We present a comparison of results of similar analyses of a particular social program using two sources of data: one representative of the general population, and one representative of the population that actually is eligible for the social program. To do this, we focus on a particular public...

There is general concern that producer subsidies distort competition. We examine a telecommunications subsidy system that transfers money from low cost regions to high cost regions of the U.S. Even though the system is designed to be competitively neutral, we find evidence that the system,...

Does borrowing at 400 percent APR do more harm than good? The Pentagon asserts that payday loans harm military readiness and successfully lobbied for a binding 36 percent APR cap on loans to military members and their families (effective October 1, 2007). But existing evidence on how access to...

There is widespread perception that externalities from troubled children are significant, though measuring them is difficult due to data and methodological limitations. We estimate the negative spillovers caused by children from troubled families by exploiting a unique data set in which...

Recent empirical work on peer effects has primarily focused on identification. However, little is known about the extent to which social and education policy can mitigate the negative spillovers caused by disruptive children. This paper examines two such policies. First, we examine whether...

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The American School Counselor Association (ASCA) recommends that there be no more than 250 students to each school counselor. Although numerous studies in the education literature show that school counselors play a positive role in educating children, to our knowledge, this is the first study...