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In this dissertation, I present three distinct essays in health and public economics. In chapter 2, using Vital Statistics data from National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) and a Difference in Difference methodology, I investigate the impact of the Paid Family Leave (PFL) of California on birth delay, infant health, and labor market outcomes of mothers after first childbirth. I find that PFL of California reduces birth delay by encouraging women to have their first child earlier. Results are more pronounced for older women who are over the age of 35. This policy also improves infant health by reducing incidence of low birth weight (<2500 grams), premature (<37 weeks of gestation), and cesarean-born infants of older mothers. Furthermore, results show that PFL policy improves labor market attachment by increasing the likelihood of employment after childbirth for college educated women who are more likely to exit the labor force after childbirth. Chapter 3, investigates the impact of the biggest oil spill in the U.S. history in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 on air quality and health outcomes of newborns. Using Vital Statistics data from National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), air quality data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and a Difference in Difference methodology, I find that oil spill of 2010 reduces air quality and increases the incidence of low birth weight and premature newborns. Heterogeneity effects show higher adverse health impacts for black mothers, less educated mothers, unmarried, and mothers less than 20 years old. Chapter 4 examines whether the party affiliation of governors (Democrat or Republican) has an impact on the allocation of state expenditures. Exploiting gubernatorial election results from 1960 to 2012 and a Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD), we find that Democratic governors allocate a larger share of their budget to health/hospitals and education sectors. We find no significant impact of the political party of governors on total spending, only on the allocation of funds. The results are robust to a wide range of controls and model specifications.

In Chapter 1, I provide new impossibility results for the problem of selecting a committee of a fixed number of members out of a set of candidates in the presence of veto power. I show that even limited veto power makes many committee selection mechanisms of interest manipulable. This applies in particular (i) to mechanisms the range of which contains a degenerate lottery in which a committee is chosen for sure and (ii) to mechanisms that are constructed from extensive game forms with a finite number of strategies. These impossibilities hold on a large set of domains including the domain of additive preferences and even when probabilistic mechanisms are allowed. In Chapter 2, I introduce the dominance threshold, a new measure of strategic complexity based on âlevel-kâ thinking. I use this measure to compare mechanisms used in practice to select juries in jury trials. In applying this measure, I overturn some commonly held beliefs about which jury selection mechanisms are strategically simple. In particular, I show that sequential mechanisms tend to be strategically simpler than mechanisms that involve simultaneous moves: By generating imperfect information games, simultaneous mechanisms increase the amount of guesswork needed to determine optimal strategies. In Chapter 3, I show that, in the context of one-to-one two-sided matching, the deferred acceptance mechanism cannot be improved upon in terms of manipulability in the sense of Pathak and S¨onmez (2013) or Arribillaga and Mass´o (2015) without compromising stability. I also identify conflicts between manipulability and fairness. Stable mechanisms that minimize the set of individuals who match with their least preferred achievable mate are shown to be maximally manipulable among the stable mechanisms. These mechanisms are also more manipulable than the deferred acceptance mechanism. I identify a similar conflict between fairness and manipulability in the case of the median stable mechanisms.

