Search Results

Source: National Bureau of Economic Research
Resulting in 182 citations.
1. Acemoglu, Daron
Pischke, Jorn-Steffen
Minimum Wages and On-the-Job Training
NBER Working Paper No. 7184, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 1999
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Human Capital; Minimum Wage; Skilled Workers; Training, On-the-Job; Wages

Becker's theory of human capital predicts that minimum wages should reduce training investments for affected workers, because they prevent these workers from taking wage cuts necessary to finance training. We show that when the assumption of perfectly competitive labor markets underlying this theory is relaxed, minimum wages can increase training of affected workers, by inducing firms to train their unskilled employees. More generally, a minimum wage increases training for constrained workers, while reducing it for those taking wage cuts to finance their training. We provide new estimates on the impact of the state and federal increases in the minimum wage between 1987 and 1992 of the training of low wage workers. We find no evidence that minimum wages reduce training. These results are consistent with our model, but difficult to reconcile with the standard theory of human capital.
Bibliography Citation
Acemoglu, Daron and Jorn-Steffen Pischke. "Minimum Wages and On-the-Job Training." NBER Working Paper No. 7184, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 1999.
2. Altonji, Joseph G.
Bharadwaj, Prashant
Lange, Fabian
Changes in the Characteristics of American Youth: Implications for Adult Outcomes
NBER Working Paper No. 13883, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2008.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13883
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Education; Ethnic Differences; Gender Differences; I.Q.; Intelligence; Labor Market Outcomes; Racial Differences; Skill Formation; Skills; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT; Transition, School to Work

We examine changes in the characteristics of American youth between the late 1970s and the late 1990s, with a focus on characteristics that matter for labor market success. We reweight the NLSY79 to look like the NLSY97 along a number of dimensions that are related to labor market success, including race, gender, parental background, education, test scores, and variables that capture whether individuals transition smoothly from school to work. We then use the re-weighted sample to examine how changes in the distribution of observable skills affect employment and wages. We also use more standard regression methods to assess the labor market consequences of differences between the two cohorts. Overall, we find that the current generation is more skilled than the previous one. Blacks and Hispanics have gained relative to whites and women have gained relative to men. However, skill differences within groups have increased considerably and in aggregate the skill distribution has widened. Changes in parental education seem to generate many of the observed changes
Bibliography Citation
Altonji, Joseph G., Prashant Bharadwaj and Fabian Lange. "Changes in the Characteristics of American Youth: Implications for Adult Outcomes." NBER Working Paper No. 13883, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2008.
3. Altonji, Joseph G.
Dunn, Thomas Albert
An Intergenerational Model of Wages, Hours and Earnings
NBER Working Paper No. 4950, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 1994.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W4950.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Benefits, Fringe; Demography; Earnings; Economics of Discrimination; Economics of Gender; Economics of Minorities; Gender Differences; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Job Tenure; Job Training; Labor Economics; Labor Market Outcomes; Labor Supply; Modeling; Parental Influences; Schooling; Training, Occupational; Wage Differentials; Wage Levels; Wages; Work Hours/Schedule

In this paper we develop and estimate a factor model of the earnings, labor supply, and wages of young men and women, their parents and their siblings. We estimate the model using data on matched sibling and parent-child pairs from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experience. We measure the extent to which a set of unobserved parental and family factors that drive wage rates and work hours independently of wage rates lead to similarities among family members in labor market outcomes. We find strong family similarities in work hours that run along gender lines. These labor supply responses to family similarities in wages. The wage factors of the father and mother influence the wages of both sons and daughters. A "sibling" wage factor also plays an important role in wage determination. We find that intergenerational correlations in wages substantially overestimate the direct influence of fathers, and especially mothers, on wages. This is because the father's and mother's wage factors are positively correlated. The relative importance for the variance in earnings of the direct effect of wages, the labor supply response induced by wages, and effect of hours preferences varies by gender, and by age in the case of women. For all groups most of the effect of wages on earnings is direct rather than through a labor supply response. (COPYRIGHT: This record is part of the Abstracts of Working Papers in Economics (AWPE) Database, copyright (c) 1995 Cambridge University Press) Full-text available on-line: http://nberws.nber.org/papers/W4950.pdf
Bibliography Citation
Altonji, Joseph G. and Thomas Albert Dunn. "An Intergenerational Model of Wages, Hours and Earnings." NBER Working Paper No. 4950, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 1994.
4. Altonji, Joseph G.
Dunn, Thomas Albert
The Effects of School and Family Characteristics on the Return to Education
NBER Working Paper No. 5072, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1995.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5072.pdf
Cohort(s): Young Men, Young Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Educational Returns; Family Background and Culture; Family Characteristics; High School Completion/Graduates; Mothers, Education; Pairs (also see Siblings); Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); School Characteristics/Rating/Safety; School Quality; Siblings; Wage Models

We measure the effects of parental education on the education profile of wages. The analysis uses sibling pairs from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience of Young Men and Young Women. We also use the variance across siblings in school characteristics to estimate the effects of school inputs on wages holding family background constant. We obtained mixed evidence on whether parental education raises the return to education. We find that teacher's salary, expenditures per pupil, and a composite index of school quality measures have a substantial positive effect on the wages of high school graduates. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5072.pdf
Bibliography Citation
Altonji, Joseph G. and Thomas Albert Dunn. "The Effects of School and Family Characteristics on the Return to Education." NBER Working Paper No. 5072, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1995.
5. Anderson, Patricia M.
Effect of Employer-Provided Health Insurance on Job Mobility: Job-Lock or Job-Push?
Working Paper, Department of Economics, Dartmouth College and NBER, October 1998
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Benefits, Insurance; Census of Population; Health Care; Insurance, Health; Job Rewards; Job Satisfaction; Job Turnover; Labor Market Outcomes; Mobility, Job; Work Attachment

According to Census Bureau figures, 61.4 percent of all Americans were covered by employment-based health insurance coverage in 1997. This unique link between one's job and one's medical coverage has continually raised concerns over both the numbers of uninsured and the possible impact of this linkage on labor market outcomes. For example, much attention has been paid in recent years to the problem of job-lock, in which workers feel trapped in their current jobs because of fear of losing their current health insurance, given that workers who become unemployed or change jobs often spend a period without health insurance. Among those having one or more job interruption between 1993 and 1996, 44 percent went 1 month or more uncovered, compared to just 85 percent for those working full time for the entire 36 month period. At the same time, another potential impact of health insurance on mobility has received much less attention than job-lock, but is the mirror image of that problem. Rather than being locked into a job that, absent the link between employer and health insurance, a worker would leave, a worker in need of coverage may be pushed out of a job in which they would otherwise remain. I term this phenomenon "job-push" to parallel the job-lock terminology. Properly attributing the difference in job mobility induced by employer-provided health insurance to job lock or job-push has important policy implications, because policy reforms directed at job-lock may have no effect on job-push, and may possibly even worsen the problems.
Bibliography Citation
Anderson, Patricia M. "Effect of Employer-Provided Health Insurance on Job Mobility: Job-Lock or Job-Push?" Working Paper, Department of Economics, Dartmouth College and NBER, October 1998.
6. Anderson, Patricia M.
Butcher, Kristin F.
Reading, Writing, and Raisinets: Are School Finances Contributing to Children's Obesity?
NBER Working Paper No. 11177, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2005.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/W11177
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Nutritional Status/Nutrition/Consumption Behaviors; School Characteristics/Rating/Safety; Weight

The proportion of adolescents in the United States who are obese has nearly tripled over the last two decades. At the same time, schools, often citing financial pressures, have given students greater access to "junk" foods, using proceeds from the sales to fund school programs. We examine whether schools under financial pressure are more likely to adopt potentially unhealthful food policies. We find that a 10 percentage point increase in the probability of access to junk food leads to about a one percent increase in students' body mass index (BMI). However, this average effect is entirely driven by adolescents who have an overweight parent, for whom the effect of such food policies is much larger (2.2%). This suggests that those adolescents who have a genetic or family susceptibility to obesity are most affected by the school food environment. A rough calculation suggests that the increase in availability of junk foods in schools can account for about one-fifth of the increase in average BMI among adolescents over the last decade.
Bibliography Citation
Anderson, Patricia M. and Kristin F. Butcher. "Reading, Writing, and Raisinets: Are School Finances Contributing to Children's Obesity?" NBER Working Paper No. 11177, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2005.
7. Anderson, Patricia M.
Butcher, Kristin F.
Levine, Phillip B.
Maternal Employment and Overweight Children
NBER Working Paper No. 8770, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2002.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W8770.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Breastfeeding; Child Care; Child Health; Height; Maternal Employment; Modeling, Probit; Obesity; Siblings; Socioeconomic Status (SES); Weight

This paper investigates whether children are more or less likely to be overweight if their mothers work. The prevalence of both overweight children and working mothers has risen dramatically over the past few decades, although these parallel trends may be coincidental. The goal of this paper is to help determine whether a causal relationship exists between maternal employment and childhood overweight. To accomplish this, we mainly utilize matched mother-child data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and employ three main econometric techniques, probit models, sibling difference models, and instrumental variables models in this analysis. Our results indicate that a child is more likely to be overweight if his/her mother worked more intensively (in the form of greater hours per week) over the child's life. This effect is particularly evident for children of white mothers, of mothers with more education, and of mothers with a high income level. Applying our estimates to the trend towards greater maternal employment indicates that the increased hours worked per week among mothers between 1975 and 1999 led to about a 0.4 to 0.7 percentage point increase in overweight children, which represents a relatively small share of the overall increase.
Bibliography Citation
Anderson, Patricia M., Kristin F. Butcher and Phillip B. Levine. "Maternal Employment and Overweight Children." NBER Working Paper No. 8770, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2002.
8. Angrist, Joshua D.
Lavy, Victor
The Effect of Teen Childbearing and Single Parenthood on Childhood Disabilities and Progress in School
NBER Working Paper No. 5807, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1996.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/W5807
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Age at Birth; Child Health; Childbearing; Childbearing, Adolescent; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Disability; Fathers, Absence; Fathers, Presence; Marital Status; Parents, Single; Schooling; Teenagers

Teen and out-of-wedlock child-bearing are often thought to be responsible for poor health and low levels of schooling among the children of young mothers. This paper uses special disability and grade repetition questions from the school enrollment supplement to the 1992 Current Population Survey to estimate the effect of maternal age and single parenthood on children's disability status and school progress. Our results suggest that there is little association between maternal age at birth and children's disabilities. But the children of teen mothers are much more likely to repeat one or more grades than other children, and within-household estimates of this relationship are even larger than OLS estimates. The grade repetition findings from the CPS are replicated using a smaller sample from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Another finding of interest is that having a father in the household is associated with lower disability prevalence and fewer grade repetitions. But many of the effects of single parenthood on disability, as well as the effect on grade repetition, appear to be explained by higher incomes in two-parent families. Full-text available on-line: http://nberws.nber.org/papers/W5807
Bibliography Citation
Angrist, Joshua D. and Victor Lavy. "The Effect of Teen Childbearing and Single Parenthood on Childhood Disabilities and Progress in School." NBER Working Paper No. 5807, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1996.
9. Arcidiacono, Peter
Bayer, Patrick
Hizmo, Aurel
Beyond Signaling and Human: Education and the Revelation of Ability
NBER Working Paper No. 13951, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2008.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13951.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); College Enrollment; Discrimination, Employer; Education; High School Completion/Graduates; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT; Wages

In traditional signaling models, education provides a way for individuals to sort themselves by ability. Employers in turn use education to statistically discriminate, paying wages that reflect the average productivity of workers with the same given level of education. In this paper, we provide evidence that education (specifically, attending college) plays a much more direct role in revealing ability to the labor market. We use the NLSY79 to examine returns to ability early in careers; our results suggest that ability is observed nearly perfectly for college graduates but is revealed to the labor market much more gradually for high school graduates. As a result, from very beginning of the career, college graduates are paid in accordance with their own ability, while the wages of high school graduates are initially completely unrelated to their own ability. This view of ability revelation in the labor market has considerable power in explaining racial differences in wages, education, and the returns to ability. In particular, we find no racial differences in wages or returns to ability in the college labor market, but a 6-10 percent wage penalty for blacks (conditional on ability) in the high school market. These results are consistent with the notion that employers use race to statistically discriminate in the high school market but have no need to do so in the college market. That blacks face a wage penalty in the high school but not the college labor market also helps to explains why, conditional on ability, blacks are more likely to earn a college degree, a fact that has been documented in the literature but for which a full explanation has yet to emerge
Bibliography Citation
Arcidiacono, Peter, Patrick Bayer and Aurel Hizmo. "Beyond Signaling and Human: Education and the Revelation of Ability." NBER Working Paper No. 13951, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2008.
10. Ashenfelter, Orley
Rouse, Cecilia Elena
Schooling, Intelligence, and Income in America: Cracks in the Bell Curve
NBER Working Paper No. 6902, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1999.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6902
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Education; Educational Aspirations/Expectations; Educational Returns; Family Background and Culture; Human Capital; Income; Racial Differences; Schooling

One of the best documented relationships in economics is the link between education and income: higher educated people have higher incomes. Advocates argue that education provides skills, or human capital, that raises an individual's productivity. Critics argue that the documented relationship is not causal. Education does not generate higher incomes; instead, individuals with higher ability receive more education and more income. This essay reviews the evidence on the relationship between education and income. We focus on recent studies that have attempted to determine the causal effect of education on income by either comparing income and education differences within families or using exogenous determinants of schooling in what are sometimes called natural experiments. In addition, we assess the potential for education to reduce income disparities by presenting evidence on the return to education for people of differing family backgrounds and measured ability. The results of all these studies are surprisingly consistent: they indicate that the return to schooling is not caused by an omitted correlation between ability and schooling. Moreover, we find no evidence that the return to schooling differs significantly by family background or by the measured ability of the student.
Bibliography Citation
Ashenfelter, Orley and Cecilia Elena Rouse. "Schooling, Intelligence, and Income in America: Cracks in the Bell Curve." NBER Working Paper No. 6902, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1999.
11. Ashenfelter, Orley
Zimmerman, David J.
Estimates of the Returns to Schooling from Sibling Data: Fathers, Sons, and Brothers
NBER Working Paper No. 4491, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1993.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W4491
Cohort(s): Older Men, Young Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Brothers; Educational Returns; Family Background and Culture; Pairs (also see Siblings); Schooling; Siblings

