This paper evaluates how sick pay mandates operate at the job level in the United States. Using the National Compensation Survey and difference-in-differences models, we estimate their impact on coverage rates, sick leave use, labor costs, and non-mandated fringe benefits. Sick pay mandates...

This paper analyses the causal effects of weaker dismissal protection on the incidence of long-term sickness ( six weeks). We exploit a German policy change, which shifted the threshold exempting small establishments from dismissal protection from five to ten workers. Using administrative data,...

This paper investigates the role of demand-side incentives to mothers and supply-side incentives to community health workers (ASHAs) in improving maternal and child healthcare. These conditional cash benefits were part of a nationwide health intervention Janani Suraksha Yojana, introduced in...

This paper examines the impact of exposure to violence during pregnancy on anthropometric and cognitive outcomes of children in the medium-run. I combine detailed household-level data on more than 36,000 children with geo-coded information on civilian casualties in the aftermath of the US...

This paper analyzes the returns to training that was co-financed by the German voucher program Bildungsprämie. The estimation strategy compares outcomes of participants in voucher training with voucher recipients who intended to participate in training, but did not do so because of a random...

It is well established that teachers are the most important in-school factor in determining student outcomes. However, to date there is scant robust quantitative research demonstrating that teacher training programs can have lasting impacts on student test scores. To address this gap, we conduct...

One of the most important policy goals in industrialized countries is to increase the skill level of the labor force by life-long-learning strategies. In this paper our aim is to explain to what extent the variation in training investments is determined either by (observed and unobserved)...

In this paper, we study the complementarity between business training and access to financial capital for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Kenya. All participants in a business training program are offered training. One-third of participants are offered loans immediately after training...

This paper studies the effects of a first employee wage subsidy imple-mented in parts of Finland in 2007â 2011 using the universe of Finnishfirms. The subsidy, amounting to 30% of the wage costs of the firstemployee in the first year and 15% in the second, was targeted to en-trepreneurs without...

Common wisdom holds that the introduction of a non-binding minimum wage is irrelevant for actual wages and employment. Empirical and experimental research, however, has shown that the introduction of a minimum wage can raise even those wages that were already above the new minimum wage. In this...