In recent years, a plethora of public and private programs in the United States have been created to close the "Digital Divide." Interestingly, however, we know very little about the underlying causes of racial differences in rates of computer and Internet access. In this paper, I use data from...

There is no clear theoretical prediction regarding whether home computers are an important input in the educational production function. To investigate the hypothesis that access to a home computer affects educational outcomes, we conduct the first-ever field experiment involving the provision...

Using a recently released confidential dataset from the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES), we find some evidence of "white flight" from public schools into private schools partly in response to minority schoolchildren. We also examine whether "white flight" is from all minorities...

Estimates from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) indicate that African-American men are one-third as likely to be self-employed as white men.  The large discrepancy is due to a black transition rate into self-employment that is approximately one half the white rate and a black...

We examine trends in entrepreneurship among white and black men from 1910 to 1990 using Census and CPS microdata.  Self-employment rates fell over most of the century and then started to rise after 1970.  For white men, we find that the decline was due to declining rates within industries,...

Using Current Population Survey (CPS) microdata, I examine trends and the causes of the trends from1979 to 1998 in entrepreneurship among several ethnic/racial groups in the United States.  I find rapid growth rates for the number of self-employed blacks, Hispanics, Asians and Native...

Employer-provided health insurance may restrict job mobility, resulting in “job lock.â€Â  Previous research on job lock finds mixed results using several methodologies. We take a new approach to examine job-lock by exploiting the discontinuity created at age 65 through the...

In recent years, a plethora of public and private programs in the United States have been created to close the "Digital Divide."  Interestingly, however, we know very little about the underlying causes of racial differences in rates of computer and Internet access.  In this paper, I use...

Approximately 9 out of 10 high school students who have access to a home computer use that computer to complete school assignments. Do these home computers, however, improve educational outcomes? Using the Computer and Internet Use Supplement to the 2001 Current Population Survey, I explore...

In contrast to the large and rapidly growing literature on IT investments and firm productivity, we know very little about the role of personal computers in business creation.  Using matched data from the 1997-2001 Computer and Internet Usage Supplements to subsequent Outgoing Rotation Group...