Training investments are essential for improving worker and firm productivity, yet their implementation is often hindered by low participation rates and insufficient worker engagement. This study uses data from three firms--a car manufacturer, a quick-service restaurant chain, and a retail...

Using limitations to the deductibility of interest payments triggered by the introduction of interest ceiling rules globally, we show that affected private firms reduce leverage relative to unaffected firms. In support of a causal effect of taxes on corporate capital structure choices, we show...

We study the forces driving polarization and higher wage inequality since 1980 using a structural model of occupation choice in the tradition of Roy (1951). In our model, changes in relative occupational skill prices proxy for changes in relative demand for occupational labor services. Our...

Why is in-kind aid a prominent feature of welfare systems? We present a lab-in-the-field experiment involving members of the general U.S. population and SNAP recipients. After documenting a widespread desire to limit recipients' choices, we quantify the relative importance of (i) welfarist...

There is much disagreement about the extent to which financial incentives motivate study participants. We elicit preferences for being paid for completing a survey, including a one-in-twenty chance of winning a $100 electronic gift card, a guaranteed electronic gift card with the same expected...

When the value of a pledgeable asset (or project) is uncertain, investors are tempted to examine it. The asset owner ultimately bears the information cost, reducing her financing capacity. A pecking order emerges. Debt generates a greater financing capacity than equity: unlike equity investors...

The past few years have seen a shift in many universities' admission policies from test-required to either test-optional or test-blind. This paper uses laboratory experiments to examine students' reporting behavior given their application package and the school's interpretation of non-reported...

We study whether gender differences in university major choices result from anticipated labor market discrimination. First, we document two novel facts using administrative transcript records from a large Midwestern university: women are less likely to study science, technology, engineering, and...

Empirical research in economics often examines the behavior of agents located in a geographic space. In such cases, statistical inference is complicated by the interdependence of economic outcomes across locations. A common approach to account for this dependence is to cluster standard errors...

Utilities increasingly sell electricity using complex menus of time-constant and time-varying price schedules. We study how to design such a menu to maximize social welfare in a second best environment where the marginal private and external costs of generating electricity vary over time,...