Chetty and Szeidl (2012) propose to estimate the effect of housing on portfolio choice by distinguishing between the effect of mortgage debt and the effect of home equity and by endogenizing these two variables. When replicating their study with French data, we obtain similar qualitative...

The contribution of generalized method of moments (Hansen and Singleton, 1982) was to allow frequentist inference regarding the parameters of a nonlinear structural model without having to solve the model. Provided there were no latent variables. The contribution of this paper is the same. With...

Abstract Job characteristics can affect worker turnover through their effect on utility and through their effect on outside job opportunities. We separately identify and estimate the roles of these two channels. Our method exploits information on job changes and relies on an augmented sample...

We shed new light on the performance of Berry, Levinsohn and Pakes' (1995) GMM estimator of the aggregate random coefficient logit model. Based on an extensive Monte Carlo study, we show that the use of Chamberlain's (1987) optimal instruments overcomes most of the problems that have recently...

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...

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...

We study from both a theoretical and an empirical perspective how a network of military alliances and enmities affects the intensity of a conflict. The model combines elements from network theory and from the politico-economic theory of conflict. We postulate a Tullock contest success function...

Gender-based discrimination is a pervasive and costly phenomenon. To a greater or lesser extent, all economies present a gender wage gap, associated with lower female labour force participation rates and higher fertility. This paper presents a growth model where saving, fertility and labour...

Using cross-country and Peruvian data, I show that victims of misfortune, particularly crime victims, are much more likely than non-victims to bribe public officials. Misfortune increases victims' demand for public services, raising bribery indirectly, and also increases victims' propensity to...

To the extent that students benefit from high-achieving peers, tracking will help strong students and hurt weak ones. However, all students may benefit if tracking allows teachers to present material at a more appropriate level. Lower-achieving pupils are particularly likely to benefit from...