There is renewed interest in ways to enhance secondary education, especially among disadvantaged students. This study evaluates the short-term effects of a remedial-education program that provided additional instruction to under-performing high-school students in Israel. The program targeted...

This paper investigates the effects of environmental conditions during pregnancy on later life outcomes using quasi-experimental variation created by the immigration of Ethiopian Jews to Israel in May 24th 1991. Children in utero prior to immigration faced dramatic differences in medical care...

A longstanding question in the economics of the family is the relationship between sibship size and subsequent human capital formation and economic welfare. If there is a "quantity-quality trade-off," then policies that discourage large families should lead to increased human capital, higher...

In this paper, we estimate the extent of ability peer effects in the classroom and explore the underlying mechanisms through which these peer effects operate. We identify as low ability students those who are enrolled at least one year behind their birth cohort (quot;repeatersquot;). We show...

The consequences of gender social and learning interactions in the classroom are of interest to parents, policy makers, and researchers. However, little is known about gender peer effects in schools and their operational channels. In this paper, we estimate the effects of classroom gender...

Individuals who engage in “judging” – that is, rendering a determination in a dispute or contest between two parties – might be influenced by public pressure to favor one of the parties. Many rules and arrangements seek to insulate such individuals from public pressure or to address the...

We model how lobbying by interest groups affects the level of investor protection. In our model, insiders in existing public companies, institutional investors (financial intermediaries), and entrepreneurs who plan to take companies public in the future, compete for influence over the...