This dissertation consists of three papers studying how firms allocate real and financial capital, and how taxes, the labor market and asymmetric information affect these allocation decisions. The first paper studies the response of business investment to taxes. I use the variation provided by...

My dissertation is a collection of three essays that consider various aspects of income inequality and the demand for skill. The first chapter uses the advent of the US Interstate Highway System to examine the effect of reducing trade barriers on the relative demand for skilled labor. The...

This thesis studies the long-term benefits of preschool interventions, the impact of promotions on heart disease, and the effects of light trucks on traffic fatalities. The first chapter examines the long-term effects of preschool interventions. Several influential experiments - Abecedarian,...

This thesis is a collection of three essays on labor economics from a macroeconomic prospective. Chapter 1 discusses imperfect information, self-selection and the market for higher education. It explores how the steady trends in increased tuition costs, college enrollment and returns to...

This dissertation consists of four chapters analyzing the effects of heterogeneous and asymmetric information in macroeconomic and financial settings, with an emphasis on short-run fluctuations. Within these chapters, I study the implications these informational frictions may have for the...

This thesis examines the effect of bankruptcy law on consumer borrowing and welfare. The thesis consists of four theoretical chapters and two empirical chapters. Chapter 1 presents a simple model of consumer borrowing where the repayment of debt is governed by a bankruptcy law which allows a...

This thesis is a collection of essays on the effects of trade and capital flows in developing countries. Chapter 1 starts with the observation that institutions - contract enforcement, property rights, investor protection, and the like - have received a great deal of attention in recent years. I...

This thesis considers inference issues in serially correlated multilevel and panel data and presents a separate essay that examines the impact of 401(k) participation on wealth. The first chapter examines generalized least squares (GLS) estimation in data with a grouped structure where the...

This thesis is composed of three chapters, each includes one paper. The first chapter includes a paper that analyses the impact of terror on consumption and investment. This paper provides evidence on how consumers and investors react to terror attacks based on a new database from the...

"Much as I hate to spoil my story by announcing its plot in advance, this paper is too long and involved to be clear otherwise. It deals with growth of investment and of capital stock subject to depreciation and periodic replacement. " E. Domar The above citation is taken from a piece,...