California's legislative term limits have dramatically reduced campaign expenditures. Real expenditures during the three general elections after the term limits initiative passed in 1990 were lower than in even 1976. This drop has occurred at the same time that races have become closer contests...

We estimate the effects of the quality of the college a student attends on their later earnings using data from a cohort of US college students from the late 1970s and early 1980s. We rely on a linear selection on observables identification strategy, which is justified in our context by a very...

We examine the impact of the coal boom of the 1970's and the coal bust of the 1980's on disability program participation. These shocks provide clear evidence that as the value of labor-market participation increases, disability program participation falls. For the Disability Insurance program,...

Using the rich data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we show that several dimensions of college quality have positive impacts on young women's wages. We find evidence of ability sorting, but controlling for ability, women who attend higher quality colleges earn higher wages. Women...

Using the rich data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we show that several dimensions of college quality have substantial positive impacts on young men's wages. This finding is robust to a wide array of alternative specifications. Controlling for ability reveals that sorting of...

Most economists agree that opportunistic behavior by politicians is limited by the threat of reelection. By implication, the level of shirking should be the greatest when a politician decides to leave office. This paper seeks to learn whether shirking can be reduced when opportunities exist for...

It is frequently assumed that safe-storage gun laws reduce accidental gun deaths and total suicides, while the possible impact on crime rates is ignored. We find no support that safe-storage laws reduce either juvenile accidental gun deaths or suicides. Instead, these storage requirements appear...