Micro- and small firms lack access to external finance and the labour market so that they are vulnerable to family hardships experienced by the owners such as deaths or sickness of family members. The literature is thin on how these firms cope with family hardships, in particular on whether...

We examine whether the three-point rule—the increase in rewards for a win from two- to three points that FIFA adopted in 1995—makes Bundesliga games become more exciting. Using regression discontinuity design as the empirical strategy, we do not find evidence that the three-point rule makes...

We examine the effects of the three-point rule in individual sports. We consider chess in which most tournaments use the standard rule while some tournaments use the Bilbao rule, which is identical to the three-point rule in soccer: We observe the same pairs of chess players playing under both...

I examine whether family hardship experienced by owners of micro and small firms affects the firms' growth. Based on a representative sample of owners of firms in Indonesia, and using deaths of owners' family members as a measure of hardship, I estimate the effects of family hardship on firms'...

This paper examines the effects of trade on economic growth and growth volatility. Using the 1967-1975 closure of the Suez Canal as an instrument for trade, I find that trade leads to higher economic growth, and lower probability of recession or economic slowdown. There is no evidence that trade...

This paper examines the effect of publishing hospital charges on healthcare costs. We compare hospital charges before and after Singapore's Ministry of Health started publishing the statistics of hospital charges on its website in the late 2003. We do not find evidence of a decrease in...

We examine the effects of having English as a medium of instruction on labor market outcomes later in life. We exploit an exogenous variation in mediums of instruction induced by the government of Malaysia’s decision to discontinue English-medium public schools and phase them out with...

This paper examines the effects of a longer school year in Indonesia on grade repetition, educational attainment, employability, and earnings. I exploit an arbitrary rule that assigned students to a longer school year in Indonesia in 1978-1979, which fits a fuzzy regression discontinuity design....

We examine the effects of parental emigration from Sri Lanka on the education of the migrants' children left behind. Using access to foreign-employment agencies at community level as an instrument for migration in two-stage least squares estimations, we do not find parental migration matters on...

This paper examines whether education empowers women. We exploit an exogenous variation in education induced by a longer school year in Indonesia in 1978, which fits a fuzzy regression discontinuity design. We find education reduces the number of live births, increases contraceptive use, and...