Essays in empirical microeconomics

The empirical studies in this thesis investigate various factors that could affect individuals' labor market, family formation and educational outcomes. Chapter 2 focuses on scheduling as a potential determinant of individuals' productivity. Chapter 3 looks at the role of a family factor on children's long term outcomes. In particular, it examines how the gender of a sibling affects individuals’ earnings, education and family formation. Chapter 4 examines the impact of school resources on the performance of students in a Weighted Student Funding setting. Each chapter applies a different method to identify causal effects. The first study uses a lab experiment, the second study exploits a natural experiment, and the third study uses a nonparametric bound method. While the three studies use different methods, a common feature is that they all try to deal with some kind of a selection problem to get to the causal effect.