Because of convergence, initial income is an important explanatory variable in many growth regressions. Its omission can lead to misspecification bias that may seem to – but still does not – contradict the common albeit somewhat controversial empirical finding that natural resources, if not...

This study, titled “Caught Between Tongues: Language Learning, Dialectal Divide, and Belonging in Brunei,” investigates the experiences of international students learning Malay in Brunei Darussalam, focusing on the impact of the dialectal divide between Standard Malay and Brunei Malay....

Researchers, educators, and policymakers have long worried about the consequences of student absences for educational achievement and attainment-concerns that have grown with the significant rise in absenteeism during and following the Covid-19 pandemic. Using administrative data from Maryland,...

Using data from the only large-scale randomized controlled trial promoting prolonged exclusive breastfeeding, we study how the intervention affected child health and why. The intervention increased weight-for-age in infancy, with effects persisting through adolescence. We show that treated...

We study firms' financial and real decisions after an exogenous change in their interest rate beliefs induced by a survey experiment with an information treatment. Firms revise their expectations downward after learning about the European Central Bank's policy rate. Moreover, we find a reduction...