This paper uses data on brothers, and fathers and sons, to estimate the economic returns to schooling. Its goal is to determine whether the correlation between earnings and schooling is due, in part, to the correlation between family backgrounds and schooling. The basic idea is to contrast the differences between the schooling of brothers, and fathers and sons, with the differences in their respective earnings. Since individuals linked by family affiliation are more likely to have similar innate ability and family backgrounds than randomly selected individuals our procedure provides a straightforward control for unobserved family attributes. The empirical results indicate that in the sample of brothers the ordinary least squares estimates of the return to schooling may be biased upward by some 25% by the omission of family background factors. Adjustments for measurement error, however, imply that the intrafamily estimate of the returns to schooling is biased downward by about 25% also, so that the ordinary least squares estimate suffers from very little overall bias. Using data on fathers and sons introduces some ambiguity into these findings, as commonly used specification tests reject the simplest models of the role of family background in the determination of earnings.
Bibliography Citation
Ashenfelter, Orley and David J. Zimmerman. "Estimates of the Returns to Schooling from Sibling Data: Fathers, Sons, and Brothers." NBER Working Paper No. 4491, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1993.
12. Averett, Susan L.
Korenman, Sanders D.
The Economic Reality of the Beauty Myth
NBER Working Paper No. 4521, National Bureau of Economic Research, November, 1993.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W4521
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Earnings; Family Background and Culture; Family Income; Height, Height-Weight Ratios; Income; Marital Status; Obesity; Racial Equality/Inequality; Wage Differentials

We investigate income, marital status, and hourly pay differentials by body mass (kg/m2) in a sample of 23 to 31 year olds drawn from the 1988 NLSY. Obese women have lower family incomes than women whose weight-for-height is in the "recommended" range. Results for men are weaker and mixed. We find similar results when we compare same-sex siblings in order to control for family background (e.g., social class) differences. Differences in economic status by body mass for women increase markedly when we use an earlier weight measure or restrict the sample to persons who were single and childless when the early weight was reported. There is some evidence of labor market discrimination against obese women. However, differences in marriage probabilities and in spouse's earnings account for 50 to 95 percent of their lower economic status. There is no evidence that obese African American women suffer an economic penalty relative to other African American women.
Bibliography Citation
Averett, Susan L. and Sanders D. Korenman. "The Economic Reality of the Beauty Myth." NBER Working Paper No. 4521, National Bureau of Economic Research, November, 1993.
13. Bartel, Ann P.
Sicherman, Nachum
Technological Change and On-the-Job Training of Young Workers
Presented: New York, NY, Columbia, University, NBER Summer Institute in Labor Studies, July 26-30, 1993
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): High School Completion/Graduates; Human Capital; Technology/Technological Changes; Training, On-the-Job

We use the NLSY to analyze the relationship between technological change and on-the-job training. The theoretical predictions are ambiguous: While higher rates of obsolescence are likely to decrease investment, on-the-job training will increase if technological change increases the productivity of human capital, reduces the cost of training, or increases the value of time in training relative to work. Our major empirical findings are: (1) Technological change induces firms to provide short (i.e. duration of less than a month) training to their employees, and we, therefore, do not observe a significant effect of technological change on hours of training. (2) Workers who receive training because of technological change are either high school graduates or those with eight or fewer years of schooling. (3) Workers who did not receive training in the previous year are more likely to be trained as a result of higher rates of technological change.
Bibliography Citation
Bartel, Ann P. and Nachum Sicherman. "Technological Change and On-the-Job Training of Young Workers." Presented: New York, NY, Columbia, University, NBER Summer Institute in Labor Studies, July 26-30, 1993.
14. Bartel, Ann P.
Sicherman, Nachum
Technological Change and the Careers of Older Workers
NBER Working Paper No. 3433, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1990.
Also: NBER Reprint No. 1802.
Cohort(s): Older Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Human Capital Theory; Industrial Sector; Industrial Training; Job Training; Mobility, Interfirm; Retirement/Retirement Planning; Technology/Technological Changes; Training

Recent research has shown that technological change has important labor market implications; this paper demonstrates one of the avenues through which this occurs. According to the theory of human capital, technological change will influence the retirement decisions of older workers in two ways. First, workers in industries characterized by high rates of technological change will have later retirement ages because these industries require larger amounts of on-the-job training. Second, an unexpected change in the industry's rate of technological change will induce older workers to retire sooner because the required amount of retraining will be an unattractive investment. The authors matched time-series data on rates of technological change and required amounts of training in 35 industrial sectors with data from the NLS Older Men's Survey to test these hypotheses. Results strongly supported both hypotheses.
Bibliography Citation
Bartel, Ann P. and Nachum Sicherman. "Technological Change and the Careers of Older Workers." NBER Working Paper No. 3433, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1990.
15. Bartel, Ann P.
Sicherman, Nachum
Technological Change and the Skill Acquisition of Young Workers
NBER Working Paper No. 5107, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 1995.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5107
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Skills; Technology/Technological Changes; Training; Training, Employee; Training, On-the-Job

The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and six proxies for industry rates of technological change, we study the impact of technological change on skill accumulation among young male workers in the manufacturing sector during the time period 1987 through 1992. Production workers in manufacturing industries with higher rates of technological change are more likely to receive formal company training, but not other types of training. An important finding is that, while more educated workers are more likely to receive formal company training, the training gap between the highly educated and the less educated narrows, on average, as the rate of technological change increases. The positive effect of technological change on hours of training is due largely to an increase in the incidence of training, not in the number of hours per training spell. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5107
Bibliography Citation
Bartel, Ann P. and Nachum Sicherman. "Technological Change and the Skill Acquisition of Young Workers." NBER Working Paper No. 5107, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 1995.
16. Bartel, Ann P.
Sicherman, Nachum
Technological Change and Wages: An Inter-Industry Analysis
NBER Working Paper No. 5941, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 1997.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5941
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Education; Heterogeneity; High School Curriculum; Skills; Technology/Technological Changes; Transfers, Skill; Wage Theory; Wages

Previous research has found evidence that wages in industries characterized as "high tech," or subject to higher rates of technological change, are higher. In addition, there is evidence that - A skill-based technological change is responsible for the dramatic increase in the earnings of more educated workers relative to less educated workers that took place during the 1980s. In this paper, we match a variety of industry level measures of technological change to a panel of young workers observed between 1979 and 1993 (NLSY) and examine the role played by unobserved heterogeneity in explaining the positive relationships between technological change and wages, and between technological change and the education premium. We find evidence that the wage premium associated with technological change is primarily due to the sorting of better workers into those industries. In addition, the education premium associated with technological change is found to be the result of an increase in demand for the innate ability or other observable characteristics of more educated workers. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5941
Bibliography Citation
Bartel, Ann P. and Nachum Sicherman. "Technological Change and Wages: An Inter-Industry Analysis." NBER Working Paper No. 5941, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 1997.
17. Battacharya, Jay
Bundorf, M. Kate
The Incidence of the Healthcare Costs of Obesity
NBER Working Paper No. 11303, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2005.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11303
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Body Mass Index (BMI); Insurance, Health; Obesity; Weight

The incidence of obesity has increased dramatically in the U.S. Obese individuals tend to be sicker and spend more on health care, raising the question of who bears the incidence of obesity-related health care costs. This question is particularly interesting among those with group coverage through an employer given the lack of explicit risk adjustment of individual health insurance premiums in the group market. In this paper, we examine the incidence of the healthcare costs of obesity among full time workers. We find that the incremental healthcare costs associated with obesity are passed on to obese workers with employer-sponsored health insurance in the form of lower cash wages. Obese workers in firms without employer-sponsored insurance do not have a wage offset relative to their non-obese counterparts. Our estimate of the wage offset exceeds estimates of the expected incremental health care costs of these individuals for obese women, but not for men. We find that a substantial part of the lower wages among obese women attributed to labor market discrimination can be explained by the higher health insurance premiums required to cover them.
Bibliography Citation
Battacharya, Jay and M. Kate Bundorf. "The Incidence of the Healthcare Costs of Obesity." NBER Working Paper No. 11303, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2005.
18. Baum, Charles L., II
Ruhm, Christopher J.
Age, Socioeconomic Status and Obesity Growth
NBER Working Paper No. 13289, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2007
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Age and Ageing; Ethnic Differences; Family Background and Culture; Health Factors; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Life Cycle Research; Obesity; Racial Differences; Socioeconomic Status (SES); Weight

The rapid growth in obesity represents a major public concern. Although body weight tends to increase with age, the evolution of obesity over the lifecycle is not well understood. We use longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine how body weight changes with age for a cohort moving through early adulthood. We further investigate how the age-obesity gradient differs with socioeconomic status (SES) and begin to examine channels for these SES disparities. Our analysis uncovers three main findings. First, weight rises with age but is inversely related to SES at given ages. Second, the SES-obesity gradient widens over the lifecycle, a result consistent with research examining other health outcomes such as overall status or specific medical conditions. Third, a substantial portion of the SES "effect" is transmitted through race/ethnicity and the translation of advantaged family backgrounds during childhood into high levels of subsequent education. Conversely, little of the SES difference appears to be propagated through family income, marital status, number of children, or the set of health behaviors we control for. However, approximately half of the SES-weight correlation persists after the inclusion of controls, illustrating the need for further study of mechanisms for the gradient
Bibliography Citation
Baum, Charles L., II and Christopher J. Ruhm. "Age, Socioeconomic Status and Obesity Growth." NBER Working Paper No. 13289, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2007.
19. Belley, Philippe
Lochner, Lance John
The Changing Role of Family Income and Ability in Determining Educational Achievement
NBER Working Paper No. 13527, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2007.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13527
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Cognitive Ability; College Enrollment; Educational Attainment; Educational Returns; Family Income; High School Diploma; Modeling

This paper uses data from the 1979 and 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth cohorts (NLSY79 and NLSY97) to estimate changes in the effects of ability and family income on educational attainment for youth in their late teens during the early 1980s and early 2000s. Cognitive ability plays an important role in determining educational outcomes for both NLSY cohorts, while family income plays little role in determining high school completion in either cohort. Most interestingly, we document a dramatic increase in the effects of family income on college attendance (particularly among the least able) from the NLSY79 to the NLSY97. Family income has also become a much more important determinant of college 'quality' and hours/weeks worked during the academic year (the latter among the most able) in the NLSY97. Family income has little effect on college delay in either sample.

To interpret our empirical findings on college attendance, we develop an educational choice model that incorporates both borrowing constraints and a 'consumption' value of schooling - two of the most commonly invoked explanations for a positive family income - schooling relationship. Without borrowing constraints, the model cannot explain the rising effects of family income on college attendance in response to the sharply rising costs and returns to college experienced from the early 1980s to early 2000s: the incentives created by a 'consumption' value of schooling imply that income should have become less important over time (or even negatively related to attendance). Instead, the data are more broadly consistent with the hypothesis that more youth are borrowing constrained today than were in the early 1980s.

Bibliography Citation
Belley, Philippe and Lance John Lochner. "The Changing Role of Family Income and Ability in Determining Educational Achievement." NBER Working Paper No. 13527, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2007.
20. Bennett, Neil G.
Bloom, David E.
Miller, Cynthia K.
The Influence of Nonmarital Childbearing on the Formation of First Marriages
NBER Working Paper No. 4564, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 1993.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W4564
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Childbearing; Cohabitation; Coresidence; Fertility; Marriage; Modeling, Hazard/Event History/Survival/Duration; Welfare; Work Knowledge

This paper examines the association between nonmarital childbearing and the subsequent likelihood of first marriage and documents a negative association between these variables--controlling for a variety of potentially confounding influences--in several large survey data sets for the United States. The paper then subjects possible explanations of this finding to empirical test. The analyses performed support the following conclusions: Nonmarital childbearing does not appear to be driven by low expectations of future marriage. Rather, nonmarital childbearing tends to be an unexpected and unwanted event that has multiple effects, which on balance are negative, on a woman's subsequent likelihood of first marriage. Nonmarital childbearers are more likely to enter informal cohabitational unions than are their single counterparts who do not bear a child. Evidence is found that the negative association between out-of-wedlock childbearing and subsequent marriage is particularly strong among welfare recipients as well as evidence that out-of-wedlock childbearing increases the likelihood that a woman marries her child's biological father. On the other hand, we find no evidence that (a) stigma associated with nonmarital childbearing plays an important role in this process or (b) the demands of children reduce the time that unmarried mothers have to devote to marriage market activities.
Bibliography Citation
Bennett, Neil G., David E. Bloom and Cynthia K. Miller. "The Influence of Nonmarital Childbearing on the Formation of First Marriages." NBER Working Paper No. 4564, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 1993.
21. Berk, Jonathan B.
Statistical Discrimination in a Competitive Labor Market
NBER Working Paper No. 6871, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1999.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6871
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Discrimination; Labor Market Demographics; Labor Market Segmentation; Occupational Choice

This paper studies the effect of employee job selection in a model of statistical discrimination in a competitive labor market. In an economy in which there are quality differences between groups, a surprisingly strong condition is required to guarantee discrimination against the worse qualified group --- MLRP must hold. In addition, because of the self-selection bias induced by competition, the resulting discrimination is small when compared to the magnitude of the underlying quality differences between groups. In cases in which the discrimination results because employers' ability to measure qualifications differs from one group to another, the conditions under which one group is discriminated against are much weaker. In general, the group employers know least about is always favored. The economic impact of discrimination that is derived from quality differences between groups is shown to be quite different to the economic impact of discrimination that derives from differences in employer familiarity between groups. In the latter case, for a set of equally qualified employees, it is possible for members of the group that is discriminated against to have higher wages. Finally, we show how the results can be used to explain a number of empirical puzzles that are documented in the literature.
Bibliography Citation
Berk, Jonathan B. "Statistical Discrimination in a Competitive Labor Market." NBER Working Paper No. 6871, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1999.
22. Bhattacharya, Jay
Kate Bundorf, Kate
Pace, Noemi
Sood, Neeraj
Does Health Insurance Make You Fat?
NBER Working Paper No. 15163, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2009.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15163
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Endogeneity; Health Care; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Insurance, Health; Obesity

