This dissertation consists of three independent essays in labor and public economics. Chapter 1 presents evidence on how exogenous worker exits affect a firm’s demand for incumbent workers and new hires. Using matched employer-employee data based on the universe of German social security records, I analyze the effects of unexpected worker deaths and show that these worker exits affect the remaining workers’ wages and retention probabilities. Chapter 2 (with Peter Ganong) proposes a permutation test for the Regression Kink (RK) design. As a complement to standard RK inference, we propose that researchers construct a distribution of placebo estimates in regions with and without a policy kink and use this distribution to gauge statistical significance of RK estimates. Chapter 3 (with Johannes Abeler) analyzes a laboratory experiment to study how tax complexity affects the reaction to tax changes. / Economics

Education is a fundamental input of human capital formation. In this dissertation we explore topics related to how much and what time of human capital individuals invest in, and the long term-consequences of these investments. We begin with by measuring the degree to which financial incentives can affect a college student’s field of study. Next, we attempt to identify genetic variants associated with increased educational attainment and examine the biological systems implicated by this analysis. Last, we test for heterogeneous treatment effects of education on health across the distribution of observed health and across a genetic predictor of health. In chapter 1, we examine whether students respond to immediate financial incentives when choosing their college major. From 2006-07 to 2010-11, low-income students in technical or foreign language majors could receive up to $8,000 in SMART Grants. Since income-eligibility was determined using a strict threshold, we determine the causal impact of this grant on student major with a regression discontinuity design. Using administrative data from public universities in Texas, we determine that income-eligible students were 3.2 percentage points more likely than their ineligible peers to major in targeted fields. We measure a larger impact of 10.2 percentage points at Brigham Young University. In chapter 2 we find that, educational attainment (EA) is strongly influenced by social and other environmental factors, but genetic factors are also estimated to account for at least 20% of the variation across individuals. We report the results of a genome-wide association study (GWAS) for EA that extends our earlier discovery sample of 101,069 individuals to 293,723 individuals, and a replication in an independent sample of 111,349 individuals from the UK Biobank. We now identify 74 genome-wide significant loci associated with number of years of schooling completed. Single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with educational attainment are disproportionately found in genomic regions regulating gene expression in the fetal brain. Candidate genes are preferentially expressed in neural tissue, especially during the prenatal period, and enriched for biological pathways involved in neural development. Our findings demonstrate that, even for a behavioral phenotype that is mostly environmentally determined, a well-powered GWAS identifies replicable associated genetic variants that suggest biologically relevant pathways. Because EA is measured in large numbers of individuals, it will continue to be useful as a proxy phenotype in efforts to characterize the genetic influences of related phenotypes, including cognition and neuropsychiatric disease. In 1972, the mandatory minimum age at which a student could drop out of school in England and Wales was raised from 15 to 16, constraining roughly 15 percent of the student population. In chapter 3, we exploit this discontinuous increase in educational attainment to estimate the impact of education on body mass index (BMI) and diabetes approximately 40 years later. While previous literature found no significant effect of education on health, they were not able to investigate whether these effects vary along the distribution of health outcomes. We are able to detect large effects on BMI in the upper quantiles of observed BMI, as large as 2 BMI points at the 90th percentile of BMI, from a baseline of 35.6. Using a genetic predictor of BMI, we also find that those with higher genetic risk of obesity see smaller reductions in BMI as a result of the increase in compulsory schooling while large reductions are seen in those with low genetic risk. Taken together our results point to the importance of considering heterogeneity when estimating the impacts of education on health. / Economics

Chapter 1 presents evidence that current economics research significantly underestimates the effects of air pollution, regardless of the outcome of interest. This bias exists even in quasi-experimental estimates and arises because popular methods used by economists, including geographic diff-in-diffs and monitor-based interpolations, are unable to account for sharp changes in exposure over short distances. To solve this problem, I use an atmospheric dispersion model to determine the effect of every polluting firm on every house in greater Los Angeles. I then estimate the effect of NOx emissions on house prices using the exogenous variation in emissions caused by the California Electricity Crisis of 2000 and a cap-and-trade program in greater Los Angeles. The estimated price response is much larger than past estimates while conventional methods are unable to detect any effect. In Chapter 2, I use these methods to explore the equity implications of the Crisis-induced pollution reduction. I also present a locational equilibrium model and derive conditions under which lower-income residents are displaced by higher-income immigrants after an arbitrary local amenity is improved. I find that rents increased significantly in improved neighborhoods, on par with house prices. Simultaneously, total population decreased, driven by a mass outmigration of low-education residents. Low home-ownership rates among low-income households suggests that emigrants were not responding to a wealth windfall but were instead made worse off by the amenity improvement. Chapter 3 considers the principal-agent problem that arises when consumers file for bankruptcy. Lawyers advise debtors on whether to file the cheaper Chapter 7 filing or the more expensive Chapter 13 filing. Bankruptcy courts that allow lawyers to charge more for Chapter 13 see a significantly larger fraction of Chapter 13 filings. This is true controlling for a host of demographic controls at the zip code level and with state fixed effects and district policy controls. Our estimates suggest that 5.4% of cross-district variation in relative Chapter 13 rates could be eliminated by harmonizing relative fees. / Economics

