We quantify the role of firms in intergenerational mobility using administrative data from Israel. We decompose the intergenerational elasticity of earnings (IGE) into an individual-IGE and a firm-IGE using an AKM framework. The firm-IGE—reflecting the sorting of children from higher-income families into better-paying firms—accounts for 23 percent of the IGE. We then explore underlying mechanisms. While skill transmission explains part of the firm-IGE, roughly half cannot be accounted for by skill differences. Moreover, sector-level sorting explains a large share of the firm-IGE, indicating that structural barriers across sectors—rather than firm-level discrimination—are a key driver of intergenerational sorting.

We investigate how information frictions affect the efficacy of contraception provision programs. We study a Costa-Rican initiative that combined two pillars: free access to long-acting-reversible contraceptives, and a tailored information campaign to raise awareness and correct for baseline misperceptions. Using administrative data and geographic variation in the initiative, we find a 16% decrease in the teen birth rate. We show information complements access: districts exposed to both pillars experience substantially larger reductions than those with contraception access alone. Using surveys on sexual behavior, we show the initiative shifted the information source from personal networks to healthcare professionals, amending misperceptions on sexual health.

We study how abortion subsidies affect abortion take-up using administrative data from Israel covering the universe of legal abortions. Leveraging a reform that expanded eligibility for government funding for abortion, we find that the subsidy significantly increased abortion, with the largest effects among young women from backgrounds with strict views on abortion. A simple model explains this pattern: subsidies reduce the need for parental financial support, shifting decision-making power toward the young woman. Our findings show that funding abortion expands young women's autonomy over abortion decisions, placing subsidies in the same policy space as parental consent laws. This mechanism is supported by both survey evidence on intergenerational mismatch in abortion attitudes and corroborative evidence from the United States.

We estimate intergenerational mobility of immigrants and their children in fifteen receiving countries. We document large income gaps for first-generation immigrants that diminish in the second generation. Around half of the second-generation gap can be explained by differences in parental income, with the remainder due to differential rates of absolute mobility. The daughters of immigrants enjoy higher absolute mobility than daughters of locals in most destinations, while immigrant sons primarily enjoy this advantage in countries with long histories of immigration. Cross-country differences in absolute mobility are not driven by parental country-of-origin, but instead by destination labor markets and immigration policy.

We study the estimation of causal effects on group-level parameters identified from microdata (e.g., child penalties). We demonstrate that standard one-step methods (such as pooled OLS and IV regressions) are generally inconsistent due to an endogenous weighting bias, where the policy affects the implicit weights (e.g., altering fertility rates). In contrast, we advocate for a two-step Minimum Distance (MD) framework that explicitly separates parameter identification from policy evaluation. This approach eliminates the endogenous weighting bias and requires explicitly confronting sample selection when groups are small, thereby improving transparency. We show that the MD estimator performs well when parameters can be estimated for most groups, and propose a robust alternative that uses auxiliary information in settings with limited data. To illustrate the importance of this methodological choice, we evaluate the effect of the 2005 Dutch childcare reform on child penalties and find that the conventional one-step approach yields estimates that are substantially larger than those from the two-step method.

A well-known empirical regularity is that high-productivity firms have lower worker separation rates, but it is unclear whether this pattern reflects quits or layoffs. Using matched employer-employee data from Brazil that distinguish the reason for each separation, we show that the productivity–separation gradient is driven primarily by layoffs rather than quits. We then propose and test a mechanism in which downward wage rigidity prevents firms from adjusting wages in response to adverse shocks, causing those shocks to translate into layoffs. High-productivity firms are less exposed because their larger markdowns provide a buffer between productivity and wages. Consistent with this mechanism, we find that firms with higher markdowns have lower layoff rates, and that markets with stronger wage rigidity exhibit both higher layoff rates and a steeper productivity–layoff gradient. These findings suggest that productivity differences across firms shape not only wages, but also workers’ exposure to job loss.

Using Danish administrative data linked to two independent, validated postpartum depression screenings, we study how postpartum mental health shocks shape women's labor market trajectories. Event-study estimates show no pre-birth differences in trends between depressed and non-depressed mothers, but persistent employment gaps that widen immediately after birth. Health-care utilization patterns indicate that these differences reflect acute mental health shocks rather than pre-existing trends. The penalties are concentrated among less educated mothers and those in less family-friendly jobs. Our results highlight postpartum depression as a meaningful and unequal contributor to the motherhood penalty.

The digital divide limits economic opportunities, particularly for older adults with low education who face barriers to accessing and using digital technologies. We evaluate a randomized intervention targeting disadvantaged individuals aged 45–64 in the Canary Islands, Spain. Over 2,900 participants were assigned to receive either a tablet with internet access, a tablet plus digital skills training, or no intervention. The combined treatment led to significant improvements in digital skills and job search behavior, though not in employment outcomes. Tablet-only recipients showed smaller gains, concentrated among those with low initial skills. These results suggest that bridging the digital divide requires not just access to technology but also targeted support to build digital capabilities.