The prevalence of obesity has been rising dramatically in the U.S., leading to poor health and rising health care expenditures. The role of policy in addressing rising rates of obesity, however, is controversial. Policy recommendations for interventions intended to influence body weight decisions often assume the obesity creates negative externalities for the non-obese. We build on earlier work demonstrating that this argument depends on two important assumptions: 1) that the obese do not pay for their higher medical expenditures through differential payments for health care and health insurance, and 2) that body weight decisions are responsive to the incidence of medical care costs associated with obesity. In this paper, we test the latter proposition – that body weight is influenced by insurance coverage - using two approaches. First, we use data from the Rand Health Insurance Experiment, in which people were randomly assigned to varying levels of health insurance, to examine the effect of generosity of insurance coverage on body weight along the intensive coverage margin. Second, we use instrumental variables methods to estimate the effect of type of insurance coverage (private, public and none) on body weight along the extensive margin. We explicitly address the discrete nature of the endogenous indicator of health insurance coverage by estimating a nonlinear instrumental variables model. We find weak evidence that more generous insurance coverage increases body mass index. We find stronger evidence that being insured increases body mass index and obesity.
Bibliography Citation
Bhattacharya, Jay, Kate Kate Bundorf, Noemi Pace and Neeraj Sood. "Does Health Insurance Make You Fat?" NBER Working Paper No. 15163, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2009.
23. Blanchflower, David G.
Lynch, Lisa M.
Training at Work: A Comparison of U.S. and British Youths
Working Paper, NBER Working Paper No. W4037, March 1, 1992.
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Cross-national Analysis; Job Training; NCDS - National Child Development Study (British)

This paper compares and contrasts the structure of post school training for young nonuniversity graduates in Britain and the United States. We utilize two unique longitudinal surveys in these countries on young people to examine four issues: the extent of pest school training in Britain and the U.S. and the wage gains associated with it; the link between formal training and further qualifications in Britain and the return to this on wages; differentials in the training experience by gender in the two countries; and the possible implications for skill development in Britain of dismantling significant elements of the traditional apprenticeship system. Our principal findings are that non-college graduates in Britain receive much more post school training than similar youths in the United States. This training is also linked with higher national recognized qualifications. The rates of return to post school training in both countries is high. especially in the United States. The higher rates of return to training in the U.S. is consistent with underinvestment in training in the U.S.. When the sample is divided by gender, however, women in the U.S. receive more training than their British counterparts and their wages increase by a greater amount. As Britain has replaced the traditional apprenticeship system with a government-led program called Youth Training more women seem to be receiving training after school. However, far fewer young people are obtaining qualifications after their training.
Bibliography Citation
Blanchflower, David G. and Lisa M. Lynch. "Training at Work: A Comparison of U.S. and British Youths." Working Paper, NBER Working Paper No. W4037, March 1, 1992.
24. Blau, Francine D.
Grossberg, Adam J.
Maternal Labor Supply and Children's Cognitive Development
NBER Working Paper No. 3536, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1990.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W3536
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Child Care; Child Development; Children, Academic Development; Fathers, Absence; Gender Differences; General Assessment; Maternal Employment; Mothers, Education; Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)

This paper analyzes the relationship between maternal labor supply and children's cognitive development, using a sample of three- and four-year old children of female respondents from the 1986 NLSY. Respondents of the NLSY were aged 21-29 in 1986; thus the sample consists of children of relatively young mothers. The authors show that for this group the impact of maternal labor supply depends upon when it occurs. Maternal employment is found to have a negative impact when it occurs in the first year of the child's life and a potentially offsetting positive effect when it occurs during the second and subsequent years. Some evidence was found that boys are more sensitive to maternal labor supply than girls, though the gender difference is not significant. The negative first-year effect is not mitigated to any great extent by the increased maternal income that accompanies it, though the increase in maternal income does appear to play an important role in producing the positive effect in the second and later years.
Bibliography Citation
Blau, Francine D. and Adam J. Grossberg. "Maternal Labor Supply and Children's Cognitive Development." NBER Working Paper No. 3536, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1990.
25. Bloom, David E.
Conrad, Cecilia
Miller, Cynthia K.
Child Support and Fathers' Remarriage and Fertility
NBER Working Paper No. 5781, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1996.
Also: http://www.nber.org/cgi-bin/wpsearch.pl?action=bibliography&paper=W5781&year=96
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Child Support; Educational Attainment; Fathers; Fathers, Absence; Fertility; Marriage; Modeling, Hazard/Event History/Survival/Duration; Parents, Non-Custodial; Parents, Single; Remarriage; Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP)

This paper tests the hypothesis that child support obligations impede remarriage among nonresident fathers. Hazard models fit to data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and from the Survey of Income and Program Participation reveal that child support obligations deter remarriage among low-income nonresident fathers. The benefits to children of stricter child support enforcement are thus diminished by the negative effects of child support on remarriage, as a substantial share of nonresident fathers remarry and help support women with children. Indeed, simple calculations based on our findings suggest that the financial benefits to children in single-parent families of improved enforcement may be substantially or completely offset by the negative effects of enforcement that operate indirectly through diminished remarriage. The results provide no evidence that child support influences the nature of matches in the remarriage market or the likelihood of subsequent fertility.
Bibliography Citation
Bloom, David E., Cecilia Conrad and Cynthia K. Miller. "Child Support and Fathers' Remarriage and Fertility." NBER Working Paper No. 5781, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1996.
26. Borjas, George J.
To Ghetto or Not to Ghetto: Ethnicity and Residential Segregation
NBER Working Paper No. 6176, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 1997.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6176
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Economics of Minorities; Economics, Demographic; Ethnic Groups/Ethnicity; Ethnic Studies; Human Capital; Inner-City; Residence; Skills

This paper analyzes the link between ethnicity and the choice of residing in ethnically segregated neighborhoods. Data drawn from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth show that there exist strong human capital externalities both within and across ethnic groups. As a result, the segregation choices made by particular households depend both on the household's economic opportunities and on aggregate characteristics of the ethnic groups. The evidence suggests that highly skilled persons who belong to disadvantaged groups have lower probabilities of ethnic residential segregation relative to the choices made by the most skilled persons in the most skilled groups. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6176
Bibliography Citation
Borjas, George J. "To Ghetto or Not to Ghetto: Ethnicity and Residential Segregation." NBER Working Paper No. 6176, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 1997.
27. Borjas, George J.
Sueyoshi, Glenn T.
Ethnicity and the Intergenerational Transmission of Welfare Dependency
NBER Working Paper No. 6175, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 1997.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6175
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Ethnic Groups/Ethnicity; Ethnic Studies; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Welfare

There exist sizeable differences in the incidence ant duration of welfare spells across ethnic groups, and these differences tend to persist across generations. Using the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, we find that children raised in welfare households are themselves more likely to become welfare recipients for longer durations. We also show that growing up in an ethnic environment characterized by welfare dependency has a significant effect on both the incidence and duration of welfare spells. About 80 percent of the difference in welfare participation rates between two ethnic groups in the parental generation is transmitted to the children. ull-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6175
Bibliography Citation
Borjas, George J. and Glenn T. Sueyoshi. "Ethnicity and the Intergenerational Transmission of Welfare Dependency." NBER Working Paper No. 6175, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 1997.
28. Bound, John
Griliches, Zvi
Hall, Bronwyn H.
Brothers and Sisters in the Family and the Labor Market
NBER Working Paper No. 1476, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1984.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W1476
Cohort(s): Young Men, Young Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Brothers; Family Influences; Gender Differences; I.Q.; Pairs (also see Siblings); Schooling; Siblings; Sisters; Wages

This paper investigates the relationship between earnings, schooling, and ability for young men and women who entered the labor force during the late 1960s and 1970s. The emphasis is on controlling for both observed and unobserved family characteristics, extending a framework developed earlier by Chamberlain and Griliches (1975) to the analysis of mixed-sex pairs of siblings. Using the NLS of Young Men and Young Women, which drew much of the sample from the same households, the authors were able to construct a sample containing roughly 1,500 sibling pairs. For several reasons, particularly the need to have data on two siblings from the same family, only one-third of these pairs had complete data; this fact led the authors to develop new methods of estimating factor models, which combine the data for several "unbalanced" covariance matrices. The authors' use the data on different kinds of sibling pairs (male-male, male-female, female-female) together with these new methods to investigate the question of whether family background, ability, or IQ are the same thing for males and females, in the sense that they lead to similar consequences for success in schooling and in the market place. With a simple two-factor model to explain wages, schooling, and IQ scores, the authors were able to test whether these factors are the same across siblings of different sexes and whether the loadings on the two factors are similar. The conclusion is that the unobservable factors appear to be the same and play the same role in explaining the IQ and schooling of these siblings, while there remains evidence of differences once they enter the labor market.
Bibliography Citation
Bound, John, Zvi Griliches and Bronwyn H. Hall. "Brothers and Sisters in the Family and the Labor Market." NBER Working Paper No. 1476, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1984.
29. Buchinsky, Moshe
Hunt, Jennifer
Wage Mobility in the United States
NBER Working Paper No. 5455, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 1996.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5455
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Mobility; Wage Differentials; Wage Dynamics; Wages

This paper examines the mobility of individuals through the wage and earnings distributions. This is of extreme importance since mobility has a direct implication for the way one views the vast changes in wage and earnings inequality in the United States over the last few decades. The measures of wage and earnings mobility analyzed are based on data for individuals surveyed in the National Longitudinal Survey for Youth from 1979 to 1991. We introduce summary measures of mobility computed over varying time horizons in order to examine how the effect on measured inequality as the time frame is increased The results suggest that mobility is predominantly within group mobility and increases most rapidly when the time horizon is extended up to four years, reducing wage inequality by 12-26%. We proceed therefore with more detailed examination of short-term (year-to-year) within group mobility, by estimating non-parametrically transition probabilities among quintiles of the distribution. We find that the staying probabilities by quintiles, were higher at the higher quintiles throughout the period for both wages and earnings and that mobility is declining over time. Hence, this paper suggests that while the level of wage inequality in the United States is somewhat lower once mobility is taken into account, the sharp increase in inequality during the 1980's is worse than it appears, due to falling mobility over time. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5455
Bibliography Citation
Buchinsky, Moshe and Jennifer Hunt. "Wage Mobility in the United States." NBER Working Paper No. 5455, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 1996.
30. Cameron, Stephen V.
Heckman, James J.
Life Cycle Schooling and Dynamic Selection Bias: Models and Evidence for Five
NBER Working Paper No. 6385, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1998.
Also: http://www.nber.org/cgi-bin/wpsearch.pl?action=bibliography&paper=W6385&year=98
Cohort(s): Mature Women, NLSY79, Older Men, Young Men, Young Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); College Enrollment; Education; Educational Attainment; Family Background and Culture; Family Income; Family Influences; Family Resources; Heterogeneity; Income; Life Cycle Research; Transition, School to Work; Transitional Programs

This paper examines an empirical regularity found in many societies: that family influences on the probability of transiting from one grade level to the next diminish at higher levels of education. We examine the statistical model used to establish the empirical regularity and the intuitive behavioral interpretation often used to rationalize it. We show that the implicit economic model assumes myopia. The intuitive interpretive model is identified only by imposing arbitrary distributional assumptions onto the data. We produce an alternative choice-theoretic model with fewer parameters that rationalizes the same data and is not based on arbitrary distributional assumptions.
Bibliography Citation
Cameron, Stephen V. and James J. Heckman. "Life Cycle Schooling and Dynamic Selection Bias: Models and Evidence for Five." NBER Working Paper No. 6385, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1998.
31. Cameron, Stephen V.
Heckman, James J.
The Dynamics of Educational Attainment for Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites
NBER Working Paper No. 7249, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 1999.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W7249
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): College Education; College Enrollment; Educational Attainment; Ethnic Differences; Ethnic Groups/Ethnicity; Hispanics; Income; Racial Differences; Schooling; Skilled Workers; Tuition

This paper estimates a dynamic model of schooling attainment to investigate the sources of discrepancy by race and ethnicity in college attendance. When the returns to college education rose, college enrollment of whites responded much more quickly than that of minorities. Parental income is a strong predictor of this response. However, using NLSY data, we find that it is the long-run factors associated with parental background and income and not short-term credit constraints facing college students that account for the differential response by race and ethnicity to the new labor market for skilled labor. Policies aimed at improving these long-term factors are far more likely to be successful in eliminating college attendance differentials than are short-term tuition reduction policies.
Bibliography Citation
Cameron, Stephen V. and James J. Heckman. "The Dynamics of Educational Attainment for Blacks, Hispanics, and Whites." NBER Working Paper No. 7249, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 1999.
32. Card, David E.
Using Geographic Variation in College Proximity to Estimate the Return to Schooling
NBER Working Paper No. 4483, National Bureau of Economic Research, October, October 1993.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W4483
Cohort(s): Young Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Colleges; Earnings; Education; Educational Attainment; Educational Returns; Family Background and Culture; Modeling; Schooling; Variables, Instrumental

A convincing analysis of the causal link between schooling and earnings requires an exogenous source of variation in education outcomes. This paper explores the use of college proximity as an exogenous determinant of schooling. Analysis of the NLS Young Men Cohort reveals that men who grew up in local labor markets with a nearby college have significantly higher education and earnings than other men. The education and earnings gains are concentrated among men with poorly-educated parents -- men who would otherwise stop schooling at relatively low levels. When college proximity is taken as an exogenous determinant of 'schooling the implied instrumental variables estimates of the return to schooling are 25-60% higher than conventional ordinary least squares estimates. Since the effect of a nearby college on schooling attainment vanes by family background it is possible to test whether college proximity is a legitimately exogenous determinant of schooling. The results affirm that marginal returns to education among children of less-educated parents are as high and perhaps much higher than the rates of return estimated by conventional methods.
Bibliography Citation
Card, David E. "Using Geographic Variation in College Proximity to Estimate the Return to Schooling." NBER Working Paper No. 4483, National Bureau of Economic Research, October, October 1993.
33. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Heckman, James J.
The Evidence on Credit Constraints in Post-Secondary Schooling
NBER Working Paper No. 9055, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2002.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9055
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Cognitive Ability; College Enrollment; Credit/Credit Constraint; Debt/Borrowing; Educational Returns; Family Income; Income; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Schooling; Schooling, Post-secondary

