NBER Publications by Wilbert H. van der Klaauw

Using administrative credit report records and data collected through several special household surveys we analyze changes in household debt and savings during the 2007 recession. We find that while different segments of the population were affected in distinct ways, depending on whether they owned a home, whether they owned stocks and whether they had secure jobs, the crisis’ impact appears to have been widespread, affecting large shares of households across all age, income and education groups. In response to their deteriorated financial situation, households reduced their average spending and increased saving. The latter increase – at least in 2009 – did not materialize itself through an increase in contributions to retirement and savings accounts. If anything, such contributions actual...

The regression discontinuity (RD) data design is a quasi-experimental design with the defining characteristic that the probability of receiving treatment changes discontinuously as a function of one or more individual characteristics. This data design occasionally arises in economic and other applications but is only infrequently exploited in evaluating the effects of a treatment. We consider the problem of identification and estimation of treatment effects under a RD data design. We offer an interpretation of the IV or so-called Wald estimator as a regression discontinuity estimator. We propose nonparametric estimators of treatment effects and present their asymptotic distribution theory. Then we apply the estimation method to evaluate the effect of EEOC-coverage on minority employme...