This paper analyzes the incentives and responses of public schools in the context of an educational reform. The literature on the effect of voucher programs on public schools typically focuses on student and mean school scores. This paper tries to go inside the black box to investigate some of...

Since December 2008, the Federal Reserve's traditional policy instrument, the target federal funds rate, has been effectively at its lower bound of zero. In order to further ease the stance of monetary policy as the economic outlook deteriorated, the Federal Reserve purchased substantial...

A major lesson of the recent financial crisis is that the interbank lending market is crucial for banks that face uncertainty regarding their liquidity needs. This paper examines the efficiency of the interbank lending market in allocating funds and the optimal policy of a central bank in...

This paper is concerned with ex ante and ex post counterfactual analyses in the case of macroeconometric applications where a single unit is observed before and after a given policy intervention. It distinguishes between cases where the policy change affects the model's parameters and where it...

Policies to promote marriage are controversial, and it is unclear whether they are successful. To analyze such policies, it is essential to distinguish between a marriage that is created by a marriage-promoting policy (marginal marriage) and a marriage that would have been formed even in the...

This paper is concerned with ex ante and ex post counterfactual analyses in the case of macroeconometric applications where a single unit is observed before and after a given policy intervention. It distinguishes between cases where the policy change affects the model's parameters and where it...

To mitigate the impact of the 2008-2010 global financial crisis on vulnerable households, the Government of Latvia established Workplaces with Stipends, an emergency public works program that targeted registered unemployed people who were not receiving unemployment benefits. This paper evaluates...

Randomized experiments provide policy relevant treatment effects if there are no spillovers between participants and nonparticipants. We show that this assumption is violated for a Danish activation program for unemployed workers. Using a difference-in-difference model we show that the...

We present evidence on how The Quantum Opportunity Program (QOP hereafter) worked in the US. While the program was regarded as successful in the short-term, in the long-run its educational results were modest and its effects on risky behaviors detrimental. Exploiting control group's...

Cash transfer programs can provide important financial support for poor households in developing countries and are becoming increasingly common. However the potential for mistargeting of program funds is high. This paper focuses on the social consequences arising from misallocation of resources...