This paper examines the family income--college enrollment relationship and the evidence on credit constraints in post-secondary schooling. We distinguish short-run liquidity constraints from the long-term factors that promote cognitive and noncognitive ability. Long-run factors crystallized in ability are the major determinants of the family income--schooling relationship, although there is some evidence that up to 4% of the total U.S. population is credit constrained in a short-run sense. Evidence that IV estimates of the returns to schooling exceed OLS estimates is sometimes claimed to support the existence of substantial credit constraints. This argument is critically examined.
Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M. and James J. Heckman. "The Evidence on Credit Constraints in Post-Secondary Schooling." NBER Working Paper No. 9055, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2002.
34. Carneiro, Pedro M.
Heckman, James J.
Masterov, Dimitriy V.
Labor Market Discrimination and Racial Differences in Premarket Factors
NBER Working Paper No. 10068, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2003.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w10068.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Bias Decomposition; Children, Academic Development; Educational Aspirations/Expectations; Educational Attainment; Family Influences; Hispanics; Home Environment; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Labor Market Outcomes; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Racial Differences; Skill Formation; Wage Gap

This paper examines minority-white wage gaps. Neal and Johnson (1996) show that controlling for ability measured in the teenage years eliminates young adult wage gaps for all groups except for black males, for whom they eliminate 70% of the gap. Their study has been faulted because minority children and their parents may have pessimistic expectations about receiving fair rewards for their skills and so they may invest less in skill formation. If this is the case, discrimination may still affect wages, albeit indirectly, though it would appear that any racial differences in wages are due to differences in acquired traits. We find that gaps in ability across racial and ethnic groups open up at very early ages, long before child expectations are likely to become established. These gaps widen with age and schooling for Blacks, but not for Hispanics which indicates that poor schools and neighborhoods cannot be the principal factors affecting the slow black test score growth rate. Test scores depend on schooling attained at the time of the test. Adjusting for racial and ethnic differences in schooling attainment at the age the test is taken reduces the power of measured ability to shrink wage gaps for blacks, but not for other minorities. The evidence from expectations data are mixed. Although all groups are quite optimistic about future schooling outcomes, minority parents and children have more pessimistic expectations about child schooling relative to white children and their parents when their children are young. At later ages, expectations are more uniform across racial and ethnic groups. However, we also present some evidence that expectations data are unreliable and ambiguous. We also document the presence of disparities in noncognitive traits across racial and ethnic groups. These characteristics have been shown elsewhere to be important for explaining the labor market outcomes of adults.

This evidence points to the importance of early (preschool) family factors and environments in explaining both cognitive and noncognitive ability differentials by ethnicity and race. Policies that foster both types of ability are far more likely to be effective in promoting racial and ethnic equality for most groups than are additional civil rights and affirmative action policies targeted at the workplace.
Bibliography Citation
Carneiro, Pedro M., James J. Heckman and Dimitriy V. Masterov. "Labor Market Discrimination and Racial Differences in Premarket Factors." NBER Working Paper No. 10068, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2003.
35. Cascio, Elizabeth Ulrich
Do Investments in Universal Early Education Pay Off? Long-Term Effects of Introducing Kindergartens into Public Schools
NBER Working Paper 14951, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2009.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14951
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Age at School Entry; Elementary School Students; Head Start; Preschool Children; Racial Differences

In the 1960s and 1970s, many states introduced grants for school districts offering kindergarten programs. This paper exploits the staggered timing of these initiatives to estimate the long-term effects of a large public investment in universal early education. I find that white children aged five after the typical state reform were less likely to be high school dropouts and had lower institutionalization rates as adults. I rule out similar positive effects for blacks, despite comparable increases in their enrollment in public kindergartens in response to the initiatives. The explanation for this finding that receives most empirical support is that state funding for kindergarten crowded out participation in federally-funded early education among the poorest five year olds.

[…I use these data to construct an indicator for whether a respondent was likely to have attended Head Start at age five (see Appendix).40
40These data were used in Garces, Thomas, and Currie (2002). The 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth also asked respondents retrospective questions about Head Start enrollment in the mid-1990s, but covers only cohorts born 1960 through 1964 and does not ask about ages at which enrolled. ]

Bibliography Citation
Cascio, Elizabeth Ulrich. "Do Investments in Universal Early Education Pay Off? Long-Term Effects of Introducing Kindergartens into Public Schools." NBER Working Paper 14951, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2009.
36. Cawley, John
Body Weight and Women's Labor Market Outcomes
NBER Working Paper No. 7841, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2000.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W7841
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Earnings; Employment; Ethnic Groups/Ethnicity; Hispanics; Labor Market Outcomes; Occupations; Variables, Instrumental; Wages, Women; Weight; Women

Several studies have found that, all else equal, heavier women earn less. Previous research has been unable to determine whether high weight is the cause of low wages, the result of low wages, or whether unobserved factors cause both higher weight and lower wages. Applying the method of instrumental variables to data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this paper attempts to generate consistent estimates of the effect of weight on labor market outcomes for women. Three labor market outcomes are studied: hourly wages, employment, and sector of occupation. This paper finds that weight lowers wages for white women; among this group, a difference in weight of two standard deviations (roughly sixty-five pounds) is associated with a difference in wages of 7%. In absolute value, this is equivalent to the wage effect of roughly one year of education, two years of job tenure, or three years of work experience. In contrast, this paper finds only weak evidence that weight lowers wages for hispanic women, and no evidence that weight lowers the wages of black women. This paper also concludes that there is no effect of weight on the probability of employment or sector of occupation.
Bibliography Citation
Cawley, John. "Body Weight and Women's Labor Market Outcomes." NBER Working Paper No. 7841, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2000.
37. Cawley, John
Conneely, Karen
Heckman, James J.
Vytlacil, Edward
Measuring the Effects of Cognitive Ability
NBER Working Paper No. 5645, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 1996.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5645
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB); Cognitive Ability; Demography; Gender Differences; Intelligence; Occupational Choice; Racial Differences; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT; Wage Differentials; Wage Rates

This paper presents new evidence from the NLSY on the importance of meritocracy in American society. In it, we find that general intelligence, or "g"--a measure of cognitive ability--is dominant in explaining test score variance. The weights assigned to tests by "g" are similar for all major demographic groups. These results support Spearman's theory of "g." We also find that "g" and other measures of ability are not rewarded equally across race and gender, evidence against the view that the labor market is organized on meritocratic principles. Additional factors beyond "g" are required to explain wages and occupational choice. However, both blue collar and white collar wages are poorly predicted by "g" or even multiple measures of ability. Observed cognitive ability is only a minor predictor of social performance. White collar wages are more "g" loaded than blue collar wages. Many noncognitive factors determine blue collar wages. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5645. See also, "Cognitive Ability, Wages, and Meritocracy" published in: Intelligence, Genes, and Success. Devlin, Bernie etal. ed.
Bibliography Citation
Cawley, John, Karen Conneely, James J. Heckman and Edward Vytlacil. "Measuring the Effects of Cognitive Ability." NBER Working Paper No. 5645, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 1996.
38. Cawley, John
Heckman, James J.
Vytlacil, Edward
Cognitive Ability and the Rising Return to Education
NBER Working Paper No. 6388, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1998.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W6388
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB); Cognitive Ability; Gender Differences; I.Q.; Intelligence; Racial Differences; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT; Wage Differentials; Wage Rates

This paper examines the contribution of the rise in the return to ability to the rise in the economic return to education. All of the evidence on this question comes from panel data sets in which a small collection of adjacent birth cohorts is followed over time. The structure of the data creates an identification problem that makes it impossible to identify main age and time effects and to isolate all possible age-time interactions. In addition, many education-ability cells are empty due to the stratification of ability with educational attainment. These empty cells or identification problems are literature and produce a variety of different estimates. We test and reject widely used linearity assumptions invoked to identify the contribution of the return to ability on the return to schooling. Using nonparametric methods find little evidence that the rise in the return to education is centered among the most able.
Bibliography Citation
Cawley, John, James J. Heckman and Edward Vytlacil. "Cognitive Ability and the Rising Return to Education." NBER Working Paper No. 6388, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1998.
39. Cawley, John
Heckman, James J.
Vytlacil, Edward
Meritocracy in America: Wages Within and Across Occupations
NBER Working Paper No. 6446, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1998.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w6446
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Cognitive Ability; Gender Differences; Modeling; Occupational Choice; Racial Differences; Simultaneity; Wage Determination; Wages

In The Bell Curve, Hermstein and Murray argue that the U.S. economy is a meritocracy in which differences in wages (including differences across race and gender) are explained by differences in cognitive ability. In this paper we test their claim for wages conditional on occupation using a simultaneous model of occupation choice and wage determination. Our results contradict Herrnstein and Murray's claim that the U.S. labor market operates only on meritocratic principles. Full-text available on-line: http://nberws.nber.org/papers/W6446
Bibliography Citation
Cawley, John, James J. Heckman and Edward Vytlacil. "Meritocracy in America: Wages Within and Across Occupations." NBER Working Paper No. 6446, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1998.
40. Cawley, John
Markowitz, Sara
Tauras, John
Lighting Up and Slimming Down: The Effects of Body Weight and Cigarette Prices on Adolescent Smoking Initiation
NBER Working Paper No. 9561, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2003.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w9561
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Cigarette Use (see Smoking); Gender Differences; Weight

This paper examines the influence of body weight, body image, and cigarette prices in determining adolescent sgmoking initiation. Adolescents who desire to lose weight may initiate smoking as a method of appetite control. Such behavior may undermine the goals of tobacco control policies that seek to prevent smoking initiation. Using a nationally representative panel of adolescents, we show that smoking initiation is more likely among females who are overweight, who report trying to lose weight, or who describe themselves as overweight. In contrast, neither objective nor subjective measures of weight predict smoking initiation by males. Higher cigarette prices decrease the probability of smoking initiation among males but have no impact on female smoking initiation. These gender-specific differences may help explain the mixed and inconclusive evidence of the impact of price on smoking initiation found in previous literature.
Bibliography Citation
Cawley, John, Sara Markowitz and John Tauras. "Lighting Up and Slimming Down: The Effects of Body Weight and Cigarette Prices on Adolescent Smoking Initiation." NBER Working Paper No. 9561, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2003.
41. Cesur, Resul
Rashad, Inas
High Birth Weight and Cognitive Outcomes
NBER Working Paper 14524, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2008.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14524
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Birthweight; Body Mass Index (BMI); Breastfeeding; Cognitive Development; Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-B, ECLS-K); Obesity; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes

While the effects of low birth weight have long been explored, those of high birth weight have been essentially ignored. Economists have analyzed the negative effects that low birth weight might have on subsequent school outcomes, while taking into account unobserved characteristics that may be common to families with low birth weight babies and negative outcomes in terms of school test scores when children, in addition to labor market income when adults. Today, however, with increasing obesity rates in the United States, high birth weight has become a potential concern, and has been associated in the medical literature with an increased likelihood of becoming an overweight child, adolescent, and subsequently an obese adult. Overweight and obesity, in turn, are associated with a host of negative effects, including lower test scores in school and lower labor market prospects when adults. If studies only focus on low birth weight, they may underestimate the effects of ensuring that mothers receive adequate support during pregnancy. In this study we find that cognitive outcomes are adversely affected not only by low birth weight (<2500 grams) but also by high birth weight (>4500 grams). Our results have policy implications in terms of provision of support for pregnant women.
Bibliography Citation
Cesur, Resul and Inas Rashad. "High Birth Weight and Cognitive Outcomes." NBER Working Paper 14524, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2008.
42. Chamberlain, Gary
Panel Data
NBER Working Paper No. 0913, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 1982
Cohort(s): Young Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Fertility; Gender Differences; Labor Force Participation; Modeling, Mixed Effects; Modeling, Multilevel; Modeling, Probit; Unions; Wage Effects

We consider linear predictor definitions of noncausality or strict exogeneity and show that it is restrictive to assert that there exists a time-invariant latent variable c such that x is strictly exogenous conditional on c. A restriction of this sort is necessary to justify standard techniques for controlling for unobserved individual effects. There is a parallel analysis for multivariate probit models, but now the distributional assumption for the individual effects is restrictive. This restriction can be avoided by using a conditional likelihood analysis in a logit model. Some of these ideas are illustrated by estimating union wage effects for a sample of Young Men in the National Longitudinal Survey. The results indicate that the lags and leads could have been generated just by an unobserved individual effect, which gives some support for analysis of covariance-type estimates. These estimates indicate a substantial omitted variable bias. We also present estimates of a model of female labor force participation, focusing on the relationship between participation and fertility. Unlike the wage example, there is evidence against conditional strict exogeneity; if we ignore this evidence, the probit and logit approaches give conflicting results.
Bibliography Citation
Chamberlain, Gary. "Panel Data." NBER Working Paper No. 0913, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 1982.
43. Chatterji, Pinka
Desimone, Jeffrey Scott
Adolescent Drinking and High School Dropout
NBER Working Paper No. 11337, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2005.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W11337
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); CESD (Depression Scale); Depression (see also CESD); Educational Attainment; High School Dropouts; Human Capital; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Modeling; Mothers, Behavior; Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Variables, Instrumental

This paper estimates the effect of binge and frequent drinking by adolescents on subsequent high school dropout using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Young Adults. We estimate an instrumental variables model with an indicator of any past month alcohol use, which is by definition correlated with heavy drinking but should have minimal additional impact on educational outcomes, as the identifying instrument, and also control for a rich set of potentially confounding variables, including maternal characteristics and dropout risk factors measured before and during adolescence. In comparison, OLS provides conservative estimates of the causal impact of heavy drinking on dropping out, implying that binge or frequent drinking among 15 - 16 year old students lowers the probability of having graduated or being enrolled in high school four years later by at least 11 percent. Overidentification tests using two measures of maternal youthful alcohol use as additional instruments support our identification strategy.
Bibliography Citation
Chatterji, Pinka and Jeffrey Scott Desimone. "Adolescent Drinking and High School Dropout." NBER Working Paper No. 11337, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2005.
44. Chatterji, Pinka
Frick, Kevin D.
Does Returning to Work After Childbirth Affect Breastfeeding Practices?
NBER Working Paper No. 9630, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2003.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9630.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Breastfeeding; Health Factors; Maternal Employment; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Modeling, Probit; Work Reentry

