The purpose of this study was to analyze employment outcomes and leadership practices of graduates from a Leadership Excellence for Middle Managers program conducted at a state-operated university from 2007 to 2014. The target population of the leadership development program graduates included representatives from the public and private sector,…

The first chapter studies the effects of a teacher performance bonus program implemented in Brazil in 2008. The program covered all schools directly managed by the State of Sao Paulo government, and was based on a standardized test run by the state education authority. I use high-school exit exams organized by the federal government (ENEM) to…

In the first chapter, I analyze the growth patterns of postsecondary education costs in re-cent years. It shows the trends of college revenue, expenditure and other financial items using data drawn from the Delta Data Project between 1987 and 2010. Connections between various categories of revenue/spending and state-level macroeconomic indicators…

I study three separate questions in this dissertation. In Chapter 1, I develop and estimate a structural dynamic model of occupation and job choice to test hypotheses of the importance of wages and non-wages and learning in occupational transitions, and find that wages are approximately 3 times as important as non-wage benefits in decisions and…

In recent times, research has revealed a dynamic shift in the perception of racial inequality in the contemporary United States, with an increased belief that racial discrimination is a concern of a bygone era (Hunt 2007). When they are acknowledged, enduring racial disparities in life chances are often attributed to differences in marketable…