We investigate how the selection process of a leader affects team performance with respect to social learning. We use a lab experiment in which an incentivized guessing task is repeated in a star network with the leader at the center. Leader selection is either based on competence, on...

Using causal graphs, this paper develops a simple check to uncover the direction of the causal link between economic policy uncertainty and stock market volatility. The check is applied to monthly data for 22 countries. The results imply that uncertainty is an instantaneous cause of stock market...

This article develops a theoretical model for evaluating mandatory activation of welfare recipients in complex activation programmes. The model aims to summarize and describe heterogeneous content that is difficult to comprehend because of local variations, staff characteristics, or other...

Evaluation studies aim to provide answers to important questions like: How does this program or policy intervention affect the outcome variables of interest? In order to answer such questions, using the traditional statistical evaluation (or causal inference) methods, some conditions must be...

An estimand of interest in empirical studies with observational data is the average treatment effect of a multi-valued treatment in the treated subpopulation. We demonstrate three estimation approaches: outcome regression, inverse probability weighting and inverse probability weighted...

This paper introduces Parameter Estimation by Raw Moments (PERM), a flexible method for evaluating a policy's impact on the parameters of an outcome distribution. Such parameters include the variance (E[Y 2 ]-E[Y] 2 ), skewness and covariance of two outcomes. PERM simplifies distributional...

We explain persistent differences in cultural traits of immigrant groups with the presence of community leaders. Leaders influence the cultural traits of their community, which have an impact on the group's earnings. They determine whether a community will be more assimilated and wealthier or...

We show that the Matthew effect, or Matthew mechanism, was present in the artificial cultural market Music Lab when social influence between individuals was allowed, whereas this was not the case when social influence was not allowed. We also sketch on a class of social network models, derived...

What are the macroeconomic implications of changes in sovereign risk premia? In this paper, I use a novel identification strategy coupled with a new dataset for the Euro Area to answer this question. I show that exogenous innovations in sovereign risk premia were an important driver of the...