Monetary policy affects both real variables, such as employment, unemployment and output and nominal variables such as nominal interest and inflation rates. For close to a decade the principal focus of monetary policy has been on inflation. During a recession, or when one appears imminent, the...

Using a sample of sibling pairs from the PSID-CDS, we examine the effects of sibling health status on early educational outcomes. We find that sibling developmental disability and externalizing behavior are associated with reductions in math and language achievement. Estimated spillovers for...

Has access to selective post-secondary schools expanded or contracted? Evaluating this question has proven a difficult task due to limited data and biased measures of family income. We complement previous work and provide a replicable model of institutional analysis. This paper presents a...

This paper introduces a static structural model of hours of market labor supply, time spent on child care and other domestic work, and bought in child care for married or cohabiting mothers with pre-school age children. The father's behavior is taken as given. The main goal is to analyze the...

Should special pension provisions be offered to workers in harsh occupations? We address this question in an optimal tax setting where individuals differ in longevity and occupation. Longevity is private information but workers in harsh occupations have on average shorter lifes than workers in...

In a well-known paper Friedman and Savage (1948) advocated a utility function in which the marginal utility of wealth is increasing in wealth above some critical level of wealth. In order to win a reception for this novel conception of the utility function Friedman and Savage took some pains in...

There is a well known positive association between family income and children's development, including health and academic performance. This relationship is a potentially importance factor in the intergenerational transmission of socioeconomic status and has been shown to be a robust finding...