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<p> This dissertation consists of three chapters that use administrative matched employer-employee data to analyze firms' hiring and promotion strategies and to explore how firm-level personnel strategies affect individual firm performance and worker careers, but also aggregate outcomes of productivity, wage inequality and welfare. The first chapter studies how firms compete for managerial talent by using internal promotions versus external hiring to recruit managers. The second chapter analyzes how exporters adjust their organizational structure in response to international trade shocks and how these adjustments affect wage inequality within the firm. The third chapter focuses on the health care sector and uses a parental leave reform to analyze whether a sudden shortage in nurses affects patient health outcomes in hospitals and nursing homes. </p><p> In the first chapter, I use administrative matched employer-employee data from Denmark to provide the first comprehensive evidence how firms differ in using internal promotions and external hiring at the management level. The data cover the universe of firms and workers and allow me to track career paths both within and across firms based on worker occupations. I document that more productive firms hire more talented young workers, are more likely to promote managers internally, and match with better managers in terms of education and ability. Based on these facts, I develop an assignment model of the market for managers where heterogeneous firms compete for workers who differ in managerial talent. In the model internal labor markets arise from asymmetric learning and firm-specific human capital. Production complementarities between firm productivity and manager talent result in better firms investing in promising workers and in developing talent through firm-specific training and internal promotion. I estimate the model using the Danish data. Model simulations indicate that removing information frictions increases aggregate productivity by 22.5 percent. This gain is accompanied by higher wage inequality because better signals of talent increase competition for the best managers. This mechanism provides a new market-driven explanation for the increase in upper-tail wage inequality. </p><p> In the second chapter, I combine the administrative employer-employee data with firm-level trade data from Denmark to provide evidence for a novel mechanism through which trade affects wage inequality: changes in firm hierarchies. This mechanism is motivated by the empirical fact that within-firm wage variation across the hierarchical levels of top manager, middle manager, supervisor and worker accounts for an important component of wage inequality. It is comparable in magnitude to wage differences across firms. To identify the causal effect of trade shocks on firm hierarchies and wage inequality, I use two distinct research designs for firm-level trade shocks&mdash;one based on foreign demand and transportation costs, and the other using the Muslim boycott of Danish exports after the Cartoon crisis. Both identification strategies suggest robust effects of trade shocks on within-firm inequality through changes in hierarchies. Consistent with models of knowledge-based or incentive-based hierarchies, firm-level trade shocks influence organizational choices through production scale. Adding a hierarchy layer significantly increases inequality within firms, ranging from 2% for the 50-10 wage gap to 4.7% for the 90-50 wage gap. </p><p> The third chapter, which is joint with Martin B. Hackmann, Pennsylvania State University, studies unintended effects of a parental leave program on employers and consumers, specifically on the allocation of resources and the quality of care in the Danish health sector. Using matched employer-employee data, we estimate that a generous child leave program introduced in Denmark in 1994 led to a persistent decrease in the number of skilled nurses in Danish hospitals and nursing homes by more than 10% on average. Combining labor market and death register data, we analyze the effect of nurse shortages on patient mortality. Our empirical strategy exploits exogenous variation in net employment effects based on eligibility of the workforce across health sectors and counties. We find that the policy led to an average increase in mortality in nursing homes by 14% for the population aged 85 and older. Nurse shortages in nursing homes increase total mortality for this subpopulation at the county level one-to-one. This suggests that staffing needs for skilled nurses are a particular concern in nursing homes and of growing importance as the population ages and the demand for long term care services increases.</p>

This dissertation focuses on the topic of information design and information exchange between economic agents theoretically and experimentally. In the first section of my dissertation, I revisit the classic problem of product information revelation using a new theoretical framework developed by Kamenica and Gentzkow (2011). In the second section of my dissertation, I design an experimental test of the predictions of Kamenica and Gentzkow (2011), an influential paper that has provided the theoretical foundations for many models in the information design literature. In the last section, I look at the problem of disclosing bias when communicating to a heterogeneous audience. A firm's incentive to provide product information is a topic of central importance in industrial organization theory. In the first section of my dissertation titled "Controlling Information to Influence Consumer Beliefs," I take a fresh look at the question of how much information firms are willing to provide consumers using the information design framework developed in Kamenica and Gentzkow (2011). In my model, I show that even without the ability to price discriminate, a firm can influence a rational consumer to change her beliefs and extract full expected consumer surplus. In contrast to the results of earlier papers such as Lewis and Sappington (1996) and Johnson and Myatt (2006), the firm chooses to provide partial information in equilibrium. In addition, I show that competition is beneficial in the sense that it forces firms to reveal information in order to differentiate themselves from one another and avoid fierce competition. Persuasion commands a huge share of economic resources and is a topic of great importance to economists. In the model of persuasion by Kamenica and Gentzkow (2011), the sender can influence the receiver's belief and therefore the receiver's action given the power to manipulate the information environment. The question of whether in reality people can learn to influence other people's prior beliefs optimally by changing the information environment as predicted by Kamenica and Gentzkow's model remains unanswered. The second section of my dissertation, titled "Bayesian Persuasion: Evidence from the Laboratory" attempts to answer this question using data generated from a series of laboratory experiments. I find that whether subjects can learn to implement the optimal persuasion strategy depends on the number of feasible strategies available to them as well as feedback about the effectiveness of each strategy. In this section, I provide data to test the theory as well as a novel experimental design that can be implemented in testing other information design theories. The final chapter of my thesis looks at the problem of communicating to a heterogeneous audience. I find that when a sender communicates with a heterogeneous audience consisting of proponents and opponents, it is beneficial for him to not disclose his bias. For example, if a conservative politician wishes to win the support of both conservatives and liberals, it is best for the politician to keep information about his political alignments to himself. Not disclosing bias improves public communication between the sender and the audience.

