GDP remains too much of an imprecise measure of the standard of living. There is a need for either substitutes or complements. Nighttime lights are a reasonable indicator of the extent, scale, and intensity of socio-economic activities, but a poor measure of national welfare. However, if...

How do large social transfers affect labor supply? This study analyses the South African pension program to answer this question. I exploit a major demand shock - the South African recession that began in 2008 - in a regression discontinuity design to �nd prime aged adult labor supply falls in...

“We risk having a generation that hasn’t held a job. Personal dignity comes from working [.] Young people are in a crisis". Pope Francis - July the 22nd, 2013. Youth unemployment is a critical issue across the European Union with 5.5 million people unemployed among the 18-24 years age group...

This paper studies the short and long-term effects of exposure to Bono de Desarrollo Humano (BDH), the main unconditional cash transfer program in Ecuador, on young people’s education and labor market outcomes. Using individual administrative panel data and a regression discontinuity design, I...

In this paper I will introduce a new political economy model, where there exists a competition amongst two political candidates, which aim to set a policy which enables them to win elections, max- imising the probability of winning. I will show that, if taxes neces- sary to repay the debt are...

Many countries are implementing or at least considering policies to counter increasingly certain negative impacts from climate change. An increasing amount of research has been devoted to the analysis of the costs of climate change and its mitigation, as well as to the design of policies, such...