Papers by Cristian Pop-Eleches
The 1966 abolition and 1989 legalization of abortion in Romania immediately doubled and decreased... more The 1966 abolition and 1989 legalization of abortion in Romania immediately doubled and decreased by about a third the number of births per month, respectively. To isolate the link between abortion access and crime while abstracting from cohort and general equilibrium effects, we compare birth month cohorts on either side of the abortion regime. For both the abolition and legalization of abortion, we find large and significant effects on the level of crime and risky-behavior related hospitalization, but an insignificant effect on crime and hospitalization rates (i.e. when normalizing by the size of the birth month cohort). In other words, the Romanian abortion reforms did affect crime, but all of the effect appears to be driven by cohort size effects rather than selection or unwantedness effects.
Journal of Business & Economic Statistics
Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published i... more Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.
Science
Schooling rewards people with labor market returns and nonpecuniary benefits in other realms of l... more Schooling rewards people with labor market returns and nonpecuniary benefits in other realms of life. However, there is no experimental evidence showing that education interventions improve individual economic rationality. We examine this hypothesis by studying a randomized 1-year financial support program for education in Malawi that reduced absence and dropout rates and increased scores on a qualification exam of female secondary school students. We measure economic rationality 4 years after the intervention by using lab-in-the-field experiments to create scores of consistency with utility maximization that are derived from revealed preference theory. We find that students assigned to the intervention had higher scores of rationality. The results remain robust after controlling for changes in cognitive and noncognitive skills. Our results suggest that education enhances the quality of economic decision-making.
Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research pu... more Any opinions expressed in this paper are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but IZA takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The IZA Institute of Labor Economics is an independent economic research institute that conducts research in labor economics and offers evidence-based policy advice on labor market issues. Supported by the Deutsche Post Foundation, IZA runs the world's largest network of economists, whose research aims to provide answers to the global labor market challenges of our time. Our key objective is to build bridges between academic research, policymakers and society. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.
Journal of Labor Economics, 2017
We are grateful to Josh Angrist, David Card, John DiNardo, and conference participants at A Fests... more We are grateful to Josh Angrist, David Card, John DiNardo, and conference participants at A Festschrift in Honor of Robert Lalonde for invaluable comments and suggestions. In addition to the cited references, this paper draws extensively on the framework developed in Dehejia, Pop-Eleches, and Samii (2014), extending the external validity framework developed there in the context of experiments to instrumental variables estimates. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
This paper explores whether conditions during early childhood affect the productivity of later hu... more This paper explores whether conditions during early childhood affect the productivity of later human capital investments. We use Romanian administrative data to ask if the benefit of access to better schools is larger for children who experienced better family environments because their parents had access to abortion. We combine regression discontinuity and differences-indifferences designs to estimate impacts on a high-stakes school-leaving exam. Although we find that access to abortion and access to better schools each have positive impacts, we do not find evidence of significant interactions between these shocks. While these results suggest the absence of dynamic complementarities in human capital formation, survey data suggest that they may also reflect behavioral responses by students and parents.
We are grateful to Josh Angrist, David Card, John DiNardo, and conference participants at A Fests... more We are grateful to Josh Angrist, David Card, John DiNardo, and conference participants at A Festschrift in Honor of Robert Lalonde for invaluable comments and suggestions. In addition to the cited references, this paper draws extensively on the framework developed in Dehejia, Pop-Eleches, and Samii (2014), extending the external validity framework developed there in the context of experiments to instrumental variables estimates. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published i... more Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.
Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published i... more Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of IZA. Research published in this series may include views on policy, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. The IZA research network is committed to the IZA Guiding Principles of Research Integrity. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit organization supported by Deutsche Post Foundation. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its international network, workshops and conferences, data service, project support, research visits and doctoral program. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author.