Although the Surgeon General recently highlighted breastfeeding as '......one of the most important contributors to infant health,' few health economics studies based in developed countries have considered breastfeeding as an important health behavior that can be influenced by labor market decisions and by public policies. This study examines the effect of the timing and intensity of returning to work after childbirth on the probability of initiating breastfeeding and the number of weeks of breastfeeding. Data come from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79). Baseline probit models and family-level fixed effects models indicate that returning to work within 3 months is associated with a reduction in the probability that the mother will initiate breastfeeding by 16-18%. Among those mothers who initiate breastfeeding, returning to work within 3 months is associated with a reduction in the length of breastfeeding of 4-6 weeks. We find less consistent evidence that working at least 35 hours per week (among mothers who return to work within 3 months) detracts from breastfeeding. Baseline and fixed effects models indicate that returning to full-time work is associated with a reduction in the length of breastfeeding of 1-4 weeks; however, we do not find consistent evidence regarding the association between returning to full-time work and breastfeeding initiation. Overall, the findings suggest that maternal employment is negatively associated with both breastfeeding initiation and breastfeeding duration.
Bibliography Citation
Chatterji, Pinka and Kevin D. Frick. "Does Returning to Work After Childbirth Affect Breastfeeding Practices?" NBER Working Paper No. 9630, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2003.
45. Chatterji, Pinka
Markowitz, Sara
The Impact of Maternal Alcohol and Illicit Drug Use on Children's Behavior Problems: Evidence from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth
NBER Working Paper No. 7692, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2000.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W7692
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Behavioral Problems; Children, Behavioral Development; Drug Use; Endogeneity; Family Studies; Modeling, Multilevel; Mothers, Behavior; Substance Use; Variables, Instrumental

This study uses data from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to test for evidence of a causal relationship between maternal alcohol use, marijuana use and cocaine use, and children's behavior problems. Ordinary least squares results provide strong evidence that maternal substance use is associated with children's behavior problems. Models that account for the potential endogeneity of maternal substance use yield mixed results. Models estimated using instrumental variables (IV) methods are inconsistent with OLS findings. Child-specific and family-specific fixed effects models suggest that maternal alcohol, marijuana and cocaine use are associated with increases in behavior problems.
Bibliography Citation
Chatterji, Pinka and Sara Markowitz. "The Impact of Maternal Alcohol and Illicit Drug Use on Children's Behavior Problems: Evidence from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth." NBER Working Paper No. 7692, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2000.
46. Chay, Kenneth Y.
Guryan, Jonathan
Mazumder, Bhashkar
Birth Cohort and the Black-White Achievement Gap: The Roles of Access and Health Soon After Birth
NBER Working Paper 15078, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2009.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15078
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Health Care; Mortality; National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP); Pre/post Natal Health Care; Racial Differences; Sample Selection

One literature documents a significant, black-white gap in average test scores, while another finds a substantial narrowing of the gap during the 1980's, and stagnation in convergence after. We use two data sources -- the Long Term Trends NAEP and AFQT scores for the universe of applicants to the U.S. military between 1976 and 1991 -- to show: 1) the 1980's convergence is due to relative improvements across successive cohorts of blacks born between 1963 and the early 1970's and not a secular narrowing in the gap over time; and 2) the across-cohort gains were concentrated among blacks in the South. We then demonstrate that the timing and variation across states in the AFQT convergence closely tracks racial convergence in measures of health and hospital access in the years immediately following birth. We show that the AFQT convergence is highly correlated with post-neonatal mortality rates and not with neonatal mortality and low birth weight rates, and that this result cannot be explained by schooling desegregation and changes in family background. We conclude that investments in health through increased access at very early ages have large, long-term effects on achievement, and that the integration of hospitals during the 1960's affected the test performance of black teenagers in the 1980's. The AFQT percentile scores are normed relative to the nationally representative sample called the Profile of American Youth from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79). The NLSY sample was used to norm the AFQT using the sample of 18-23 year olds tested in 1979. A well-documented misnorming of the AFQT for the period between 1976 and 1980 led the military to inadvertently admit many more low-scoring applicants than it intended during this period. All years of our data are normed relative to the same NLSY79 cohort, even those from the misnormed period. The AFQT was subsequently renormed based on the 1997 NLSY, but this occurred after all of the cohorts in our study took the test. Consistent with the re-norming of the AFQT, application rates for the less-educated fall sharply in 1982, though overall military application remains relatively stable.
Bibliography Citation
Chay, Kenneth Y., Jonathan Guryan and Bhashkar Mazumder. "Birth Cohort and the Black-White Achievement Gap: The Roles of Access and Health Soon After Birth." NBER Working Paper 15078, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2009.
47. Chou, Shin-Yi
Rashad, Inas
Grossman, Michael
Fast-Food Restaurant Advertising on Television and Its Influence on Childhood Obesity
NBER Working Paper No. 11879, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11879.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Child Health; Nutritional Status/Nutrition/Consumption Behaviors; Obesity; Television Viewing; Weight

Childhood obesity around the world, and particularly in the United States, is an escalating problem that is especially detrimental as its effects carry on into adulthood. In this paper we employ the 1979 Child-Young Adult National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to estimate the effects of fast-food restaurant advertising on children and adolescents being overweight. The advertising measure used is the number of hours of spot television fast-food restaurant advertising messages seen per week. Our results indicate that a ban on these advertisements would reduce the number of overweight children ages 3-11 in a fixed population by 10 percent and would reduce the number of overweight adolescents ages 12-18 by 12 percent. The elimination of the tax deductibility of this type of advertising would produce smaller declines of between 3 and 5 percent in these outcomes but would impose lower costs on children and adults who consume fast food in moderation because positive information about restaurants that supply this type of food would not be banned completely from television.
Bibliography Citation
Chou, Shin-Yi, Inas Rashad and Michael Grossman. "Fast-Food Restaurant Advertising on Television and Its Influence on Childhood Obesity." NBER Working Paper No. 11879, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005.
48. Cole, Nancy
Currie, Janet
Reported Income in the NLSY: Consistency Checks and Methods for Cleaning the Data
NBER Technical Working Paper No. 160, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 1994.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/t0160
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI); Data Quality/Consistency; Employment, Youth; Family Income; Income; Poverty

The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth collects information about over 20 separate components of respondent income. These disaggregated income components provide many opportunities to verify the consistency of the data. This note outlines procedures we have used to identify and "clean" measurement error in the disaggregated income variables. After cleaning the income data at the disaggregated level, we reconstruct the measure of "family income" and re-evaluate poverty status. While people may not agree with all of our methods, we hope that they will be of some use to other researchers. A second purpose of this note is to highlight the value of the disaggregated data, since without it, it would be impossible to improve on the reported totals. Finally, we hope that with the advent of computerized interviewing technology, checks on the internal consistency of the data of the kind that we propose may eventually be built into interviewing software, thereby improving the quality of the data collected. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/T0160
Bibliography Citation
Cole, Nancy and Janet Currie. "Reported Income in the NLSY: Consistency Checks and Methods for Cleaning the Data." NBER Technical Working Paper No. 160, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 1994.
49. Cook, Philip J.
Peters, Bethany Lynn
The Myth of the Drinker's Bonus
NBER Working Paper No. 11902, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11902.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Endogeneity; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Human Capital; Labor Market Demographics; Morbidity; Occupational Choice; Training, On-the-Job; Wages

Drinkers earn more than non-drinkers, even after controlling for human capital and local labor market conditions. Several mechanisms by which drinking could increase productivity have been proposed but are unconfirmed; the more obvious mechanisms predict the opposite, that drinking can impair productivity. In this paper we reproduce the positive association between drinking and earnings, using data for adults age 27-34 from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (1979). Since drinking is endogenous in this relationship, we then estimate a reduced-form equation, with alcohol prices (proxied by a new index of excise taxes) replacing the drinking variables. We find strong evidence that the prevalence of full-time work increases with alcohol prices -- suggesting that a reduction in drinking increases the labor supply. We also demonstrate some evidence of a positive association between alcohol prices and the earnings of full-time workers. We conclude that most likely the positive association between drinking and earnings is the result of the fact that ethanol is a normal commodity, the consumption of which increases with income, rather than an elixer that enhances productivity.
Bibliography Citation
Cook, Philip J. and Bethany Lynn Peters. "The Myth of the Drinker's Bonus." NBER Working Paper No. 11902, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005.
50. Cunha, Flavio
Heckman, James J.
Economics and Psychology of Inequality and Human Development
NBER Working Paper No. 14695, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2009.
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Achievement; Cognitive Development; Family Influences; Mothers, Education; Parental Influences; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Skill Formation

Recent research on the economics of human development deepens understanding of the origins of inequality and excellence. It draws on and contributes to personality psychology and the psychology of human development. Inequalities in family environments and investments in children are substantial. They causally affect the development of capabilities. Both cognitive and noncognitive capabilities determine success in life but to varying degrees for different outcomes. An empirically determined technology of capability formation reveals that capabilities are self-productive and cross-fertilizing and can be enhanced by investment. Investments in capabilities are relatively more productive at some stages of a child's life cycle than others. Optimal child investment strategies differ depending on target outcomes of interest and on the nature of adversity in a child's early years. For some configurations of early disadvantage and for some desired outcomes, it is efficient to invest relatively more in the later years of childhood than in the early years.
Bibliography Citation
Cunha, Flavio and James J. Heckman. "Economics and Psychology of Inequality and Human Development." NBER Working Paper No. 14695, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2009.
51. Currie, Janet
Cole, Nancy
Does Participation in Transfer Programs During Pregnancy Improve Birth Weight?
NBER Working Paper No. 3832, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 1991.
Also: Working Paper, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, August 1991.
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Birthweight; Child Health; Children, Well-Being; Maternal Employment; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes; Transfers, Public

A primary goal of transfer programs to the non-aged, non-disabled poor in the United States is to improve the well-being of children in poor families. Thus it is surprising that most of the considerable research which has been devoted to the study of transfer programs focuses on the incentive effects of the programs for parents rather than on the question of whether parental participation in such programs measurably benefits children. This paper begins to fill this gap in the literature by examining the relationship between a mother's participation during pregnancy in Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the Food Stamp Program, or housing assistance, and one of the least controversial measures of child welfare: the birth weight. The authors do not find any statistically significant relationship between a mother's participation in these programs during pregnancy and the birth weight of her child. However, it should be kept in mind that birth weight is only one me asure of child welfare and that these entitlement programs may well have positive impacts on the health and development of children once they are born.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Nancy Cole. "Does Participation in Transfer Programs During Pregnancy Improve Birth Weight?" NBER Working Paper No. 3832, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 1991.
52. Currie, Janet
Fallick, Bruce C.
A Note on the New Minimum Wage Research
NBER Working Paper No. 4348, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 1993.
Also: http://www.nber.org/cgi-bin/wpsearch.pl?action=bibliography&paper=W4348&year=93
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Employment, Youth; Minimum Wage; Wage Rates; Wages

Impact on employment of increases in the federal minimum wage; based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data, 1979-80. Bibliography, table(s).
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Bruce C. Fallick. "A Note on the New Minimum Wage Research." NBER Working Paper No. 4348, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 1993.
53. Currie, Janet
Gruber, Jonathan
Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansion of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women
NBER Working Paper No. 4644, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1994.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w4644
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Birth Outcomes; Birthweight; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Education; Family Income; Health Care; Health Reform; Infants; Medicaid/Medicare; Mortality; Poverty; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes; Welfare

A key question for health care reform in the U.S. is whether expanded health insurance eligibility will lead to improvements in health outcomes. We address this question in the context of dramatic expansions in the Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women that took place during the 1980s. We build a detailed simulation model of each state's Medicaid policy during the 1979-1990 period, and use this model to estimate 1) the effect of changes in the rules on the eligibility of pregnant women for Medicaid, and 2) the effect of Medicaid eligibility changes on birth outcomes in aggregate Vital Statistics data. We have three main findings. First, the expansions did dramatically increase the Medicaid eligibility of pregnant women, but did so at quite differential rates across the states. Second, the expansions lowered the incidence of infant mortality and low birthweight; we estimate that the 20 percentage point increase in eligibility among 15-44 year old women was associated with a decrease in infant mortality of 7%. Third, earlier, targeted changes in Medicaid eligibility, such as through relaxations of the family structure requirements from the AFDC program, had much larger effects on birth outcomes than broader expansions of eligibility to all women with somewhat higher income levels. We suggest that the source of this difference was the much lower takeup of Medicaid coverage by individuals who became eligible under the broader expansions. We find that the targeted expansions, which raised Medicaid expenditures by $1.7 million per infant life saved, were in line with conventional [...]

