We examine the effects of an unconditional cash transfer on the economic wellbeing (material hardship, ability to meet needs, money on hand, use of friends and family for assistance, and employment) of families and children with very low incomes. We use a parameterized difference-in-differences...

Children represent the largest indirect beneficiaries of the U.S. social welfare system. Yet, many questions remain about the direct benefits of cash aid to children. The current understanding of the impacts of cash aid in the U.S. is drawn primarily from studies of in-kind benefits, tax...

We provide new evidence that cash transfers following the birth of a first child can have large and long-lasting effects on that child's outcomes. We take advantage of the January 1 birthdate cutoff for U.S. child-related tax benefits, which results in families of otherwise similar children...

A growing body of evidence indicates that poor health early in life can leave lasting scars on adult health and economic outcomes. While much of this literature focuses on childhood experiences, mechanisms generating these lasting effects - recurrence of illness and interruption of human capital...

This paper provides novel insights into the science of scaling by examining an educational mentoring program in Mexico. Our analysis encompasses two separate field experiments, and takes advantage of a unique opportunity to learn from the government's implementation of the program on a large...

How does the expectation that a child will receive government benefits in adulthood affect parental investments in the child's human capital? Most parents whose children receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits overestimate the likelihood that their child will receive SSI benefits in...

We propose a new measure of the rate of poverty we call the Supplemental Expenditure Poverty Measure (SEPM) based on expenditure in the Consumer Expenditure survey. It treats household expenditure as a measure of resources available to purchase the minimum bundle necessary to meet basic needs....

Burnout of physicians and other medical personnel is a major problem in the economics of healthcare systems, potentially costing billions of dollars. Knowledge of the determinants and costs of burnout at the organization level is sparse, making it difficult to assess the net benefits of...

This study investigates effects of welfare reform in the U.S., a major policy shift that increased employment of low-income mothers and reliance on their own earnings instead of cash assistance through the welfare system, on the quality of the home environments they provide for their...

Recent research documents a causal impact of place on the long-run outcomes of children. However, little is known about which neighborhood characteristics are most important, and at what scale neighborhood effects operate. By using the random assignment of public housing along with...