Costas is a Research Fellow of the Institute. He is also Professor of Economics at Yale University and Visiting Professor at University College London. His research interests are Econometrics, Public policy, Labor economics, Economics of education, Microeconometrics, Evaluation of public policy, Household behavior, Retirement and pensions, Income distribution, Consumption, Demand analysis, Investment and Development economics.
Education
PhD Economics, University of Manchester, 1985
MA (with Distinction) Economics, University of Manchester, 1980
BA (1st Class Honours) Economics and Econometrics, University of Manchester, 1979
In this paper we use an economic model to analyse data from a major social experiment, namely PROGRESA in Mexico, and to evaluate its impact on school participation.
This chapter of the Mirrlees Review (Dimensions of Tax Design) provides an overview of the voluminous literature relating taxand the supply of effort that has developed since the Meade Report (Meade, 1978) on the UK tax system thirty years ago, with a focus on the empirical consensus on how taxes and benefits affect incentives.
We evaluate the German apprenticeship system, which combines on-the-job training with classroom teaching, by modelling individual careers from the choice to join such a scheme and followed by their employment, job to job transitions and wages over the lifecycle.
We specify a life-cycle model of consumption, labor supply and job mobility in an economy with search frictions. We distinguish different sources of risk, including shocks to productivity, job arrival, and job destruction. Allowing for job mobility has a large effect on the estimate of productivity risk. Increases in the latter impose a considerable welfare loss. Increases in employment risk have large effects on output and, primarily through this channel, affect welfare. The welfare value of programs such as Food Stamps, partially insuring productivity risk, is greater than the value of unemployment insurance which provides (partial) insurance against employment risk.
This paper examines the impact of month of birth on national achievement test scores in England whilst children are in school, and on subsequent further and higher education participation.
This paper discusses recent developments in the literature that studies how the dynamics of earnings and wages affect consumption choices over the life cycle.
The paper studies the effects of Familias en Acción, a conditional cash transfer program implemented in rural areas in Colombia since 2002, on school enrollment and child labor.
The paper studies the effects of Familias en Acción, a conditional cash transfer program implemented in rural areas in Colombia since 2002, on school enrollment and child labor.
This paper evaluates a United Kingdom pilot study designed to test whether a means-tested conditional cash transfer paid to 16- to 18-year-olds for staying in full-time education is an effective way of reducing the proportion of school dropouts.
