We exploit rules of class formation to identify the causal effect of increasing the number of immigrants in a classroom on natives test scores, keeping class size constant (Pure Composition Effect). We explain why this is a relevant policy parameter although it has been neglected so far. We show...

Import competition from China is pervasive in the sense that for many good categories, the competitive environment that US firms face in these markets is strongly driven by the prices of Chinese imports, and so is their pricing decision. This paper quantifies the effect of the...

In recent years the growth pattern of most Southern European countries has been disturbed, as those countries are suffering from economic crises that go beyond the usual business cycle. In this paper, we develop a dynamic general equilibrium model of market and political power interactions that...

In this paper we trace the evolution of the lender of last resort doctrine—and its implementation—from the nineteenth century through the panic of 2008. We find that typically the most influential economists “fight the last war”: formulating policy guidelines that would have dealt...

Housing transactions by owner-occupiers take two steps, purchase of a new property and sale of the old housing unit. This paper shows how the transaction sequence decision of owner-occupiers depends on, and in turn, affects housing market conditions in an equilibrium search-and-matching model of...

Spillovers of prosocial motivation are crucial for the formation of social capital. They facilitate interactions among individuals and create social multipliers that amplify the effects of policy interventions. We conducted a large-scale intervention study among dyads of blood donors to...

Houses and apartments sold in New York and New Jersey at prices above $1 million are subject to the so-called 1% “mansion tax" imposed on the full value of the transaction. This policy generates a discontinuity (a “notch") in the overall tax liability. We rely on this and other...

The most commonly used measure of reproductive behavior is the total fertility rate (TFR), which is a measure of the number of children born per woman. However, almost no work exists measuring the fertility behavior of men. In this paper we use survey data from several recent waves of the...

Traditionally, quantitative models that have studied households' portfolio choices have focused exclusively on the different risk properties of alternative financial assets. We introduce differences in liquidity across assets in the standard life-cycle model of portfolio choice. More precisely,...

We conduct a laboratory experiment where groups of 4 subjects constrained to obtain at most one good each, sequentially bid for 3 goods in first and second price auctions. Subjects learn at the beginning of each auction their valuation for the good and exit the auction once they have obtained...