Now Published: Published: Journal of Political Economy 104,6 (December 1996): 1263-1296 [NLS Bibliography entry # 2699]

Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Jonathan Gruber. "Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansion of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women." NBER Working Paper No. 4644, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1994.
54. Currie, Janet
Gruber, Jonathan
Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansions of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women
NBER Working Paper No. 4644, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 1994.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W4644
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Birthweight; Family Structure; Health Reform; Income; Medicaid/Medicare; Modeling; Mortality; Poverty; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pre/post Natal Behavior; Pre/post Natal Health Care; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes

This is a revised edition of an ealier working paper, Los Angeles CA: UCLA, December 1993. A key question for health care reform in the U.S. is whether expanded health insurance eligibility will lead to improvements in health outcomes. This question is addressed in the context of dramatic expansions in the Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women that took place during the 1980s. A detailed simulation model of each state's Medicaid policy during the 1979-1990 period is built, and this model is used to estimate 1) the effect of changes in the rules on the eligibility of pregnant women for Medicaid, and 2) the effect of Medicaid eligibility changes on birth outcomes in aggregate *Vital Statistics* data. There are three main findings. First, the expansions did dramatically increase the Medicaid eligibility of pregnant women, but at quite differential rates across the states. Second, the expansions lowered the incidence of infant mortality and low birth weight. Third, changes in Medicaid eligibility, such as relaxations of family structure requirements from the AFDC program, had much larger effects on birth outcomes than broader expansions of eligibility to all women with somewhat higher income levels.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Jonathan Gruber. "Saving Babies: The Efficacy and Cost of Recent Expansions of Medicaid Eligibility for Pregnant Women." NBER Working Paper No. 4644, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 1994.
55. Currie, Janet
Hotz, V. Joseph
Accidents Will Happen? Unintentional Injury, Maternal Employment, and Child Care Policy
NBER Working Paper No. 8090, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2001.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W8090.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Accidents; Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Child Care; Child Health; Children, Well-Being; Injuries; Maternal Employment; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Modeling, Mixed Effects; Mortality; Racial Differences

In western countries, accidents are the leading cause of death and injury among children, far surpassing diseases as a health threat. We examine the effect of maternal employment and child care policy on rates of accidental injury using both micro data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and Vital Statistics records. We find that the effects of maternal employment on unintentional injuries to children vary by demographic group, with the effects being positive for blacks and negative for whites in models that control for child-specific fixed effects. Estimates from both individual-level NLSY and Vital Statistics data suggest that the effects of maternal employment may be mediated by child care regulations. Most notably, requiring training beyond high school for caregivers reduces the incidence of both fatal and non-fatal accidents. Other types of regulation have mixed effects on unintentional injuries, suggesting that child care regulations create winners and losers. In particular, while some children may benefit from safer environments, others that appear to be squeezed out of the more expensive regulated sector and are placed at higher risks of injury.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and V. Joseph Hotz. "Accidents Will Happen? Unintentional Injury, Maternal Employment, and Child Care Policy." NBER Working Paper No. 8090, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2001.
56. Currie, Janet
Nixon, Lucia A.
Cole, Nancy
Restrictions on Medicaid Funding of Abortion: Effects on Pregnancy Resolutions and Birthweight
NBER Working Paper No. 4432, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1993.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W4432
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Abortion; Birthweight; Economics, Demographic; Endogeneity; Health Care; Health Reform; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Morbidity; Mortality; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes

Previous research suggests that restricting the availability of abortion reduces average birth weight by increasing the number of unhealthy fetuses that are carried to term. This paper uses NLSY data to ask whether restrictions on Medicaid funding of abortion have this effect. An attempt is made to account for the potential endogeneity of abortion laws by comparing the effects of liberal statues to those of court injunctions ordering states to fund abortions. Results suggest that restrictions do increase the probability that African-American and low-income women carry a pregnancy to term, but that they have no direct effect on birth weight. In comparison, community-level measures of the availability of abortion, contraception, and prenatal care do affect birth weight among African-Americans but not among whites.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet, Lucia A. Nixon and Nancy Cole. "Restrictions on Medicaid Funding of Abortion: Effects on Pregnancy Resolutions and Birthweight." NBER Working Paper No. 4432, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1993.
57. Currie, Janet
Reagan, Patricia Benton
Distance to Hospitals and Children's Access to Care: Is Being Closer Better, and for Whom?
NBER Working Paper No. 6836, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 1998.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6836
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Children, Health Care; Health Care; Hispanics; Insurance, Health; Racial Differences; Rural/Urban Differences

Distance to hospital may affect the utilization of primary preventative care if children rely on hospitals for such routine care. We explore this question using matched data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth's Child-Mother file and the American Hospital Association's 1990 Hospital Survey. Our measure of preventative care is whether or not a child has received a regular checkup in the past year. We find that distance to hospital has significant effects on the utilization of preventative care among central-city black children. For these children, each additional mile from the hospital is associated with a 3 percent decline in the probability of having had a checkup (from a mean baseline of 74 percent). This effect can be compared to the 3 percent increase in the probability of having a checkup which is associated with having private health insurance coverage. The size of this effect is similar for both the privately insured and those with Medicaid coverage, suggesting that even black urban children with private health insurance may have difficulty obtaining access to preventative care. In contrast, we find little evidence of a negative distance effect among white or Hispanic central-city children, suburban children, or rural children. Full text available on line.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Patricia Benton Reagan. "Distance to Hospitals and Children's Access to Care: Is Being Closer Better, and for Whom?" NBER Working Paper No. 6836, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 1998.
58. Currie, Janet
Stabile, Mark
Child Mental Health and Human Capital Accumulation: The Case of ADHD
NBER Working Paper No. 10435, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2004.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w10435.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Attention/Attention Deficit; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Canada, Canadian; Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY); Child Health; Cross-national Analysis; Family Income; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); School Progress

We examine U.S. and Canadian children with symptoms of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), the most common child mental health problem. ADHD increases the probability of delinquency and grade repetition, reduces future reading and mathematics scores, and increases the probability of special education. The estimated effects are remarkably similar in the two countries, and are robust to many specification changes.Moreover, even moderate symptoms have large negative effects relative to the effects of poor physical health.

The probability of treatment increases with income in the U.S., but not in Canada. However, in models of outcomes, interactions between income and ADHD scores are statistically insignificant in the U.S. (except for delinquency), while in Canada these interactions indicate that higher income is protective. The U.S. results are consistent with a growing psychological literature which suggests that conventional treatments for ADHD improve behavior, but have inconsistent effects on cognitive performance.

We use data from the Canadian National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) and from the American NLSY. The NLSCY is a national longitudinal data set which surveyed children ages 0-11 and their families beginning in 1994.8 Follow up surveys were conducted in 1996 and 1998. The initial sample consisted of approximately 22,831 children in 1994. We restrict our sample to those children who were between the ages of 4 and 11 in 1994, and who were surveyed in both 1994 and 1998. We keep only those children who were given the hyperactivity screener in 1994 which yields a sample of just under 4000 children. For our analyses that use math and reading test scores we have a smaller sample (not all children's test scores were recorded and we discuss this further below) of approximately 2200. We use the NLSCY data to ask how hyperactivity in 1994 affects treatment in 1994 and outcomes in 1998.

Also: The NBER Working Paper No. 10435 was updated in July 2004: http://www.econ.ucla.edu/people/papers/currie/more/mental.pdf

Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Mark Stabile. "Child Mental Health and Human Capital Accumulation: The Case of ADHD." NBER Working Paper No. 10435, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2004.
59. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Does Head Start Help Hispanic Children?
NBER Working Paper No. 5805, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1996.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5805
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Association of School Psychologists
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Child Health; Cognitive Development; Ethnic Differences; Head Start; Hispanic Youth; Hispanics; Human Capital; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Siblings

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Poor educational attainment is a persistent problem among Latino children, relative to nor Latinos. This paper examines the effects of participation in the Head Start program on Latinos. We find that large and significant benefits accrue to Head Start children when we compare them siblings who did not participate in the program. On average, Head Start closes at least 1/4 of the gap in test scores between Latino children and non-Hispanic white children, and 2/3 of the gap in the probability of grade repetition. Latinos are not a homogenous group and we find that the benefits of Head Start are not evenly distributed across sub-groups. Relative to siblings who attend preshool, the gains from Head Start are greatest along children of Mexican-origin and children native-born mothers, especially those whose mothers have more human capital. In contrast, Latino children whose mothers are foreign-born and Puerto Rican children appear to reap little benefit from attending Heat Start, relative to their siblings.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Does Head Start Help Hispanic Children?" NBER Working Paper No. 5805, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1996.
60. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Does Head Start Make a Difference?
NBER Working Paper w4406, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 1993.
Also: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1645724
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Child Health; Family Background and Culture; Head Start; Hispanics; Mothers; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Siblings; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

Using samples of child-siblings and mother-siblings from the National Longitudinal Survey's Child-Mother file, we find positive effects of participation in Head Start on the test scores of white and Hispanic children. These effects persist for children 8 years and older, and are detectable in the AFQT scores of the white mothers in our sample. We also find that white and Hispanic children are less likely to have repeated a grade if they attended Head Start. African-American and white children who attend Head Start receive measles shots at an earlier age and experience gains in height relative to their siblings who did not attend, and we find weak evidence that white mothers who attended Head Start as children also experienced gains in height relative to their siblings. Hence we find positive and lasting effects of participation in Head Start on a broad range of outcomes.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Does Head Start Make a Difference?" NBER Working Paper w4406, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 1993.
61. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Medicaid and Medical Care for Children
NBER Working Paper No. 4284, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1992.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W4284
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Child Health; Children, Health Care; Medicaid/Medicare; Racial Differences; Siblings; Welfare

Data from the National Longitudinal Surveys are used to compare the medical care received by children covered by Medicaid with that of other similar children. The longitudinal dimension of the data is exploited as we examine difference between siblings and also reputed observations on the same child. We find that Medicaid coverage is associated with a higher probability of both black and white children receiving routine checkups but with increases in the number of doctor visits for illness only among white children. This racial disparity in the number of visits may be linked to the fact that black children with Medicaid coverage are less likely to see a private physician than other children.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Medicaid and Medical Care for Children." NBER Working Paper No. 4284, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1992.
62. Currie, Janet
Thomas, Duncan
Race, Children's Cognitive Achievement and the Bell Curve
NBER Working Paper No. 5240, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1995.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W5240/
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Grade Retention/Repeat Grade; Intelligence; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT)

In The Bell Curve, Herrnstein and Murray demonstrate that a mother's score on the Armed Forces Qualification Test is a powerful predictor of her child's score on a cognitive achievement test. We replicate this finding. However, even after controlling for maternal scores, there are significant gaps in the scores of black and white children which suggests that maternal scores are not all that matter. In fact, both maternal education and income are important determinants of child test scores, conditional on maternal AFQT. We argue that racial gaps in test scores matter because even within families, children with higher scores are less likely to repeat grades. However, conditional on both child test scores and maternal AFQT, maternal education and income also affect a child's probability of grade repetition. We conclude that, even if one accepts test scores as valid measures of 'nature', both nature and nurture matter. Finally, we show that the effects on child test scores of maternal test scores, education, and income differ dramatically depending on the nature of the test, the age of the child, and race. The results suggest that understanding the relationships between different aspects of maternal achievement and child outcomes may help us unravel the complex process through which poverty is transmitted across generations.
Bibliography Citation
Currie, Janet and Duncan Thomas. "Race, Children's Cognitive Achievement and the Bell Curve." NBER Working Paper No. 5240, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1995.
63. Dahl, Gordon B.
Lochner, Lance John
The Impact of Family Income on Child Achievement
NBER Working Paper No. 11279, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2005.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11279.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Achievement; Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC); Family Income; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading)

Understanding the consequences of growing up poor for a child's well-being is an important research question, but one that is difficult to answer due to the potential endogeneity of family income. Past estimates of the effect of family income on child development have often been plagued by omitted variable bias and measurement error. In this paper, we use a fixed effect instrumental variables strategy to estimate the causal effect of income on children's math and reading achievement. Our primary source of identification comes from the large, non-linear changes in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) over the last two decades. The largest of these changes increased family income by as much as 20%, or approximately $2,100. Using a panel of over 6,000 children matched to their mothers from National Longitudinal Survey of Youth datasets allows us to address problems associated with unobserved heterogeneity and endogenous transitory income shocks as well as measurement error in income. Our baseline estimates imply that a $1,000 increase in income raises math test scores by 2.1% and reading test scores by 3.6% of a standard deviation. The results are even stronger when looking at children from disadvantaged families who are affected most by the large changes in the EITC, and are robust to a variety of alternative specifications.
Bibliography Citation
Dahl, Gordon B. and Lance John Lochner. "The Impact of Family Income on Child Achievement." NBER Working Paper No. 11279, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2005.
64. Dahl, Gordon B.
Lochner, Lance John
The Impact of Family Income on Child Achievement: Evidence from the Earned Income Tax Credit
NBER Working Paper No. 14599, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2008.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14599.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Children, Academic Development; Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC); Family Income; Family Structure; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Taxes; Variables, Instrumental

A brief narrative description of the journal article, document, or resource. Past estimates of the effect of family income on child development have often been plagued by endogeneity and measurement error. In this paper, we use two simulated instrumental variables strategies to estimate the causal effect of income on children's math and reading achievement. Our identification derives from the large, non-linear changes in the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) over the last two decades. The largest of these changes increased family income by as much as 20%, or approximately $2,100. Using a panel of almost 5,000 children matched to their mothers from National Longitudinal Survey of Youth datasets allows us to address problems associated with unobserved heterogeneity, endogenous transitory income shocks, and measurement error in income. Our baseline estimates imply that a $1,000 increase in income raises combined math and reading test scores by 6% of a standard deviation in the short run. The gains are larger for children from disadvantaged families and are robust to a variety of alternative specifications. We find little evidence of long-run income effects, with most of the effects disappearing after one year.
Bibliography Citation
Dahl, Gordon B. and Lance John Lochner. "The Impact of Family Income on Child Achievement: Evidence from the Earned Income Tax Credit." NBER Working Paper No. 14599, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2008.
65. Dellavigna, Stefano
Paserman, Marco Daniele
Job Search and Impatience
NBER Working Paper No. 10837, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2004.
Also: http://www.nber.org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/papers/w10837.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Exits; Job Search; Unemployment; Unemployment Duration; Wages, Reservation

How does impatience affect job search? More impatient workers search less intensively and set a lower reservation wage. The effect on the exit rate from unemployment is unclear. In this paper we show that, if agents have exponential time preferences, the reservation wage effect dominates for sufficiently patient individuals, so increases in impatience lead to higher exit rates. The opposite is true for agents with hyperbolic time preferences: more impatient workers search less and exit unemployment later. Using two large longitudinal data sets, we find that various measures of impatience are negatively correlated with search effort and the exit rate from unemployment, and are orthogonal to reservation wages. Overall, impatience has a large effect on job search outcomes in the direction predicted by the hyperbolic discounting model.
Bibliography Citation
Dellavigna, Stefano and Marco Daniele Paserman. "Job Search and Impatience." NBER Working Paper No. 10837, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2004.
66. Dunn, Thomas Albert
Holtz-Eakin, Douglas
Financial Capital, Human Capital, and the Transition to Self-Employment: Evidence from Intergenerational Links
NBER Working Paper No. 5622, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 1996.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5622
Cohort(s): Mature Women, Older Men, Young Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Capital Sector; Gender Differences; Human Capital; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Self-Employed Workers

