Using detailed data from a unique survey of high school graduates in Germany, we document a gender gap in expected full-time earnings of more than 15%. We apply a regression-compatible Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition and find that especially differences in coefficients help explain the gap. In...

This paper documents the link between finance and informal competition. Using longitudinal firm-level data, we show that formal firms that are more exposed to the competition of informal firms are less likely to apply for a bank loan. This result is not due to sample selection, omitted variable...

Homeownership has been shown to be related to various aspects of well-being, although both the causal nature of this relationship and the possible channels behind it have been difficult to identify. We focus on one of the most often quoted mechanisms which could be responsible for the positive...

We study belief updating about relative performance in an ego-relevant task. Manipulating the perceived ego-relevance of the task, we show that subjects update their beliefs optimistically because they derive direct utility flows from holding positive beliefs. This finding provides a behavioral...

Scarce information and human capital may make it difficult for residents of developing countries to produce accurate forecasts, limiting responses to uncertain future events like air pollution. We study two randomized interventions in Lahore, Pakistan: 1) provision of air pollution forecasts; 2)...

In addition to realized earnings and employment shocks, forward-looking individuals are presumed to condition their consumption and labor supply decisions on their subjective beliefs about future labor market risks. This paper analyzes these perceptions of earnings and employment risks using...

Do trade unions benefit from economic crises by attracting new members among workers concerned about job security? To address this question, we provide a comprehensive empirical investigation based on panel data from Germany, where workers individually decide on their membership. We analyse...

Using Italian data that includes both inflation forecasts of firms and external information on their balance sheets, we study the causal effect of changes in the dispersion of beliefs about future inflation on the misallocation of resources. We find that as disagreement increases, so does...

We provide a framework to disentangle preferences and beliefs in health behavior and apply it to lockdown compliance in the UK. We estimate a model of compliance choice with uncertain costs and benefits to quantify utility tradeoffs, decompose group differences in compliance, and compute...

This paper examines the subjective treatment effects of a negative shock created by the COVID-19 pandemic on the labour market outcomes of young adults in India, Peru, and Vietnam. We leverage subjective counterfactual outcomes at the individual-level that were purposely collected from over...