This paper examines the long-term impacts on health and healthy behaviors of two of the oldest and most widely cited U.S. early childhood interventions evaluated by the method of randomization with long-term follow-up: the Perry Preschool Project (PPP) and the Carolina Abecedarian Project (ABC)....

Throughout the years spanned by the US Vital Statistics Linked Birth and Infant Death Data (1983-2002), birth weights are measured most precisely for children of white and highly educated mothers. As a result, less healthy children, who are more likely to be of low socioeconomic status, are...

This paper investigates the underlying causes of suicide. In contrast to previous literature, we use data from the United States at the county level. Our primary methodology is a two-level Bayesian hierarchical model with spatially correlated random effects. Our results show that the significant...

Social distancing, a non-pharmaceutical tactic aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19, can arise because individuals voluntarily distance from others to avoid contracting the disease. Alternatively, it can arise because of jurisdictional restrictions imposed by local authorities. We run...

The Short-Time Compensation (STC) program enables US firms to reduce work hours via pro-rated Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits, rather than relying on layoffs as a cost-cutting tool. Despite the program's potential to preclude skill loss and rehiring/ retraining costs, firms' participation...

Present paper makes some comments on the conclusions of (Bonesmo Fredriksen, 2012) who claims among others that “…Furthermore, EU income inequality is found to have increased over the past 25 years, albeit at a slower pace since 2000”. My comments are that the above conclusion depends on...

This paper examines return predictability of the U.S. stock market using portfolios sorted by size, book-to-market ratio, and industry. A novel panel variance ratio test is proposed and employed to evaluate time-varying return predictability from 1964 to 2011. It is found that the stock returns...

Researchers are often interested in estimating the causal effect of some treatment on individual criminality. For example, two recent relatively prominent papers have attempted to estimate the respective direct effects of marriage and gang participation on individual criminal activity. One...