The environment for business creation is central to economic policy, as entrepreneurs are believed to be forces of innovation, employment and economic dynamism. We use data from the National Longitudinal Surveys (NLS) to investigate the relative importance of financial and human capital exploiting the variation provided by intergenerational links. Specifically, we estimate the impacts of parental wealth and human capital on the probability that an individual will make the transition from a wage and salary job to self-employment. We find that young men's own financial assets exert a statistically significant, but quantitatively modest effect on the transition to self-employment. In contrast, the capital of parents exerts a large influence. Parents' strongest effect runs not through financial means, but rather through human capital, i.e., the intergenerational correlation in self-employment. This link is even stronger along gender lines. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5622
Bibliography Citation
Dunn, Thomas Albert and Douglas Holtz-Eakin. "Financial Capital, Human Capital, and the Transition to Self-Employment: Evidence from Intergenerational Links." NBER Working Paper No. 5622, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 1996.
67. Dynarski, Susan M.
Does Aid Matter? Measuring the Effect of Student Aid on College Attendance and Completion
NBER Working Paper No. 7422, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 1999.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7422
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): College Enrollment; College Graduates; Financial Assistance; Social Security

Does student aid increase college attendance or simply subsidize costs for infra-marginal students? Settling the question empirically is a challenge, because aid is correlated with many characteristics that influence educational investment decisions. A shift in financial aid policy that affects some youth but not others can provide an identifying source of variation in aid. In 1982, Congress eliminated the Social Security Student Benefit Program, which at its peak provided grants totaling $3.7 billion a year to one out of ten college students. Using the death of a parent as a proxy for Social Security beneficiary status, I find that offering $1,000 ($1998) of grant aid increases educational attainment by about 0.16 years and the probability of attending college by four percentage points. The elasticities of attendance and completed years of college with respect to schooling costs are 0.7 to 0.8. The evidence suggests that aid has a "threshold effect": a student who has crossed the hurdle of college entry with the assistance of aid is more likely to continue schooling later in life than one who has never attempted college. This is consistent with a model in which there are fixed costs of college entry. Finally, a cost-benefit analysis indicates that the aid program examined by this paper was a cost-effective use of government resources.
Bibliography Citation
Dynarski, Susan M. "Does Aid Matter? Measuring the Effect of Student Aid on College Attendance and Completion." NBER Working Paper No. 7422, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 1999.
68. Engelhardt, Gary V.
Housing Markets and Labor Mobility
Working Paper, Department of Economics, Dartmouth College and NBER, October 1998
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Home Ownership; Mobility, Labor Market

An important theme in corporate finance and macroeconomics is the effect of collateral constraints on asset price fluctuations. Temporary economic shocks that depress the value of assets used both for productive purposes and collateral can reduce the net worth of firms, reduce the asset demand for constrained firms, and result in lower asset prices, which then further reduces net worth and feeds back into prices. This link between asset prices and collateral has been examined recently by Kiyotaki and Moore (1997), Kashyap Scharfstein, and Weil (1990), and Shleifer and Vishny (1992), among others. Stein (1995) has examined this behavior in housing markets. Because most home purchases are mortgage-financed, housing is a relatively highly-leveraged asset. Large price fluctuations can affect equity and the demand for housing greatly. In particular, an adverse shock to prices decreases equity, results in collateral-constrained households that cannot move, which decreases demand, and results in further price declines that further constrain household mobility. Interestingly, this model is able to explain housing market behavior that cannot be explained by the standard asset-market model of Poterba (1984), e.g., rapid prices swings, the strong positive correlation of prices and trading volume over the housing cycle, and the observed reluctance of prospective sellers to reduce asking prices in down markets.
Bibliography Citation
Engelhardt, Gary V. "Housing Markets and Labor Mobility." Working Paper, Department of Economics, Dartmouth College and NBER, October 1998.
69. Farber, Henry S.
Gibbons, Robert
Learning and Wage Dynamics
NBER Working Paper No. 3764, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1991.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W3764
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Educational Returns; Job Training; Learning Hypothesis; Wage Dynamics

The authors develop a dynamic model of learning and wage determination: education may convey initial information about ability, but subsequent observations of performance are also informative. Although the role of schooling declines as performance observations accumulate, its effect on wages is independent of labor market experience. Evidence from the NLSY is generally consistent with all the predictors of the model. The authors conclude that a blend of the learning model with an on-the-job training model is more plausible than either model alone.
Bibliography Citation
Farber, Henry S. and Robert Gibbons. "Learning and Wage Dynamics." NBER Working Paper No. 3764, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1991.
70. Finlay, Keith
Effect of Employer Access to Criminal History Data on the Labor Market Outcomes of Ex-Offenders and Non-Offenders
Presented: Cambridge, MA, NBER Labor Market Intermediation Conference, May 17-18, 2007
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Crime; Discrimination, Employer; Employment; Incarceration/Jail; Job Search; Labor Market Outcomes; Self-Reporting; Wage Determination; Wage Levels

This paper examines how employer access to criminal history data influences the labor market outcomes of ex-offenders and non-offenders using detailed self-reported criminal history data and labor market variables from the 1997 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and a dataset I collected on state policies regarding criminal history records. Specifically, are the labor market effects of incarceration stronger and longer lasting in states that provide public access to criminal history records? Do non-offenders who are otherwise similar to exoffenders have improved labor market outcomes when employers can verify their records of non-offense? I test if these effects vary by race in the context of possible statistical discrimination by employers. I find evidence that employment effects of incarceration are more negative and last longer in states that provide criminal history records over the Internet than in states that do not. There is some evidence that ex-offenders have lower wages in those states with open records policies.
Bibliography Citation
Finlay, Keith. "Effect of Employer Access to Criminal History Data on the Labor Market Outcomes of Ex-Offenders and Non-Offenders." Presented: Cambridge, MA, NBER Labor Market Intermediation Conference, May 17-18, 2007.
71. Finlay, Keith
Effect of Employer Access to Criminal History Data on the Labor Market Outcomes of Ex-Offenders and Non-Offenders
NBER Working Papers No. 13935, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2008.
Also: hhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w13935.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Discrimination; Employment; Human Capital; Incarceration/Jail; Job Search; Labor Market Outcomes; Self-Reporting; Statistics; Wage Determination; Wage Levels

Since 1997, states have begun to make criminal history records publicly available over the Internet. This paper exploits this previously unexamined variation to identify the effect of expanded employer access to criminal history data on the labor market outcomes of ex-offenders and non-offenders. Employers express a strong aversion to hiring ex-offenders, but there is likely asymmetric information about criminal records. Wider availability of criminal history records should adversely affect the labor market outcomes of ex-offenders. A model of statistical discrimination also predicts that non-offenders from groups with high rates of criminal offense should have improved labor market outcomes when criminal history records become more accessible. This paper tests these hypotheses with criminal and labor market histories from the 1997 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. I find evidence that labor market outcomes are worse for ex-offenders once state criminal history records become available over the Internet, and somewhat weaker evidence that outcomes are better for non-offenders from highly offending groups. Results for ex-offenders demonstrate the presence of imperfect information about criminal records by employers. The non-offender results are consistent with statistical discrimination by employers. Estimates may be confounded by a short sample period and ongoing human capital investments, but the research design provides a unique setting for testing theories of statistical discrimination.
Bibliography Citation
Finlay, Keith. "Effect of Employer Access to Criminal History Data on the Labor Market Outcomes of Ex-Offenders and Non-Offenders." NBER Working Papers No. 13935, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2008.
72. Frank, Richard G.
Meara, Ellen
The Effect of Maternal Depression and Substance Abuse on Child Human Capital Development
NBER Working Paper No. 15314, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 2009
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Alcohol Use; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); CESD (Depression Scale); Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS); Children, Academic Development; Children, Behavioral Development; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Depression (see also CESD); Drug Use; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Modeling, Fixed Effects; Mothers, Behavior; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Propensity Scores; Siblings

Also presented: Boston, MA, Health Economics Seminar, March 2009, and at the University of Lausanne, 2009.

Recent models of human capital formation represent a synthesis of the human capital approach and a life cycle view of human development that is grounded in neuroscience (Heckman 2007). This model of human development, the stability of the home and parental mental health can have notable impacts on skill development in children that may affect the stock of human capital in adults (Knudsen, Heckman et al. 2006; Heckman 2007). We study effects of maternal depression and substance abuse on children born to mothers in the initial cohort of the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), a national household survey of high school students aged 14-22 in 1979. We follow 1587 children aged 1-5 in 1987, observing them throughout childhood and into high school. We employ a variety of methods to identify the effect of maternal depression and substance abuse on child behavioral, cognitive, and educational related outcomes. We find no evidence that maternal symptoms of depression affect contemporaneous cognitive scores in children. However, maternal depression symptoms have a moderately large effect on child behavioral problems. These findings suggest that the social benefits of effective behavioral health interventions may be understated. Based on evidence linking early life outcomes to later well-being, efforts to prevent and/or treat mental and addictive disorders in mothers and other women of childbearing age have the potential to improve outcomes of their children not only early in life, but throughout the life cycle.

Bibliography Citation
Frank, Richard G. and Ellen Meara. "The Effect of Maternal Depression and Substance Abuse on Child Human Capital Development." NBER Working Paper No. 15314, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 2009.
73. Freeman, Richard B.
Black Economic Progress after 1964: Who Has Gained and Why?
NBER Working Paper No. 282, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 1978.
Also: http://www.nber.org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/papers/w0282
Cohort(s): Older Men, Young Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Black Family; Black Studies; Economics of Minorities; Family Background and Culture; Socioeconomic Status (SES)

[Revised November 1978]
This study used three types of evidence to analyze the nature and cause of black economic progress in post-World War II years: aggregate evidence on the timing and incidence among skill groups of changes in the relative earnings or occupational position of blacks; cross-sectional evidence on the family background determinants of the socioeconomic achievement of blacks; and information from company personnel offices regarding personnel policies toward black (and other) workers affected by civil rights legislation.
Bibliography Citation
Freeman, Richard B. "Black Economic Progress after 1964: Who Has Gained and Why?" NBER Working Paper No. 282, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 1978.
74. Freeman, Richard B.
Crime and the Employment of Disadvantaged Youths
NBER Working Paper No. 3875, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1991.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w3875.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Crime; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Disadvantaged, Economically; Educational Attainment; High School Dropouts; Incarceration/Jail; Punishment, Criminal; Racial Differences; Unemployment, Youth

This paper examines the magnitude of criminal activity among disadvantaged youths in the 1980s. It shows that a large proportion of youths who dropped out of high school, particularly black school dropouts, developed criminal records in the decade; and that those who were incarcerated in 1980 or earlier were much less likely to hold jobs than other youths over the entire decade. The magnitudes of incarceration, probation, and parole among black dropouts, in particular, suggest that crime has become an intrinsic part of the youth unemployment and poverty problem, rather than deviant behavior on the margin. Limited evidence on the returns to crime suggest that with the decline in earnings and employment for less educated young men, crime offers an increasingly attractive alternative.
Bibliography Citation
Freeman, Richard B. "Crime and the Employment of Disadvantaged Youths." NBER Working Paper No. 3875, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1991.
75. Freeman, Richard B.
Employment and Earnings of Disadvantaged Young Men in a Labor Shortage Economy
NBER Working Paper No. 3444, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1990.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W3444
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Earnings; Education; Employment, Youth; Geographical Variation; Local Labor Market; Racial Differences; Residence; Unemployment, Youth

This study contrasts the economic position of youths across local labor markets that differ in their rates of unemployment using the annual merged files of the Current Population Survey and the NLSY. The paper finds: (1) Local labor market shortages raise the employment-population rate and reduce the unemployment rate of disadvantaged youths by substantial amounts. (2) Shortages also raise the hourly earnings of disadvantaged youths. In the 1980s, the earnings gains for youths in tight labor markets offset the deterioration in the real and relative earnings of the less skilled that marked this decade. (3) Youths in labor shortage areas had greater increases in earnings as they aged than youths in other areas, implying that improved labor market conditions raise the longitudinal earnings profiles as well as the starting prospects of youths. These findings show that despite the social pathologies that plague disadvantaged youths, particularly less educated black youths, and the 1980s twist in the American labor market against the less skilled, tight labor markets still operated to substantially improve their economic position.
Bibliography Citation
Freeman, Richard B. "Employment and Earnings of Disadvantaged Young Men in a Labor Shortage Economy." NBER Working Paper No. 3444, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1990.
76. Freeman, Richard B.
The Effect of Unionism on Worker Attachment to Firms
NBER Working Paper No. 400, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1979.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0400
Cohort(s): Older Men, Young Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Exits; Job Tenure; Quits; Unions

This study examines these important questions using newly available data files on individuals, which contain information on their job tenure and union status, among other things. Section one examines the theoretical reasons for expecting unionism to increase job tenure. Section two develops the "waiting time" statistics and econometrics needed to analyze tenure and its converse, separations. Section three describes the data sets under study and presents the basic econometric analysis of the effect of unionism on tenure and separations. Section four analyzes the routes by which unionism influences the variables. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of the implications of the analysis for understanding the economic effects of unionism.
Bibliography Citation
Freeman, Richard B. "The Effect of Unionism on Worker Attachment to Firms." NBER Working Paper No. 400, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1979.
77. Freeman, Richard B.
The Exit-Voice Tradeoff in the Labor Market: Unionism, Job Tenure, Quits
NBER Working Paper No. W0242, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 1980.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w0242.pdf
Cohort(s): Older Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Exits; Growth Curves; Job Tenure; Quits; Unions

This paper examines the effect of trade unionism on the exit behavior of workers in the context of Hirschman`s exit-voice dichotomy. Unionism is expected to reduce quits and permanent separations and raise job tenure by providing a "voice" alternative to exit when workers are dissatisfied with conditions. Empirical evidence supports this contention, showing significantly lower exit for unionists in several large data tapes. It is argued that the grievance system plays a major role in the reduction in exit and that the reduction lowers cost and raises productivity.
Bibliography Citation
Freeman, Richard B. "The Exit-Voice Tradeoff in the Labor Market: Unionism, Job Tenure, Quits." NBER Working Paper No. W0242, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 1980.
78. Freeman, Richard B.
Medoff, James L.
Two Faces of Unionism
NBER Working Paper No. 364, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 1979.
Also: http://www.nber.org.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/papers/w0364
Cohort(s): Older Men, Young Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Unions; Wage Growth

