By 1989, the Michigan Panel Study on Income Dynamics (PSID) had experienced approximately 50 percent sample loss from its initial 1968 membership due to cumulative attrition. We study the effect of this attrition on the unconditional distributions of several socioeconomic variables and on the...

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 changed the U.S. welfare system dramatically. Its primary goal was to reduce dependency by moving most of those receiving cash welfare into the work force. One tool to accomplish this objective was a change in the...

We investigate the effects of participation in the Chicago Child-Parent Center and Expansion Program from ages 3 to 9 on early school dropout at age 17. The Child-Parent Centers offer a government-funded educational intervention program in preschool through second or third grade in 20 locations...

This paper examines the effects of family structure on educational attainment after controlling for common family influences, observed and unobserved, using data from siblings. The use of sibling data permits us to examine whether the apparent effects of family structure are due to unmeasured...

This paper reports the results of a survey of state AFDC rules regarding the treatment of unrelated cohabitors in households containing AFDC units. We examine state treatment of cash and in- kind contributions by cohabitors and find that the AFDC grant is usually not affected if the cohabitor...

This report uses data from the authors' National Survey of Economic Expectations to describe how, during 1994, working Americans with health insurance perceived the risk of near-term deterioration in their economic status. Perceived economic vulnerability is measured through responses to...

While overall employment in the United States has risen in the last 30 years, the employment and earnings prospects for youths have fallen relative to those for older workers. This deterioration in youth labor market conditions has been most pronounced for low-skilled youths, high school...

The percentage of working-age men in the United States who were fully active in the labor market decreased over the 1975-1992 period ("fully active" means working 2080 hours in a year). Similarly, the extent to which men were less than fully active increased. When one considers the number of...

This paper describes how a public-private partnership paved the way for an evaluation of Medicaid managed care with previously inaccessible data. Also included are (1) a brief description of Wisconsin’s Medicaid expansion program, (2) research questions and reflections on implications...

In this paper, the authors study the outcome of an unusually clean natural experiment--California's large minimum wage increase of 1988. Two different approaches to evaluating the experiment result in the same conclusion: the textbook analysis of minimum wages holds true. In particular, the...