To address the well-established large-sample invalidity of the +/-1.96 critical values for the t-ratio in the single variable just-identified IV model, applied research typically qualifies the inference based on the first-stage-F (Staiger and Stock (1997) and Stock and Yogo (2005)). We fully...

The ISCHEMIA Trial randomly assigned patients with ischemic heart disease to an invasive treatment strategy centered on revascularization with a control group assigned non-invasive medical therapy. As is common in such "strategy trials," many participants assigned to treatment remained untreated...

Although there is an extensive literature on the determinants of child labor and many initiatives aimed at combating it, there is limited evidence on the consequences of child labor on socio-economic outcomes such as education, wages, and health. We evaluate the causal effect of child labor...

This paper studies factor substitution in one important sector: the nursing home industry. Specifically, we measure the extent to which nursing homes substitute materials for labor when labor becomes relatively more expensive. From a policy perspective, factor substitution in this market is...

Researchers interested in estimating productivity can choose from an array of methodologies, each with its strengths and weaknesses. Methods differ by the assumptions they rely on and imply very different calculations. I compare five widely used techniques: (a) index numbers, (b) data...

In this paper we investigate whether the presence of private insurance leads to improved health status. Using the Health and Retirement study we focus on adults in late middle age who are nearing entry into Medicare. Estimation addresses endogeneity of the insurance participation decision in...

Instrumental Variables (IV) methods identify internally valid causal effects for individuals whose treatment status is manipulable by the instrument at hand. Inference for other populations requires some sort of homogeneity assumption. This paper outlines a theoretical framework that nests all...

This paper develops a new instrumental-variable (IV) approach to estimate the effects of different exchange rate regimes on bilateral outcomes. The basic idea is that the characteristics of the exchange rate regime between two countries (exchange rate variability, fixed or float, autonomous or...

We estimate the causal effect of permanent and premature exits from the labor force on mortality. To overcome the problem of negative health selection into early retirement, we exploit a policy change in unemployment insurance rules in Austria that allowed workers in eligible regions to exit the...