American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7782 1945-7790 American Economic Journal: Applied Economics http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-applied/ 1 3 July 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=APP&volume=1&issue=3 Journal Article Front Matter i ii http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.1.3.i 10.1257/app.1.3.i American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7782 1945-7790 American Economic Journal: Applied Economics http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-applied/ 1 3 July 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=APP&volume=1&issue=3 Journal Article Are Women More Credit Constrained? Experimental Evidence on Gender and Microenterprise Returns Sureshde MelU Peradeniya DavidMcKenzieWorld Bank ChristopherWoodruffU CA, San Diego 1 32 We report on a field experiment providing random grants to microenterprise owners. The grants generated large profit increases for male owners but not for female owners. We show that the gender gap does not simply mask differences in ability, risk aversion, entrepreneurial attitudes, or differences in reporting behavior, but there is some evidence that the gender gap is larger in female-dominated industries. The data are not consistent with a unitary household model, and imply an inefficiency of resource allocation within households. We show evidence that this inefficiency is reduced in more cooperative households. (JEL D13, D14, J16, L25, L26, O12, O16) http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.1.3.1 10.1257/app.1.3.1 http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/data/2008-0146_data.zip American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7782 1945-7790 American Economic Journal: Applied Economics http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-applied/ 1 3 July 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=APP&volume=1&issue=3 Journal Article The Effect of Grade Retention on High School Completion Brian A.JacobU MI LarsLefgrenBrigham Young U 33 58 Low-achieving students in many school districts are retained in a grade to allow them to gain the academic or social skills that teachers believe are necessary to succeed academically. In this paper, we use plausibly exogenous variation in retention generated by a test-based promotion policy to assess the causal impact of grade retention on high school completion. We find that retention among younger students does not affect the likelihood of high school completion, but that retaining low-achieving eighth grade students in elementary school substantially increases the probability that these students will drop out of high school. (JEL I21, J13) http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.1.3.33 10.1257/app.1.3.33 http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/data/2007-0053_data.zip http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/app/2007-0053_app.zip American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7782 1945-7790 American Economic Journal: Applied Economics http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-applied/ 1 3 July 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=APP&volume=1&issue=3 Journal Article Legal Reform and Loan Repayment: The Microeconomic Impact of Debt Recovery Tribunals in India SujataVisariaBoston U 59 81 In 1993, the Indian government introduced debt recovery tribunals to speed up the resolution of debt recovery claims larger than a threshold. This paper exploits the staggered introduction of tribunals across states and the link between overdues and claim size to implement a differences-in-differences strategy on project loan data. It finds that the tribunals reduced delinquency for the average loan by 28 percent. They also lowered the interest rates charged on larger loans, holding constant borrower quality. This suggests that the speedier processing of debt recovery suits can lower the cost of credit. (JEL G21, K41, O16, O17) http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.1.3.59 10.1257/app.1.3.59 http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/data/2007-0032_data.zip American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7782 1945-7790 American Economic Journal: Applied Economics http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-applied/ 1 3 July 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=APP&volume=1&issue=3 Journal Article The Smuggling of Art, and the Art of Smuggling: Uncovering the Illicit Trade in Cultural Property and Antiques RaymondFismanColumbia U Shang-JinWeiColumbia U 82 96 We empirically analyze the illicit trade in cultural property and antiques, taking advantage of different reporting incentives between source and destination countries. We generate a measure of illicit trafficking in these goods by comparing imports recorded in United States' customs data and the (purportedly identical) trade recorded by customs authorities in exporting countries. This reporting gap is highly correlated with corruption levels of exporting countries. This correlation is stronger for artifact-rich countries. As a placebo test, we do not observe any such pattern for US imports of toys. We report similar results for four other Western country markets. (JEL F14, K42, Z11, Z13) http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.1.3.82 10.1257/app.1.3.82 http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/data/2008-0093_data.zip American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7782 1945-7790 American Economic Journal: Applied Economics http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-applied/ 1 3 July 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=APP&volume=1&issue=3 Journal Article To Work or Not to Work? Child Development and Maternal Labor Supply PaulFrijtersQueensland U Technology David W.JohnstonQueensland U Technology ManishaShahU Melbourne Michael A.ShieldsU Melbourne 97 110 We estimate the effect of early child development on maternal labor force participation. Mothers of poorly developing children may remain at home to care for their children. Alternatively, mothers may enter the labor force to pay for additional educational and health resources. Which action dominates is the empirical question we answer in this paper. We control for the potential endogeneity of child development by using an instrumental variables approach, uniquely exploiting exogenous variation in child development associated with child handedness. We find that a one unit increase in poor child development decreases maternal labor force participation by approximately 10 percentage points. (JEL J13, J16, J22) http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.1.3.97 10.1257/app.1.3.97 http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/data/2008-0143_data.zip American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7782 1945-7790 American Economic Journal: Applied Economics http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-applied/ 1 3 July 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=APP&volume=1&issue=3 Journal Article Early Childhood Intervention and Life-Cycle Skill Development: Evidence from Head Start DavidDemingHarvard U 111 34 This paper provides new evidence on the long-term benefits of Head Start using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. I compare siblings who differ in their participation in the program, controlling for a variety of pre-treatment covariates. I estimate that Head Start participants gain 0.23 standard deviations on a summary index of young adult outcomes. This closes one-third of the gap between children with median and bottom quartile family income, and is about 80 percent as large as model programs such as Perry Preschool. The long-term impact for disadvantaged children is large despite "fadeout" of test score gains. (JEL H52, J13, I28, I38) http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.1.3.111 10.1257/app.1.3.111 http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/data/2008-0217_data.zip American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7782 1945-7790 American Economic Journal: Applied Economics http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-applied/ 1 3 July 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=APP&volume=1&issue=3 Journal Article Task Specialization, Immigration, and Wages GiovanniPeriU CA, Davis ChadSparberColgate U 135 69 Large inflows of less educated immigrants may reduce wages paid to comparably-educated, native-born workers. However, if less educated foreign- and native-born workers specialize in different production tasks, because of different abilities, immigration will cause natives to reallocate their task supply, thereby reducing downward wage pressure. Using occupational task-intensity data from the O*NET dataset and individual US census data, we demonstrate that foreign-born workers specialize in occupations intensive in manual-physical labor skills while natives pursue jobs more intensive in communication-language tasks. This mechanism can explain why economic analyses find only modest wage consequences of immigration for less educated native-born workers. (JEL J24, J31, J61) http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.1.3.135 10.1257/app.1.3.135 http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/data/2008-0057_data.zip http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/app/2008-0057_app.pdf American Economic Association Nashville, TN 1945-7782 1945-7790 American Economic Journal: Applied Economics http://www.aeaweb.org/aej-applied/ 1 3 July 2009 http://www.aeaweb.org/issue.php?journal=APP&volume=1&issue=3 Journal Article HIV/AIDS and Fertility Jane G.FortsonMathematica Policy Research, Inc, Oakland, CA 170 94 This paper studies the response of fertility to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in sub-Saharan Africa. I use repeated cross sections of the Demographic and Health Surveys for 12 countries in sub-Saharan Africa to examine this question empirically. Using individual birth histories from these data, I construct estimates of the regional total fertility rate over time. In a difference-in-differences approach, I compare regional HIV prevalence to changes in total fertility rates from the 1980s to the present. My results suggest that HIV/AIDS had very little impact on fertility, both overall and in a sample of HIV-negative women. (JEL I12, J13, O12) http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/app.1.3.170 10.1257/app.1.3.170 http://www.aeaweb.org/aej/app/data/2008-0199_data.zip