This paper reports evidence on the error properties of survey reports of labor market variables such as earnings and work hours. Our primary data source is the PSID Validation Study, a two-wave panel survey of a sample of workers employed by a large firm which also allowed us access to its very...

In this paper we use trends in self-reported disability from the late forties through the late eighties to gauge the impact of the growth of income maintenance for the disabled on the labor force attachment of older working-aged men. Under the assumption that the actual health of these men has...

Labor supply estimates are sensitive to the measures of health used. When self reported measures are used health seems to playa larger role and economic factors a smaller one than when more objective measures are used" While most authors have interpreted these results as an indication of the...

Applicants for Social Security Disability Benefits who fail to pass the medical screening form a natural 'control' group for beneficiaries. Data drawn from the 1972 and 1978 surveys of the disabled done for the Social Security Administration show that fewer than 50% of rejected male applicants...

A key policy question in evaluating social programs to address childhood poverty is how families receiving unconditional financial support would spend those funds. Economists have limited empirical evidence on this topic in the U.S. We provide causal estimates of financial and time investments...

We examine long-term neighborhood effects on low-income families using data from the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) randomized housing-mobility experiment, which offered some public-housing families but not others the chance to move to less-disadvantaged neighborhoods. We show that 10-15 years...

Families originally living in public housing were assigned housing vouchers by lottery, encouraging moves to neighborhoods with lower poverty rates. Although we had hypothesized that reading and math test scores would be higher among children in families offered vouchers (with larger effects...

Although non-experimental studies find robust neighborhood effects on adults, such findings have been challenged by results from the Moving to Opportunity (MTO) residential mobility experiment. Using a within-study comparison design, this paper compares experimental and non-experimental...

The foundations for successful child development are established in early childhood. Two main policy approaches for strengthening these foundations have been subsidized preschool programs and programs targeting the home environment. Our chapter reviews a large body of empirical work...

The rising importance of Information Technology (IT) occupations in the U.S. economy has been accompanied by an expansion in the representation of high-skill foreign-born IT workers. To illustrate, the share of foreign born in IT occupations increased from about 15.5% to about 31.5% between 1993...