This paper provides additional evidence, using time-series and cross-sectional Canadian survey data, for the Easterlin hypothesis of an important income elasticity of individual needs. Our analysis is based on the regression of a minimum income to satisfy needs equation derived from a simple...

We investigate the impact of an ambitious provincial school reform in Canada on students’ mathematical achievements. It is the first paper to exploit a universal school reform of this magnitude to identify the causal effect of a widely supported teaching approach on students’ math scores....

This paper gauges the strength of precautionary saving motives by estimating the coefficient of prudence from the U.K. Family Expenditure Survey data set (a time series of cross-sections). The instrumental variables estimates reveal that greater uncertainty systematically leads to larger current...

This paper shows that a temporary incentive to join the labor market or to work more can also produce substantial life-cycle labour supply effects. On September 1997, a new childcare policy was initiated by the provincial government of Québec, the second most populous province in Canada....

In 1997, the provincial government of Québec, the second most populous province in Canada, initiated a new child-care policy. Licensed child-care service providers began offering day-care spaces at the reduced fee of $5.00 per day per child for children aged 4. By 2000, the policy applied to...

Using Statistics Canada's General Social Survey on Family and Friends, carried out in 1990, we piece together the matrimonial and conjugal life history of a large sample of Canadian men and women. We then estimate duration models (Cox's proportional hazard models) describing the evolutionary...

Selection into private schools is the principal cause of bias when estimating the effect of private schooling on academic achievement. By exploiting the generous public subsidizing of private high schools in the province of Québec, the second most populous province in Canada, we identify the...