Consumer sentiment is one of the many macroeconomic indicators tracked by policymakers and the public. The aggregate numbers in consumer sentiment indexes, such as the University of Michigan's Index of Consumer Sentiment, conceal a wealth of demographic-specific information. The authors'...

This paper researches motivations for charitable bequests by looking at gifts to the poor in wills written in Suffolk, England, in the 1620s and 1630s. The findings that wealthier and more religious individuals and those with fewer children give more to the poor support an altruistic model of...

A revised version of this paper appears as "The Effects of the Earned Income Credit on the Seasonality of Household Expenditures" National Tax Journal 53(4) (part 2): 1211-1244. For more information see www.ntanet.org.

The roughly 9.5 percent of all U.S. families that are without some type of transaction account (unbanked) are disproportionately represented by minorities. The unbanked often must rely on alternative ways to carry out basic financial transactions such as cashing payroll checks and paying bills....

On November 15-16, 2007, the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago's Economic Research Department and Consumer and Community Affairs Division, along with the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, will cosponsor a conference to present research on policies, practices, and initiatives...

A notable feature of immigration into the U.S. is the high degree of spatial concentration of different immigrant groups. We ask the question whether residing in areas with a large proportion of a co-ethnic group influence the decision to own a home for Hispanics in the Chicago Metropolitan...

This study investigates whether Hispanic immigrants assimilate in occupational status with natives and the factors that determine occupational status. A theoretical framework is proposed that models occupational status and convergence of Hispanics relative to U.S.-born non-Hispanics as a...

Previous study by Card and Lewis (2005) has found (puzzling) that inflows of Mexican immigrants into “new” metropolitan areas have had no effect on the relative wages of very low-skill (high school dropouts). Rather, Mexican workers do affect relative wages for high school graduates. Whereas...