Essays in applied economics

The first chapter examines how an increase in statutory retirement ages affects in the short-run firms' labour demand for older workers on the cusp of retirement, their co-workers and outsiders. By leveraging administrative data and a pension reform that in 2011 suddenly and heterogeneously raised statutory retirement ages in Italy, the paper finds effects on firing and hiring that are consistent with substitutability among different types of workers. It also documents changes in the take-up of other social insurance programs. This caused leakages on the revenues raised on a firm's employees by the reform. The second chapter studies whether pension reforms affect labour supply before individuals come close to the retirement and benefit claiming decisions. By relying on administrative data, the paper examines the labour supply dynamics of a sample of Italian private-sector workers who were aged 35-45 in 1995, when a pension reform changed the way of calculating their social security benefits. Workers are observed until they reach ages between 46 and 56: during this period, at most small adjustments to labour supply are documented. Heterogeneity analyses explore whether the extent of the adjustments differs across socio-demographic groups. The third chapter assesses the effects of a reform that substantially lengthened the school day in Chilean publicly subsidized primary schools. By leveraging administrative data, the paper documents a positive effect on reading scores in fourth grade. Achievement improves more for schoolchildren who enrolled in no-fee charter schools than in public schools and there is a difference in how these schools adjusted the teaching input; the former, which enjoy more autonomy, relied more than the latter on hiring new classroom teachers and less on increasing working hours per teacher. Albeit less robust, there is also suggestive evidence that positive effects are larger for less advantaged pupils