While the international accounting community has widely adopted International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), the United States has remained independent, using United States Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (US GAAP). While the standards are similar in many ways, there are some crucial differences between the two. I analyze the differences between IFRS and GAAP accounting treatment in regards to intangible assets. I present theoretical scenarios and leverage previous studies in order to conclude the overall effect mandatory IFRS adoption would have on both investor and managerial decision-making. I conclude that IFRS adoption would have both positive and negative effects on the accuracy of financial reporting and decision-making. The main negative consequence identified is the ability for management of earnings by corporations. However, I concluded that educated investors should not be affected, as both US GAAP and IFRS require sufficient financial statement presentation and disclosures.

Some teams in the National Basketball Association experienced revenue declines during the Great Recession. Previous literature has found that teams in larger markets are able to generate more revenue due to higher populations. The recession left small-market teams suffering financially. I analyze a player based on his performance and examine if market size and recessions appreciate or depreciate a player’s salary. Further, I investigate if the competitive imbalance between big-market and small-market teams expanded due to the recession. My results suggest recessions do not have an impact on player salary, however player salary decreased by a small margin in post-recession years. The 2008 Great Recession did not enhance the competitive imbalance among teams. The NBA did an effective job accounting for decreasing team revenues during the recession and confirming all teams could spend amounts at or near the salary cap.

In response to the worst ever economic crisis in the U.S., the New Deal was created by the President Franklin Roosevelt. It was not just an expansion of the existing programs but a qualitatively different way to distribute federal funds to people in need. In the first chapter of my dissertation I analyze the appropriation acts for the major federal spending programs. This is the first detailed study of such nature. The first veterans' aid federal programs were started before the Civil War and were specific in how federal funds could be allocated. The Bureau of Reclamation, highways, and rivers and harbors improvements programs that followed were equally tightly regulated by the Congress, with the congressional oversight written into the law. The change in the appropriations acts did not come until 1933 when the newly inaugurated President Franklin D. Roosevelt introduced his New Deal legislature. The new federal spending programs were aimed at alleviating unemployment and providing relief during the Great Depression. Due to the economic emergency and the need for swift relief measures, the New Deal acts gave wide powers to distribute federal funds to the President and the agencies he would create. There was no Congressional oversight, no project approval process. The Congress appropriated money to general relief programs (agriculture, conservation, national industrial recovery, etc.) to use "at President's discretion." Lack of tight regulations made it possible to direct the money where it was most needed in a timely fashion. At the same time, as I show in Chapter 2, it enabled the President to allocate more funds to the swing voting states and gather political capital for the reelection. Most of the New Deal acts were labeled as emergency and had a termination date. Even though the termination date was sometimes extended, the laws were later changed making the Executive branch directed distribution of federal funds a New Deal phenomena.The New Deal funds were not evenly distributed among the states. Neither were they proportional to the population. In chapter two I analyze the sources of the variation in the amount of per capita federal spending the states received through the New Deal. Previous studies suggest that both economic and political characteristics of a state led to it receiving more New Deal money. To see if it was a new pattern or a continuation of the old approach, I look at the distribution of federal funds in the 1920s as well. I use the new detailed program-by-program annual data on federal spending that I collected over the years with Price Fishback. Using an instrumental variables approach, I find that federal funds were distributed differently in the 1920s and 1930s. Before the New Deal started in 1933, the political characteristics of the state (swing voting and faithfulness to one party- or how far to one side it is, and how far does it swing) had no effect on the distribution process. The amounts were determined by geographical features of the state; western arid states received more money for the irrigation projects, while eastern states obtained more funds for improving the harbors. Starting with the President Roosevelt and his New Deal, the swing voting states started receiving more federal funds in almost all categories, everything else held equal. The legislative freedom in the New Deal legislature that I discovered in Chapter 1 made it possible for Roosevelt to gather political capital in the swing voting states. This is the first study that determines the onset of the swing-voting heavy patterns for distribution of the federal funds.The emergency relief and recovery spending of the New Deal had to have an economic effect on the wellbeing of the states. In chapter 3 I analyze how large that effect was. To be consistent with the previous studies, I estimate state level government spending income multipliers for different types of New Deal spending. I use the unique dataset that Price Fishback and I collected from direct archival sources and an instrumental variable approach to counteract the endogeneity of state personal income and federal funding a state received. I find that one additional dollar of per capita New Deal spending increase personal per capita state income by 40 to 96 cents depending on the type of spending. New Deal programs varied greatly in their design and method of operation, so it is no surprise that the economic response to those programs was different as well. I roughly divide the programs into grants and loans, keeping in mind that many loan programs turned into grants over time when the repayment was forgiven. A dollar of per capita New Deal grants increased per capita income in states by 86 cents. Once I added loans to the grants the personal income multiplier went down, as one would expect, since loans by their nature are supposed to be repaid. Agricultural Adjustment Administration spending stand out from the rest of the government spending. That program was developed to improve farmers' wellbeing by increasing the agricultural commodity prices. In order to do so, the farmers were paid to take land out of production to decrease supply and drive prices up. AAA spending had an expectedly different effect on the states' incomes. The estimated government spending income multiplier is very small unlike the rest of my estimates. I also find that the New Deal spending had a positive effect on the consumption of durable goods, specifically automobiles, and a negligible and sometimes negative effect on employment.

