We consider the value of social capital that derives from membership in a church. American states with larger churchgoing populations had lower business bankruptcy rates from 1921 to 1932, and states in which the churchgoing population was concentrated in few churches had business bankruptcy...

Federal initiatives since 1996 have intensified the efforts of states to achieve adoption for children in foster care with the case goal of adoption. For many waiting children, the path to adoption is long. We offer an economic analysis of adoption from foster care, with an emphasis on the...

Recently uncovered 1906 Virginia teacher-salary data allow for more precise and consistent estimation of marginal returns to certification and formal education than available in previous studies. Virginia’s “separate but equal” educational system paid black teachers in rural counties lower...

When students are taught how to do original research in courses outside economics, they are taught to begin with the collection of data. This is not the approach followed by economists, who typically begin an answer to a research question by developing a model. The model then guides the search...

Since the early twentieth century, observers have attributed the wide variation in state bankruptcy rates to variation in state legal rules such as garnishment and bankruptcy exemptions. Recent econometric analyses, however, conclude that legal rules do not matter. We explore the impact of legal...

This paper provides an illustration of the mechanisms that can give rise to path dependence in legislation. Specifically it shows how debtor-friendly bankruptcy law arose in the United States as a result of a path dependent process. The 1898 Bankruptcy Act was not regarded as debtor-friendly at...