We consider the impact of tax credits and income support programs on female education choice, employment, hours and human capital accumulation over the life-cycle. We analyze both the short run incentive effects and the longer run implications of such programs. By allowing for risk aversion and...

We investigate the role of training in reducing the gender wage gap using the UK-BHPS which contains detailed records of training. Using policy changes over an 18 year period we identify the impact of training and work experience on wages, earnings and employment. Based on a lifecycle model and...

This paper reviews some of the most popular policy evaluation methods in empirical microeconomics: social experiments, natural experiments, matching, instrumental variables, discontinuity design, and control functions. It discusses identification of traditionally used average parameters and more...

We analyze how quits responded to arbitrary differences in own and peer wages using an unusual feature of a pay raise at a large U.S. retailer. The firm's use of discrete pay steps created discontinuities in raises, where workers earning within 1 cent of each other received new wages that...

We study students' motives for educational attainment in a unique survey of 885 secondary school students in the UK. As expected, students who perceive the monetary returns to education to be higher are more likely to intend to continue in full-time education. However, the main driver is the...

We build an equilibrium model of a small open economy with labor market frictions and imperfectly enforced regulations. Heterogeneous firms sort into the formal or informal sector. We estimate the model using data from Brazil, and use counterfactual simulations to understand how trade affects...

A number of studies have shown that education reforms extending compulsory schooling reduce criminal behavior of those affected by the reform. We consider the effects of a major Swedish educational reform on crime by exploiting its staggered implementation across Sweden. We first show that the...

We study the effect of a compulsory education reform in Sweden on adult health and mortality. The reform was implemented by municipalities between 1949 and 1962 as a social experiment and implied an extension of compulsory schooling from 7 or 8 years depending on municipality to 9 years...

We specify a structural life-cycle model of consumption, labour supply and job mobility in an economy with search frictions that allows us to distinguish between different sources of risk and to estimate their effects. The sources of risk are shocks to productivity, job destruction, the process...

This paper evaluates the impact of a randomized training program for disadvantaged youth introduced in Colombia in 2005. This randomized trial offers a unique opportunity to examine the impact of training in developing countries. We use originally collected data on individuals randomly offered...