Understanding how returns to higher education vary across degree programs is critical for effective higher education policy. Yet there is little evidence as to whether all degrees improve labor market outcomes, and whether they do so for students from different types of backgrounds. We combine...

This paper provides new evidence on the effect of elementary and middle school construction projects on home prices, academic achievement, and school enrollment. Combining the staggered implementation of a comprehensive school construction project in a poor urban district with panel data on...

This paper examines the impact of fetal exposure to air pollution on 4th grade test scores in Santiago, Chile. We rely on comparisons across siblings which address concerns about locational sorting and all other time-invariant family characteristics that can lead to endogenous exposure to poor...

In this article we review the literature on financial literacy, financial education, and consumer financial outcomes. We consider how financial literacy is measured in the current literature, and examine how well the existing literature addresses whether financial education improves financial...

This paper brings new evidence from the privatized social security system in Mexico, offering insight into investment behavior and the efficacy of government "nudges" in the context of profit maximizing firms. We use administrative data from the social security system surrounding the government...

This paper examines how advertising impacts competition and equilibrium prices in the context of a privatized pension market. We use detailed administrative data on fund manager choices and worker characteristics at the inception of Mexico's privatized social security system, where fund managers...

There is little causal evidence on the effect of economic and policy outcomes on voting behavior. This paper uses randomized outcomes from a school choice lottery to examine if lottery outcomes affect voting behavior in a school board election. We show that losing the lottery has no significant...

Several recent education reform measures, including the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), couple school choice with accountability measures to allow parents of children in under-performing schools the opportunity to choose higher-performing schools. We use the introduction of NCLB in the...

The incentives and outcomes generated by public school choice depend to a large degree on parents' choice behavior. There is growing empirical evidence that low-income parents place lower weights on academics when choosing schools, but there is little evidence as to why. We use a field...

Previous research has used survey and diary data to carefully document that Food Stamp recipients decrease their expenditures and consumption of food throughout the benefit month, the beginning of which is defined by the date on which benefits are distributed. The reliance on survey and diary...