Targeted employment subsidy programs are commonly employed by governments. This study examines one such initiative that rebated unemployment insurance premi- ums to employers with net increases in insurable earnings for youth aged 18 to 24. In each of two datasets, statistically and economically...

In this paper, we employ a VAR analysis to examine the nexus between military spending and economic growth in Sri Lanka which, due to the civil war there, has witnessed a significant increase in military spending over the last three decades while also recording healthy economic growth. The study...

The cluster robust variance estimator (CRVE) relies on the number of clusters being large. A shorthand "rule of 42'' has emerged, but we show that unbalanced clusters invalidate it. Monte Carlo evidence suggests that rejection frequencies are higher for datasets with 50 clusters proportional to...

The cluster robust variance estimator (CRVE) relies on the number of clusters being large. The precise meaning of `large' is ambiguous, but a shorthand `rule of 42' has emerged in the literature. We show that this rule depends crucially on the assumption of equal-sized clusters. Monte Carlo...

Many empirical projects are well suited to incorporating a linear difference-in- differences research design. While estimation is straightforward, reliable inference can be a challenge. Past research has not only demonstrated that estimated standard errors are biased dramatically downwards in...

Many empirical projects involve estimation with clustered data. While estimation is straightforward, reliable inference can be challenging. Past research has suggested a number of bootstrap procedures when there are few clusters. I demonstrate, using Monte Carlo experiments, that these bootstrap...