This dissertation includes three essays investigating the economics of education. The first two essays consider how English language learner programs should be structured to benefit the general education of students. The third essay considers how school choice reforms affect student outcomes on standardized exams. The first essay considers the effect of a Structured English Immersion program on the test score and graduation outcomes of high school English language learning students. It is unclear how to best educate English language learning (ELL) students and integrate them with the general student population. In particular, there is a question of whether it is better for ELL students to be placed in classrooms with only other ELL students and material focused on making ELL students proficient in English, or whether it is better to keep ELL students among their English proficient peers as much as possible to expedite their integration into mainstream classrooms. I use regression discontinuity methods with a student-level data set from the state of Arizona to analyze whether enrollment in an ELL program that requires intensive instruction in English away from mainstream peers is effective in improving graduation and test score outcomes for high-school ELL students. While proponents of the curriculum argued that the language skills acquired in the program would prepare students to succeed in their general education, there were concerns that the program could discourage students because of their isolation from other mainstream peers, leading to worsened outcomes. The results indicate that enrollment in the program had no effect on standardized reading and math exams, nor graduation rates. These results suggest that while other curricula should be explored for improving the outcomes of ELL students, ELL programs focused on intensive instruction in English will likely not induce worse outcomes for ELL students. The second essay considers the effect of the four hour Structured English Immersion program on students who are already proficient in English. Again, the intention of the four hour SEI policy was to help students become proficient in English as quickly as possible so that they can avoid falling behind their peers in general curriculum. Though it is important to understand the efficacy of the program for ELL students, it is also important to consider the effect of the policy on students already proficient in English. While hypothetically there are a number of channels through which the policy implementation could have affected non-ELL student outcomes (i.e.disruption from re-arrangement of school resources), one particular channel of interest is classroom peer group composition (in terms of language proficiency), which was altered substantially for many students as a result of the program. Using student-level data, I investigate whether non-ELL students at schools with high levels ELL student enrollment experienced gains in standardized math and reading exams. While non-ELL students at schools with greater levels of ELL enrollment made gains in reading passing rates relative to non-ELL students at schools with lower rates of ELL enrollment after the introduction of the 4-hour SEI model, there is evidence that this was part of a larger trend in student performance taking place before the introduction of the 4-hour SEI model, though some analysis suggests that the policy change led to improvements for non-ELL students.The third essay considers the effects of charter schools on student achievement at traditional public schools. Charter school proponents argue that traditional public schools will work to improve their operations and management in order to maintain enrollment when charter schools are allowed to compete for students. I use a new, student-level panel data set to estimate the effect of charter schools on academic achievement at traditional public schools. In addition to including student and school fixed-effects in the analysis, I utilize an instrumental variables strategy that uses local building stock to account for endogenous charter school location decisions. Furthermore, I investigate the effect of charter schools in the context of open enrollment, a policy meant in part to increase inter-district competition. This analysis includes the examination of whether or not there are heterogeneous effects of charter schools on traditional public schools exposed to different levels of inter-district competition, and allows me to consider whether or not policies meant to increase competition between traditional public schools could be effective substitutes for allowing charter schools to operate. I find that charter schools have a positive and statistically significant effect on the reading scores of students at traditional public schools, and I do not find evidence that suggests that policies meant to increase competition between traditional public schools could be effective substitutes for charter schools. The results from this study indicate that allowing charter schools to operate can be an effective mechanism for improving student achievement at traditional public schools when charter schools are allowed financial and operational autonomy.