One of the stylized facts from the literature on international activities of heterogeneous firms is the existence of a positive exporter productivity premium - on average, exporting firms are more productive than firms that sell on the national market only. In this paper, the authors look at the...

Many economic applications have found quantile models useful when the explanatory variables may have varying impacts throughout the distribution of the outcome variable. Traditional quantile estimators provide conditional quantile treatment effects. Typically, we are interested in unconditional...

The link between taxes and occupational choices is central for understanding the welfare impacts of income taxes. Just as taxes distort the labor-leisure decision, they also distort the wage-amenity decision. Yet, there have been few studies on the full response along this margin. When tax rates...

This paper introduces an unconditional quantile regression (UQR) estimator that can be used for exogenous or endogenous treatment variables. Traditional quantile estimators provide conditional treatment effects. Typically, we are interested in unconditional quantiles, characterizing the...

Income taxes distort the relationship between wages and non-taxable amenities. When the marginal tax rate increases, amenities become more valuable as the compensating differential for low-amenity jobs is taxed away. While there is evidence that the provision of amenities responds to taxes, the...

What are the health impacts of retirement? As talk of raising retirement ages in pensions and social security schemes continues around the world, it is important to know both the costs and benefits for the individual as well as government budgets. The authors use the Survey of Health, Aging and...

Previous empirical literature has found a sharp decline in consumption during the first years of retirement implying that individuals do not save enough for their retirement. This phenomenon has been called the retirement consumption puzzle. In contrast to some of the previous studies, the...

The goal of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) was to end the dependency of needy parents on government benefits, in part by promoting marriage. The pre-reform welfare system was widely believed to discourage marriage because it primarily provided...

The question of how access to services affects health outcomes is critical for policy makers allocating resources across different programs, but it is difficult to answer with cross-sectional data sets. The authors use data from a panel survey in Indonesia (the Indonesia Family Life Survey) that...

Teacher quality is a key element of student academic success, but little is known about how specific teacher characteristics influence classroom outcomes. This research examines whether teacher licensure test scores and other teacher attributes affect elementary student achievement. The results...