Why are children with lower socioeconomic status (SES) substantially less likely to be enrolled in child care? We study whether barriers in the application process work against lower-SES children — the group known to benefit strongest from child care enrollment. In an RCT in Germany with highly subsidized child care (N = 607), we offer treated families information and personal assistance for applications. We find substantial, equity-enhancing effects of the treatment, closing half of the large SES gap in child care enrollment. Increased enrollment for lower-SES families is likely driven by altered application knowledge and behavior. We discuss scalability of our intervention and derive policy implications for the design of universal child care programs.

How do beliefs on admission probability influence application choices? In this study, we empirically investigate whether and how admission probability is reflected in application choices in a centralized admission system. We exploit a novel setting of a dynamic deferred acceptance mechanism as employed in Croatia with hourly information updates and simultaneous application choices. This setting allows us to explore within-applicant strategic adjustments as a reaction to changing signals on admission probability. We show in an RDD analysis that applicants react to negative signals on admission probability with an increased propensity to adjust their application choices by 11-23%. Additionally, we show how application strategies evolve over time, while applicants learn about their admission probability. The group most-at-risk to remain unmatched improves their application choices by applying to programs with a higher admission probability towards the application deadline. Yet, we also identify a popular and potentially harmful strategy of applying to safer programs before applying to more risky “reach” programs. About a quarter of applicants have the potential to improve their application choices by resorting their application choices.

This paper examines the relation between corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance and tax–motivated income shifting. Using a profit–shifting measure estimated from multinational enterprises (MNEs) data, we find that parent firms with higher CSR scores shift significantly more profits to their low-tax foreign subsidiaries. Overall, our evidence suggests that MNEs engaging in CSR activities acquire legitimacy and moral capital that temper negative responses by stakeholders and thus have greater scope and chance to engage in unethical profit-shifting activities, consistent with the legitimacy theory.

This paper develops a quantitative theory of how people weigh the risks of infections against the benefits of engaging in social interactions that contribute to the spread of infectious diseases. Our framework takes into account the effects of public policies and private behavior on the spread of the disease. We evaluate the model using a novel micro panel dataset on consumption expenditures of young and older people across the first three waves of COVID-19 in Portugal. Our model highlights the critical role of expectations in shaping how human behavior influences the dynamics of epidemics.

Why are children with lower socioeconomic status (SES) substantially less likely to be enrolled in child care? We study whether barriers in the application process work against lower-SES children — the group known to benefit strongest from child care enrollment. In an RCT in Germany with highly subsidized child care (N = 607), we offer treated families information and personal assistance for applications. We find substantial, equity-enhancing effects of the treatment, closing half of the large SES gap in child care enrollment. Increased enrollment for lower-SES families is likely driven by altered application knowledge and behavior. We discuss scalability of our intervention and derive policy implications for the design of universal child care programs.