We use admissions lotteries to estimate effects of attendance at Boston’s charter high schools on college preparation and enrollment. Charter schools increase pass rates on Massachusetts’ high-stakes exit exam, with large effects on the likelihood of qualifying for a state-sponsored scholarship. Charter attendance also boosts SAT scores sharply and increases the likelihood of taking an Advanced Placement (AP) exam, the number of AP exams taken, and AP scores. Charters induce a substantial shift from 2- to 4-year institutions, though the effect on overall college enrollment is modest. Charter effects on college-related outcomes are strongly correlated with charter effects on earlier tests.

Chile is unusual in having long-term experience with nationwide school vouchers. A key criticism of school voucher systems is that they make it easier for private schools to attract better teachers to the detriment of public schools. This paper uses longitudinal data from Chile to estimate a discrete choice dynamic programming (DCDP) model of teacher and nonteacher labor supply decisions and to explore how wage policies affect the composition of the teacher labor force in public and private schools. In the model, individuals first decide whether to get a teaching degree and then choose annually from among five work/home sector alternatives. Empirical results show that private voucher schools attract better teachers than public schools. However, the existence of the private voucher sector also draws higher-productivity individuals into the teaching profession.

I develop a model in which individual time discount rates have a larger effect on human capital accumulation when credit constraints are binding. Impatient individuals obtain less schooling when borrowing constraints limit the ability to finance consumption during school. Using data from the NLSY79, I show that self-reported measures of time preferences have a significantly higher effect on the college attendance decisions of blacks than those of whites and the decisions of low-income youths than those of high-income youths. These results provide new evidence that members of disadvantaged groups obtain lower levels of schooling because they are credit constrained.

This paper analyzes the effects of job displacement on fertility using Finnish longitudinal register data. We focus on couples where one spouse has lost a job due to a plant closure and follow them for several years before and following the job loss. The results show that female job loss decreases fertility. For every 100 displaced females, there are three fewer children born. Male job loss has no impact on fertility despite resulting in a stronger decrease in family income than female job loss. This indicates that the income effect is not the mechanism through which job displacement influences fertility.

The cost of divorce influences the bargaining position of spouses and thus their behavior within the marriage. This study takes advantage of a major and unexpected reduction in divorce costs in Spain to estimate the causal effects on domestic violence. Results suggest a 30% decline in spousal conflict as a consequence of the reform. Spousal violence is found to have decreased among couples who remained married after the modification in the law, which suggests an important role for changes in bargaining within the marriage when divorce becomes a more credible (cheaper) option.

We examine the impact of restructuring active labor market programs for unemployed immigrants in Finland. Exploiting a discontinuity in the phase-in rules of the reform, we find that it increased compliers’ cumulative earnings by 47% over a 10-year follow-up period. We attribute these improvements to a more efficient use of existing resources. The reform did not affect total days in training, but it did modify the content toward training specifically designed for immigrants.

Authors often add covariates to a base model sequentially either to test a particular coefficient’s “robustness” or to account for the “effects” on this coefficient of adding covariates. This is problematic, due to sequence sensitivity when added covariates are intercorrelated. Using the omitted variables bias formula, I construct a conditional decomposition that accounts for various covariates’ role in moving base regressors’ coefficients. I also provide a consistent covariance formula. I illustrate this conditional decomposition with NLSY data in an application that exhibits sequence sensitivity. Related extensions include instrumental variables, the fact that my decomposition nests the Oaxaca-Blinder decomposition, and a Hausman test result.