We conduct the first quantitative assessment of federal college subsidies during the 1930s. Overlapping generation households invest in children's education to maximize multigenerational utility, and the government subsidizes college to maximize enrollment subject to a budget constraint and...

1960 to 1980 doubling (21% to 41%) of black children in one-parent families emerged from 1940-to-1970 urbanization converging population toward urbanized blacks’ historically stable high rate, not post-1960 welfare liberalization or deindustrialization. Urban and rural child socializations...

Shows equilibrium always exists (Rothschild-Stiglitz-Wilson model) when firms enforce policy exclusivity via strategic (profit-maximizing) communication of client purchases. Strategic communication induces two equilibrium types: partial communication of purchase information or non-communication...

Interrogates poverty debate (growth versus redistribution) reignited by underperforming poverty reductions during 1980s' social spending austerity compared to 1960s' "War on Poverty." Growth and inequality explain 75% 1959-1999 poverty variation; census measurement changes 17%. Significantly,...

I model financial markets that structure decision-making into discrete points separating contract offers, applications, and acceptance/denial decisions. Endogenous beliefs about applicants' risk types emerge as the institutional process extracts private information allowing uninformed firms...

Based on theoretical models of budget-balanced social insurance and individual choice, we argue that in addition to the well-known empathy mechanism whereby ethnic heterogeneity undermines sentiments of solidarity among a citizenry to reduce welfare generosity, population heterogeneity affects...