Using micro-level data on children entering foster care in 1998, we estimate how the financial compensation paid to foster caregivers affects the placement of foster children. Controlling for observable child and county characteristics as well as for unobservable state effects, our estimates...

This article uses matched employer-employee data for the State of Georgia to examine workers' earnings experience through the information technology (IT) sector's employment boom of the mid-1990s and bust in the early 2000s. The results show that even after controlling for pre-boom individual...

Using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, this study examines the relationship between adolescent virginity and four measures of school attachment: out-of-school suspensions, unexcused absences from school, affinity for school, and preference to attend college....

Previous studies have found evidence that experiencing a traumatic event during childhood or adolescence can interfere with the acquisition of human capital. Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we estimate the effects of being the victim of forced...

A recent study by Cawley found consistent evidence of a negative relationship between body weight and wages for white women, even after controlling for fixed individual-level unobserved heterogeneity and reverse causality. Building on this work, I estimate the relationship between adolescent...

Using data drawn from the March Current Population Survey, we find that state and federal minimum wage increases between 2003 and 2007 had no effect on state poverty rates. When we then simulate the effects of a proposed federal minimum wage increase from $7.25 to $9.50 per hour, we find that...

Recent studies in the public health literature and a June 2006 Surgeon General's report have cited a link between exposure to secondhand tobacco smoke and childhood asthma. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, this paper explores the sensitivity of this relationship to...