are leading causes of mortality and disease in developing countries. However, interventions providing toilets in rural areas have not substantially improved health, likely because of incomplete coverage and low usage. This paper estimates the impact of an...

The U.S. economy hit bottom in June 2009. Thirty months later, output growth remains sluggish and unemployment still hovers above 8%. A critical question is why. One view attributes the weak recovery, at least in part, to high levels of uncertainty about economic policy. This view entails two...

We empirically analyze the nature of returns to scale in active mutual fund management. We find strong evidence of decreasing returns at the industry level: As the size of the active mutual fund industry increases, a fund's ability to out-perform passive benchmarks declines. At the fund level,...

This paper examines the different policy rules proposed by Henry Simons, who, beginning in the mid-1930s, advocated a price-level stabilization rule, and by Milton Friedman, who, beginning in the late-1950s, advocated a rule that targeted a constant growth rate of the money supply. Although both...