Essays in applied microeconometrics

Duration analysis has been widely used in the applied economic research since the late 1970s. The framework allows to examine the duration of time intervals and the rate of transition across a set of states over time. Many economic behaviors follow a similar pattern, such as transition from the state of employment to unemployment in labor markets. The author of this dissertation applies the duration analysis framework, notably the Mixed Proportional Hazard (MPH) model to analyze various empirical questions.
Many countries started adopting more liberal policies towards possession of soft drugs for personal consumption in the recent years. The first chapter focuses on the topic of drug decriminalization and its effects on the uptake of cannabis (marijuana). The second chapter applies the MPH framework to the field of sports economics, to study the effects of a red card on the goal-scoring rate in association football (soccer).
Despite the fact that the effects of a minimum wage were thoroughly studied by labor economists, relatively little is known about the impact on the duration of unemployment. The last chapter investigates the effects of a minimum wage increase on three processes – the probability to be unemployed, the duration of unemployment and re-employment wages.