The impact of exposure to a major unanticipated natural disaster on the evolution of survivors’ attitudes toward risk is examined, exploiting plausibly exogenous variation in exposure to the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in combination with rich population-representative longitudinal survey data...

Why do workers exert effort at their tasks and what are the implications for their well-being when greater effort is necessary? This paper, which studies university employees during the Covid-19 pandemic, provides empirical evidence that identity - in terms of both the importance of work to...

Oportunidades was an innovative anti-poverty program that put additional resources in the hands of women and their families and encouraged parents to invest in the human capital of their children. This program was the first in its kind, and early evaluations demonstrating its success informed...

In order to shed light on the biological and social drivers underlying the dramatic rise in cardiovascular disease risk in lower-income settings, links between these risks and body composition, behavioral and socioeconomic factors in Aceh, Indonesia, are contrasted with the United States. We...

The relationship between completed education and adult cognition is investigated using data from the Indonesia Family Life Survey. We compare adult siblings to account for shared, difficult-to-measure characteristics that likely affect this relationship, including genetics and parental...

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami was an extremely destructive event in Aceh, Indonesia, killing over 160,000 people and destroying infrastructure, homes, and livelihoods over miles of coastline. In its immediate aftermath, affected populations faced a daunting array of challenges. At the population...

Little is known about the long-term effects of participation in Head Start. This paper draws on unique non-experimental data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to provide new evidence on the effects of participation in Head Start on schooling attainment, earnings, and criminal behavior....

This paper examines the long-term effects of early test scores using data from the British National Child Development Survey. We show that test scores measured as early as age 7 have significant effects on future educational and labor market outcomes. For example, men and women in the lowest...

Recent research on Head Start, an enriched preschool program for poor children that effects on test scores fade out' more quickly for black children than for white children. This" paper uses data from the 1988 wave of the National Educational Longitudinal Survey to show that" black children who...