We test the effectiveness of self-help peer groups as a commitment device for precautionary savings, through two randomized field experiments among 2,687 microentrepreneurs in Chile. The first experiment finds that self-help peer groups are a powerful tool to increase savings (the number of...

Poverty is often characterized not only by low and unstable income, but also by heavy debt burdens. We find that reducing barriers to saving through access to free savings accounts decreases participants' short-term debt by about 20%. In addition, participants who experience an economic shock...

Reducing tax evasion is a key priority for many governments, particularly in developing countries. A growing literature has argued that the ability to verify taxpayer self-reports against reports from third parties is critical for modern tax enforcement and the growth of state capacity. However,...

This article examines and quantifies the relationship between local amenities and prices in an equilibrium model, demonstrating the role of non-traded goods and federal taxes. I derive formulae using factor shares to infer local land rents, productivity, and the total value of amenities from...

We estimate peer effects for fourth graders in six European countries. The identification relies on variation across classes within schools. We argue that classes within primary schools are formed roughly randomly with respect to family background. Similar to previous studies, we find sizeable...

This paper argues that taxation of retained profits is particularly distortionary in an economy with good growth prospects and poorly developed financial markets because it primarily reduces the investment of financially constrained firms, investment that has marginal product greater than the...

Treatment is highly cost-effective in reducing an individual's substance abuse (SA) and associated harms. However, data from Treatment Episodes (TEDS) indicate that per capita treatment admissions substantially lagged behind increases in heavy drug use from 1992-2007. Only ten percent of...

Panel data econometric methods are used to investigate how the risk of death from acute myocardial infarction (AMI) varies with macroeconomic conditions after controlling for demographic factors, fixed state characteristics, general time effects and state-specific time trends. The sample...

Dynamic rational expectations models imply that the real value of debt in the hands of the public must be equal to the expected present-value of surpluses. We impose this equilibrium condition on an identified VAR and characterize the way in which the present-value support of debt varies across...

We estimate how the marginal utility of consumption varies with health. To do so, we develop a simple model in which the impact of health on the marginal utility of consumption can be estimated from data on permanent income, health, and utility proxies. We estimate the model using the Health and...