The Family Support Act allows states to reimburse child care costs up to the 75th percentile of local market price for child care. States must carry out surveys to estimate these 75th percentiles. This estimation problem raises two major statistical issues: (1) picking a sample design that will...

** Revised version 2005** <p> Using a recently-uncovered data set that describes over 30 federal New Deal spending, loan, and mortgage insurance programs across all U.S. counties from 1933 to 1939, this paper empirically examines the New Deal's impact on inter-county migration from 1930 to 1940. We...</p>

**Revised version 2005** <p>This paper empirically examines the New Deal's impact on local economic activity, as measured by retail sales, during the 1930s. Using a recently-uncovered data set that describes over 30 federal New Deal spending, loan, and mortgage insurance programs across all U.S....</p>

Problems with mortgage financing are widely considered to be a major cause of the recent financial meltdown. Several modern programs have been designed to mimic the Home Owners' Loan Corporation of the 1930s. The HOLC replaced the toxic assets on the balance sheets of financial institutions by...

In this paper we develop a survival time model in which the probability of eventual failure is less than one, and in which both the probability of eventual failure and the timing of failure depend (separately) on individual characteristics. We apply this model to data on the tiring of return to...

We examine the determinants of election as Fellow of the Econometric Society, an example of voting within a group to confer honor on some members and perhaps achieve additional status for the entire group. Using data from annual elections from 1990-2000, we find that objective measures of...