Publications

Information Frictions and Skill Signaling in the Youth Labor Market (accepted)

Previous version circulated as "The Effects of Letters of Recommendation in the Youth Labor Market"

Sara B. Heller & Judd B. Kessler

Accepted, American Economic Journal: Economic Policy

Formerly NBER Working Paper 29579 (posted 2021) NBER link

Ungated and updated version (updated March 2023)          PDF

Predicting and Preventing Gun Violence: An Experimental Evaluation of READI Chicago (2024)

Monica P. Bhatt, Sara B. Heller, Max Kapustin, Marianne Bertrand & Christopher Blattman

Quarterly Journal of Economics, 139(1): 1-56  QJE link

* Editor's Choice

Formerly NBER Working Paper 30852 (posted 2023) NBER link

Ungated version PDF

Related podcast:   Probable Causation

When Scale and Replication Work: Learning from Summer Youth Employment Experiments (2022)

Sara B. Heller

Journal of Public Economics, 209 JPubE link

Accepted version      PDF

Formerly NBER Working Paper 28705 NBER link    

Policy Brief Replication Code (code only, no data are available for replication)

Does Administrative Burden Deter Young People? Evidence from Summer Jobs Programs (2022)

Syon Bhanot & Sara B. Heller

Journal of Behavioral Public Administration, 5(1)  JBPA link 

Soft Skills in the Youth Labor Market (2022)

Sara B. Heller & Judd B. Kessler

American Economic Association: Papers and Proceedings, 112(121-25) AEA link

Rethinking the Benefits of Youth Employment Programs: The Heterogeneous Effects of Summer Jobs (2020)

Jonathan M.V. Davis & Sara B. Heller

The Review of Economics and Statistics, 102(4): 664-677  ReStat link

Author's final version, accepted for publication May 2019   PDF

Please note: Due to length restrictions, there is a lot of information in the online appendix (including considerably more detail on the causal forest application, especially sections H and I.5)   Appendix

Formerly NBER Working Paper 23443 (posted 2017)   NBER link    PDF   Appendix 

Related podcasts: Probable Causation, J-PAL Voices

Related writing and interviews: NYT Op-ed, PBS NewsHour

How to Allocate Slots: the Market Design of Summer Youth Employment Programs (forthcoming)

Sara B. Heller & Judd B. Kessler

In Fair by Design: Economic Design Approaches to Inequality, Eds. S.D. Kominers & A. Teytelboym. Oxford University Press Series on Inequality in the Twenty-First Century, Oxford University Press.    PDF

Using Causal Forests to Predict Treatment Heterogeneity: An Application to Summer Jobs (2017)

Jonathan M.V. Davis & Sara B. Heller

American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings, 107(5): 546–550.    PDF    AEA link

Thinking, Fast and Slow? Some Field Experiments to Reduce Crime and Dropout in Chicago (2017)

Sara B. Heller, Anuj K. Shah, Jonathan Guryan, Jens Ludwig, Sendhil Mullainathan & Harold A. Pollack 

Quarterly Journal of Economics, 132(1): 1-54    QJE link

Formerly NBER Working Paper 21178 (posted 2015, updated 2016)  NBER link

Related podcast: Freakonomics

Summer Jobs Reduce Violence among Disadvantaged Youth (2014)

Sara B. Heller

Science, 346(6214): 1219-1223   Link to materials

Related podcasts: Probable Causation, J-PAL Voices

Related writing and interviews: NYT Op-ed, PBS NewsHour

Family Income, Neighborhood Poverty, and Crime (2011)

Sara B. Heller, Brian A. Jacob & Jens Ludwig 

In Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs, Eds. Philip J. Cook, Jens Ludwig & Justin McCrary. National Bureau of Economic Research Conference Report, University of Chicago Press.