A growing number of teacher preparation programs require trainees to practice teaching. Yet, there is almost no evidence on whether the performance of individuals during clinical practice lessons predicts how they fare once they enter the school system. We address this question by taking advantage of the fact that an alternative pathway into teaching in Argentina requires admitted applicants to complete two weeks of clinical practice. We collect information both during clinical practice and the school year. During clinical practice, we measure the performance of teaching trainees using classroom observations and student surveys. During the school year, we measure their performance using classroom observations, student surveys, and principal surveys. We find that the overall performance of trainees during clinical practice predicts their overall performance during the school year, but this prediction is only statistically under certain model specifications. The performance of these individuals during clinical practice predicts their ratings on classroom observations during the school year. This relationship remains statistically significant even when we account for how trainees fare on the application and selection processes of the alternative pathway. We also find that the performance of trainees on a brief demonstration lesson, delivered during the selection process, predicts their performance on classroom observations during the school year. The predictive effect is smaller than that of clinical practice lessons, but it raises the question of whether the additional effort required to collect information during clinical practice is worth the improved predictive validity. / Quantitative Policy Analysis in Education

This paper examines the impact of tariff liberalisation on employment for selected Canadian manufacturing industries between 1987--1996. An input-output model was constructed to estimate the changes in the level of employment arising from changes in the flow of imports and exports due to tariff liberalisation. In addition to an input-output model, preliminary econometric testing was also conducted to capture the effects of other structural and cyclical factors that may have also affected employment during the same period. In this regard, an OLS model was constructed that examined the relationship between employment and the following variables: exchange rates, Canadian gross domestic product, US gross domestic product, and tariff rates. The main finding of the study was that tariff liberalisation had a minimal impact on employment, but that the extent of the impact varied across industries. Moreover, the employment effects were found to be dependent on the specific production requirements of industries rather than trade sensitivity, as is commonly argued in the economic literature. It was also established that, in conjuction with tariff liberalisation, other macro-economic factors also affected the level of employment during the same period.

Abstract not available.

Abstract not available.

De par son ampleur, son étendue géographique et ses potentialités hautement néfastes, l'exploitation de la main-d'oeuvre enfantine constitue un enjeu fondamental sur la scène internationale. Par le biais d'une étude de cas portant sur le Sénégal, cette recherche vise à évaluer l'utilité du dispositif international et national de lutte contre le travail infantile pour la protection des enfants contre l'exploitation économique dans les pays les moins avancés (PMA). Le recensement des écrits sur cette thématique et l'analyse des entretiens semi-dirigés realises au Sénégal mettent en lumiere l'inadaptation du contenu et des objectifs de ce cadre à la réalité des enfants sénégalais, son application déficiente à l'échelle nationale ainsi que le contexte socioéconomique difficile du pays. Par conséquent, le dispositif de lutte contre le travail infantile actuellement en vigueur au Sénégal ne peut assurer la protection des enfants et des adolescents de ce pays contre l'exploitation économique.

This body of work contains four essays. The first three use a novel approach to measuring the impact that taxation has on individuals' incentive to invest in human capital; specifically, a university education. The final essay uses the results from the first three to explore the capital levy problem in a new light. Using the framework for effective marginal tax rates (EMTRs) on physical capital, a conceptual framework is developed for measuring similar rates on human capital. Unlike their physical capital counterpart, effective tax rates (ETRs) on human capital are not measured at the margin, but rather are based on the next level of education attainment (e.g. high school vs. university/college). The reason, which is explained in detail, is that the lumpiness of human capital investment matters, unlike for physical capital. Results show that the progressivity of personal income taxation plays a large role in human capital ETRs, as do non-tax policy instruments (e.g. registered education savings plans, tuition and other direct costs to education, education allowances, etc.). Human capital ETRs are nonuniform, like their EMTR cousins, but are lower in magnitude. The results also support the view that the tax structure may influence the incentive for highly educated Canadians to seek employment in the United States, mitigating the brain drain phenomenon. The final essay looks at the capital levy problem. If capital investments are irreversible, governments can tax these items ex post with little (or no) deadweight loss. As a result, smart investors end up investing less in certain types of capital. In the end there is an underinvestment in capital. The problem with this view is that it only describes what happens in the case of physical capital investment. Given the importance of human capital in today's "knowledge-based" economy, it is imperative that the framework address both of these types of capital. A general equilibrium model is developed. Results support the view that it is more than wages alone that determine migration incentives; the structure of the tax system, public goods, adjustment costs, are all shown to play a role. Simulation results are also provided.

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