This article documents the impact of the Brazilian railway network on technology adoption between the middle nineteenth and twentieth century. I exploit variation induced by geographic location, where municipalities near the least-cost routes were more likely to be connected to the railway system, to identify the effects of railroads on mechanized cotton spinning capacity. I show that the expansion of railways increased the adoption of new technologies in the textile industry.

This paper provides evidence that exposure to shocks that trigger population outflows leads to early marriage by young women, putting them on a poor-life development path. Exploiting a novel dataset and the plausibly exogenous occurrence of earthquakes within Indonesian provinces, I show that an earthquake raises the annual hazard of women marrying before the age of 18 by 44%, compared to non-exposed young women. The overall effect of earthquakes on women’s age at marriage masks substantial heterogeneity. The effects are larger for earthquake-induced migrant versus left-behind women.

Many college admissions systems use a combination of GPA and standardized test scores to determine access to more selective programs. In this paper, I study the impacts of a 2013 reform in the Chilean admission system that sought to increase equity by introducing a third component, based on a student’s GPA relative to the historical average at their high school.