We evaluate the potential for family cap policies to reduce the number of out-of-wedlock births to AFDC recipients. These policies, already enacted in a few states, eliminate the incremental benefits entitled to AFDC recipients who have additional children. In our analysis, we use the special...

A substantial amount of money is spent on technology by schools, families and policymakers with the hope of improving educational outcomes. This chapter explores the theoretical and empirical literature on the impacts of technology on educational outcomes. The literature focuses on two primary...

Employer-provided health insurance may restrict job mobility, resulting in “job lock.” 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 qualification for...

Immigrants are widely perceived as being highly entrepreneurial and important for economic growth and innovation. This is reflected in immigration policies and many developed countries have created special visas and entry requirements in an attempt to attract immigrant entrepreneurs. Not...

The ratio of black to white unemployment rates is currently in excess of 2 to 1. We show that the racial unemployment gap was small or nonexistent before 1940, widened dramatically during the 1940s and 50s, and widened again in the 1980s. Using available U.S. Census data for the years 1880 to...

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

Using NLSY data, the authors estimate the long-term costs of job displacement for young adults. Earnings and wage losses were large for the first three years following displacement. Compared to earnings losses found by other studies for more mature workers, however, earnings losses for these...

Theoretical models of self-employment posit that attitudes toward risk, entrepreneurial ability, and preferences for autonomy are central to the individual's decision between self-employment and wage/salary work. None of the studies in the rapidly growing empirical literature on self-employment,...