We extend the analysis of early-emerging gender differences in academic achievement to include both (objective) test scores and (subjective) teacher assessments. Using data from the 1998-99 ECLS-K cohort, we show that the grades awarded by teachers are not aligned with test scores, with the...

Introduced in 1993, Georgia's HOPE Program sponsors a merit-based scholarship for students attending in-state colleges and a grant for those entering technical schools. There are no income restrictions. Comparing Georgia with other southeastern states over the 1988–97 period, HOPE increased...

In the last fifteen years there has been a significant increase in merit aid. Coincident with this increase in merit aid has been increased attention to sorting in various aspects of life, especially in education. This paper examines the extent to which merit-based aid exacerbates or ameliorates...

A common justification for HOPE-style merit-aid programs is to promote and reward academic achievement, thereby inducing greater investments in human capital. However, grade-based eligibility and retention rules encourage other behavioral responses. Using data extracted from the longitudinal...

Since the early 1990s, state governments have distributed billions of dollars in financial aid through merit-based college scholarships, most of which have no means tests. The model for most of these programs is Georgia's Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally (HOPE) scholarship. Given the...

An empirical investigation of the relationship between marriage and wages, arguing that marriage signals certain unobservable individual characteristics - including ability, honesty, loyalty, dependability, and determination - which are valued by employers, and that failure to control for the...

In this paper, we propose an alternative econometric framework for estimating and decomposing productivity change that does not require a distribution for inefficiency or the uncorrelatedness between inefficiency and the regressors. We develop our methodology for the input-oriented radial...

There is a growing literature on the effects of abortion legalization on a range of fertility outcomes. The now-famous paper by Donohue and Levitt [2001. "The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime," 116 Quarterly Journal of Economics 379--420], linking abortion to the decline in crime in the...