Dramatic fertility swings over the last 100 years have been the subject of large literatures in demography and economics. Recent research has claimed that the post-1960 fertility decline is exceptional enough to constitute a "Second Demographic Transition." The empirical case for a Second...

Decades of research on the U.S. gender gap in wages describes its correlates, but little is known about why women changed their career paths in the 1960s and 1970s. This paper explores the role of "the Pill" in altering women's human capital investments and its ultimate implications for...

Gaining entrance to a four-year college or university, particularly a selective institution, has become increasingly competitive over the last several decades. We document this phenomenon and show how it has varied across different parts of the student ability distribution and across region,...

Although the debate over Affirmative Action is both high-profile and high-intensity, neither side's position is based on a well-established set of research findings. Economics provides an extensive, well-known literature on which to draw regarding the existence and extent of labor market...

In this paper we use micro-level data on employers and employees to investigate whether Affirmative Action procedures lead firms to hire minority or female employees who are less qualified than workers who might otherwise be hired. Our measures of qualifications include the educational...

We study the job training provided under the US Workforce Investment Act (WIA) to adults and dislocated workers in two states. Our substantive contributions center on impacts estimated non-experimentally using administrative data. These impacts compare WIA participants who do and do not receive...

This paper presents estimates of the effects of unions on the wages of young black and white males who are both union and nonunion workers. It also presents estimates of union effects on employment for these groups, as well as their union membership rates. While unions have a very substantial,...

In this paper we use a very large matched database on firms and employees to analyze the use of temporary agencies by low earners, and to estimate the impact of temp employment on subsequent employment outcomes for these workers. Our results show that, while temp workers have lower earnings than...

This paper analyzes reservation wages and durations of nonemployment for young blacks and whites. Selfreported reservation wages are compared for blacks and whites before and after controlling for indicators of labor demand such as received wages, weeks worked, or other personal characterlstics....

This paper analyzes the effects of demand shifts within and between local labor markets on unemployment and employment levels and changes observed in those markets. Between-market demand shifts are measured by the means of sales growth for firms in each market, while within-market shifts are...