Vocational training and general education are the two predominant forms of secondary schooling ar... more Vocational training and general education are the two predominant forms of secondary schooling around the world. Most studies that compare the effect of vocational and general education on labor market outcomes in the cross-section suffer from selection bias since less able students are more likely to enroll in vocational programs. This paper exploits a 1973 educational reform in Romania that shifted a large proportion of students from vocational training to general education in order to avoid the bias caused by non-random selection. Using data from the 1992 Census and the 1995-2000 LSMS, we analyze the effect of this policy in the context of a transition economy that experienced a decline in manufacturing and a reallocation of labor to new jobs. We find that cohorts affected by the policy were significantly less likely to work in manual or craft-related occupations but showed no differences in unemployment, non employment, family income and wages than their counterparts who were no...
gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Spencer Foundation. All errors are our own. ... more gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Spencer Foundation. All errors are our own. The views expressed herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
Hayek (1960) distinguishes the institutions of English freedom, which guarantee the independence ... more Hayek (1960) distinguishes the institutions of English freedom, which guarantee the independence of judges from political interference in the administration of justice, from those of American freedom, which allow judges to restrain law-making powers of the sovereign through constitutional review. We create a data base of constitutional rules in 71 countries that reflect these institutions of English and American freedom, and ask whether these rules predict economic and political freedom in a cross-section of countries. We find that the English institutions of judicial independence are strong predictors of economic freedom and weaker predictors of political freedom. The American institutions of checks and balances are strong predictors of political but not of economic freedom. Judicial independence explains half of the positive effect of common law legal origin on measures of economic freedom.
Review of Economics and Statistics, 2010
This paper examines the relative benefits of general education and vocational training during Rom... more This paper examines the relative benefits of general education and vocational training during Romania's transition to a market economy. We examine a 1973 educational reform that shifted a large proportion of students from vocational training to general education. Using census and household survey data, we analyze the effect of this policy with a regression discontinuity design. We find that men affected by the policy are significantly less likely to work in manual or craft-related occupations but have similar levels of labor market participation and earnings compared to their counterparts unaffected by the policy. We conclude that differences in labor market returns between graduates of vocational and general schools are largely driven by selection.
The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 2011
, as well as seminar participants at the Demography Workshop, the Applied Micro Workshop and the ... more , as well as seminar participants at the Demography Workshop, the Applied Micro Workshop and the CHPPP Workshop at Chicago and the NBER Economics of Education Program Meetings. We are grateful to Grigore Pop-Eleches who has greatly contributed to the development and implementation of the project. We also thank Ioana Veghes at Gallup Romania for managing the survey and the data collection effort. All errors and opinions are our own. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research.
American Economic Review, 2013
This paper applies a regression discontinuity design to the Romanian secondary school system, gen... more This paper applies a regression discontinuity design to the Romanian secondary school system, generating two findings. First, students who have access to higher achievement schools perform better in a (high stakes) graduation test. Second, the stratification of schools by quality in general, and the opportunity to attend a better school in particular, result in significant behavioral responses: (i) teachers sort in a manner consistent with a preference for higher achieving students; (ii) children who make it into more selective schools realize they are relatively weaker and feel marginalized; (iii) parents reduce effort when their children attend a better school. (JEL I21, I28, J13)
Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 2012
This article addresses the question of whether incumbents can buy political support through targe... more This article addresses the question of whether incumbents can buy political support through targeted public spending. Using a regression discontinuity approach which takes advantage of the design of a recent Romanian government program that distributed coupons worth 200 Euros to poor families towards the purchase of a computer, we find that program beneficiaries were significantly more likely to support the parties of the incumbent governing coalition. These effects occurred both through higher political mobilization and through party-switching. The article also analyzes the drivers of such political gains and we find that program beneficiaries did not trust either the central government or the governing parties any more than the control group. Instead, it appears that local governments reaped the benefits of increased trust, and the political support for incumbent parties occurred mostly in towns where the local government was controlled by one of the parties of the national ruling coalition.
Journal of Public Economics, 2011
We would like to thank Thomas Lemieux, Steve Pischke, and Miguel Urquiola. All errors are our own... more We would like to thank Thomas Lemieux, Steve Pischke, and Miguel Urquiola. All errors are our own. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peerreviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.
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Papers by Cristian Pop-Eleches