Our research demonstrates that the view of unions as organizations whose chief function is to raise wages is seriously misleading. For in addition to raising wages, unions have significant non-wage effects which influence diverse aspects of modern industrial life. By providing workers with a voice both at the workplace and in the political arena, unions can and do affect positively the functioning of the economic and social systems. Although our research on the non-wage effects of trade unions is by no means complete and some results will surely change as more evidence becomes available, enough work has been done to yield the broad outlines of a new view of unionism.
Bibliography Citation
Freeman, Richard B. and James L. Medoff. "Two Faces of Unionism." NBER Working Paper No. 364, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 1979.
79. Freeman, Richard B.
Medoff, James L.
Why Does the Rate of Youth Labor Force Activity Differ Across Surveys?
Presented: Arlie House, VA, Conference on Youth Joblessness and Employment, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1979
Cohort(s): Young Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Longitudinal Surveys; NLS of H.S. Class of 1972; Research Methodology; Unemployment

One prerequisite for analysis of the economic problem of youth is a set of sound estimates of the employment and labor force status of the young. Existing estimates of the extent of labor market involvement and the extent of work activity of the young based on the monthly Current Population Survey and from special longitudinal surveys of the young give strikingly different pictures of the labor market for young men. The purpose of this study is to answer these questions by providing a detailed quantitative analysis of the divergences between the rates of labor force activity for male youths indicated by these surveys.
Bibliography Citation
Freeman, Richard B. and James L. Medoff. "Why Does the Rate of Youth Labor Force Activity Differ Across Surveys?" Presented: Arlie House, VA, Conference on Youth Joblessness and Employment, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1979.
80. Gibbons, Robert
Katz, Lawrence F.
Lemieux, Thomas
Parent, Daniel
Comparative Advantage, Learning, and Sectoral Wage Determination
NBER Working Paper No. 8889, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2002.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w8889
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Endogeneity; Industrial Sector; Occupations; Skills; Wage Determination; Wage Differentials; Wages

We develop a model in which a worker
Bibliography Citation
Gibbons, Robert, Lawrence F. Katz, Thomas Lemieux and Daniel Parent. "Comparative Advantage, Learning, and Sectoral Wage Determination." NBER Working Paper No. 8889, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2002.
81. Gilleskie, Donna B.
Lutz, Byron F.
The Impact of Employer-Provided Health Insurance on Dynamic Employment Transitions
NBER Working Paper No. 7307, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1999.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W7307
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Benefits, Insurance; Health Care; Heterogeneity; Marital Status; Mobility, Job; Mobility, Labor Market

We estimate the impact of employer-provided health insurance (EPHI) on the job mobility of males over time using a dynamic empirical model that accounts for unobserved heterogeneity. Previous studies of job-lock reach different conclusions about possible distortions in labor mobility stemming from an employment-based health insurance system: a few authors find no evidence of job-lock, while most find reductions in the mobility of insured workers of between 20 and 40%. We use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth which describes the health insurance an individual holds, as well as whether he is offered insurance by his employer. This additional information allows us to model the latent individual characteristics that are correlated with the offer of EPHI, the acceptance of EPHI, and employment transitions. Our results provide an estimate of job-lock unbiased through correlation with positive job characteristics and individual specific turnover propensity. We find no evidence of job-lock among married males, and produce small estimates of job-lock among unmarried males of between 10 and 15%.
Bibliography Citation
Gilleskie, Donna B. and Byron F. Lutz. "The Impact of Employer-Provided Health Insurance on Dynamic Employment Transitions." NBER Working Paper No. 7307, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1999.
82. Glaeser, Edward L.
Mare, David C.
Cities and Skills
NBER Working Paper No. 4728, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 1994.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W4728
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Modeling, Fixed Effects; Rural/Urban Differences; Rural/Urban Migration; Transfers, Skill; Variables, Instrumental; Wage Dynamics; Wage Growth; Wage Theory

This paper examines the productivity (and wage) gains from locating in dense, urban environments. We distinguish between three potential explanations of why firms are willing to pay urban workers more: (I) the urban wage premium is spurious and is the result of omitted ability measures, (2) the urban wage premium works because cities enhance productivity and (3) the urban wage premium is the result of faster skill accumulation in cities. Using a combination of standard regressions, individual fixed effects estimation (using migrants) and instrumental variables methods, we find that the urban wage premium does not represent omitted ability bias and it is only in part a level effect to productivity. The bulk of the urban wage premium accrues over time as a result of greater skill accumulation in cities.
Bibliography Citation
Glaeser, Edward L. and David C. Mare. "Cities and Skills." NBER Working Paper No. 4728, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 1994.
83. Glaeser, Edward L.
Sacerdote, Bruce
Why is There More Crime in Cities?
NBER Working Paper No. 5430, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1996.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5430
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Family Structure; Illegal Activities; Urbanization/Urban Living

Effect of higher pecuniary benefits, lower arrest probabilities, lower probability of recognition, and characteristics that reflect tastes, social influences, and family structure; based on victimization data; US. Based on results of the National Crime Victimization Survey, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, and the Uniform Crime Reports. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5430
Bibliography Citation
Glaeser, Edward L. and Bruce Sacerdote. "Why is There More Crime in Cities?" NBER Working Paper No. 5430, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1996.
84. Glied, Sherry A.
Prabhu, Ashwin
Edelman, Norman H.
The Cost of Primary Care Doctors
NBER Working Paper 14568, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2008.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14568.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB); College Graduates; High School Transcripts; Human Capital; Human Capital Theory; Labor Force Participation; Socioeconomic Background; Socioeconomic Status (SES); Training, Occupational

This study uses a human capital model to estimate the societal cost of producing a physician service. Physician human capital consists of the underlying human capital (productivity) of those who become physicians and the job-specific investments (physician training) added to this underlying capital. The value of physicians' underlying human capital is estimated by forecasting an age-earnings profile for doctors based on the characteristics in youth of NLSY cohort participants who subsequently became doctors. Published estimates are used to measure the total cost (wherever paid) of investments in physician training. These data are combined to compute the societal cost per primary care physician visit. The estimated societal cost per primary care physician visit is much higher than the average co-payment per primary care service and generally higher than the current Medicare compensation rate per service unit. The private return to primary care physician training is relatively low, in the range of 7-9%. At current levels of supply, the marginal social costs of primary care visits appear to be equal to or greater than marginal social benefits.

We conduct these analyses using the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79). The NLSY79 is a nationally representative survey of 12,686 men and women, which contains extensive information about the characteristics of sampled youth in their late teens (ages 14-22). The survey tracked these youth annually through 1994 and biennially since then. The NLSY79 collects an extensive array of information, including family socioeconomic characteristics, respondent background, occupational information, and annual income. The study also contains information about respondent aptitudes and achievements measured before they made choices about future occupations. The aptitude and achievement measures we use are the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) and High School GPA. The AFQT is a measure of trainability and is a majo r criterion for armed forces enlistment. The AFQT score is derived from select sections of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB), using a methodology developed by the U.S. Department of Defense. Of the entire sample, a total of 11, 914 youths (94%) completed the AFQT test. We compute high school GPAs from data gathered during a High School Transcript Survey conducted as part of the NLSY79 during 1980-1983. Transcript information was collected for respondents who were 17 years of age or older (at the time of the survey) and who had finished or were expected to finish high school in the US. Credits and final grades were collected for up to 64 courses, across all 4 years of high school. We used this information to compute a high school GPA. Of the NLSY79 sample, 8,778 (70%) of respondents provided complete transcript information. We compare future physicians to other college completers (since both physicians and non-physicians make comparable investments in college-level education). We also limit the sample to men who work full time (35 hours a week or more), since we will use data on physicians who are full time labor force participants.

Bibliography Citation
Glied, Sherry A., Ashwin Prabhu and Norman H. Edelman. "The Cost of Primary Care Doctors." NBER Working Paper 14568, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2008.
85. Goldfarb, Robert S.
Leonard, Thomas C.
Markowitz, Sara
Suranovic, Steven
Can a Rational Choice Framework Make Sense of Anorexia Nervosa?
NBER Working Paper 14838, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2009.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14838.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Behavioral Problems; Body Mass Index (BMI); Cigarette Use (see Smoking); Health Factors; Health, Mental/Psychological; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Height; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Parental Influences; Parenting Skills/Styles; Risk-Taking; Weight

Can a rational choice modeling framework help broaden our understanding of anorexia nervosa? This question is interesting because anorexia nervosa is a serious health concern, and because of the following issue: could a rational choice approach shed useful light on a condition which appears to involve "choosing" to be ill? We present a model of weight choice and dieting applicable to anorexia nervosa, and the sometimes-associated purging behavior. We also present empirical evidence about factors possibly contributing to anorexia nervosa. We offer this analysis as a consciousness-raising way of thinking about the condition.
Bibliography Citation
Goldfarb, Robert S., Thomas C. Leonard, Sara Markowitz and Steven Suranovic. "Can a Rational Choice Framework Make Sense of Anorexia Nervosa?." NBER Working Paper 14838, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2009.
86. Goldin, Claudia
Career And Family: College Women Look To The Past
NBER Working Paper No. 5188, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 1995.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5188
Cohort(s): Young Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Career Patterns; Demography; Family Studies; Fertility; Labor Force Participation

Recent college graduate women express frustration regarding the obstacles they will face in combining career and family. Tracing the demographic and labor force experiences of four cohorts of college women across the past century allows us to observe the choices each made and how the constraints facing college women loosened over time. No cohort of college graduate women in the past had a high success rate in combining family and career. Cohort I (graduating c. 1910) had a 50% rate of childlessness. Whereas cohort III (graduating c. 1955) had a high rate of childbearing, it had initially low labor force participation. Cohort IV (graduating c. 1972) provides the most immediate guide for today's college women and is close to the end of its fertility history. It is also a cohort that can be studied using the N.L.S. Young Women. In 1991, when the group was 37 to 47 years old, 28% of the sample's college graduate (white) women had yet to have a first birth. The estimates for career vary from 24% to 33% for all college graduate women in the sample. Thus only 13% to 17% of the group achieved "family and career" by the time it was about 40 years old. Among those who attained career, 50% were childless. Cohort IV contains a small group of women who have combined family with career, but for most the goal remains elusive.
Bibliography Citation
Goldin, Claudia. "Career And Family: College Women Look To The Past." NBER Working Paper No. 5188, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 1995.
87. Goldin, Claudia
From the Valley to the Summit: The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women's Work
NBER Working Paper No. 10335, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2004.
Also: http://www.economics.harvard.edu/~goldin/papers/valleytosummit.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Age at First Marriage; Career Patterns; Job Aspirations; Labor Force Participation

Meaningful discussions about "women at the top" can take place today only because a quiet revolution occurred about thirty years ago. The transformation was startlingly rapid and was accomplished by the unwitting foot soldiers of an upheaval that transformed the workforce. It can be seen in a number of social and economic indicators. Sharp breaks are apparent in data on labor market expectations, college graduation rates, professional degrees, labor force participation rates, and the age at first marriage. Turning points are also evident in most of the series for college majors and occupations. Inflection or break points in almost all of these series occur from the late 1960s to the early 1970s and for cohorts born during the 1940s. Whatever the precise reasons for change, a great divide in college-graduate women's lives and employment occurred about 35 years ago. Previously, women who reached the peaks often made solo climbs and symbolized that women, contrary to conventional wisdom, could achieve greatness. But real change demanded a march by the masses from the "valley to the summit." That march began with cohorts born in the late 1940s.
Bibliography Citation
Goldin, Claudia. "From the Valley to the Summit: The Quiet Revolution That Transformed Women's Work." NBER Working Paper No. 10335, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2004.
88. Goldin, Claudia
The Long Road to the Fast Track: Career and Family
NBER Working Paper No. 10331, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2004.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10331.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Career Patterns; College Graduates; Family Formation; Women

The career and family outcomes of college graduate women suggest that the twentieth century contained five distinct cohorts.' Each cohort made choices concerning career and family subject to different constraints. The first cohort, graduating college from the beginning of the twentieth century to the close of World War I, had either family or career.' The second, graduating college from around 1920 to the end of World War I, had job then family.' The third cohort the college graduate mothers of the baby boom' graduated college from around 1946 to the mid-1960s and had family then job.' The fourth cohort graduated college from the late 1960s to the late 1970s. Using the NLS Young Women I demonstrate that 13 to 18 percent achieved career then family' by age 40. The objective of the fifth cohort, graduating from around 1980 to 1990, has been career and family,' and 21 to 28 percent (using the NLS Youth) have realized that goal by age 40. I trace the demographic and labor force experiences of these five cohorts of college graduates and discuss why career and family' outcomes changed over time.
Bibliography Citation
Goldin, Claudia. "The Long Road to the Fast Track: Career and Family." NBER Working Paper No. 10331, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2004.
89. Grasso, John T.
Documentation of Statistical Data Sets: The Case of the National Longitudinal Surveys
Presented: New York, NY, Workshop on Documentation of Large Machine Readable Data Sets, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1974
Cohort(s): NLS General
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Data Quality/Consistency; Data Sets Documentation

Following a general description of the NLS files, this paper examines various problems encountered in the pre-existing documentation and concludes with a description of current efforts to improve the documentation of this kind of social science data file.
Bibliography Citation
Grasso, John T. "Documentation of Statistical Data Sets: The Case of the National Longitudinal Surveys." Presented: New York, NY, Workshop on Documentation of Large Machine Readable Data Sets, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1974.
90. Grasso, John T.
Vocational Education, Training, and Work Experience as Investments for Youth
Presented: Princeton, NJ, Workshop on Current Research in Economics of Education, ETS and NBER, 1975
Cohort(s): Young Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Career Patterns; Cost-Benefit Studies; Education, Secondary; High School Completion/Graduates; High School Curriculum; Vocational Education; Vocational Preparation; Wages

This is a report on recent research on the career preparation and early career achievements of male high school graduates. This review raises questions on the conceptual and methodological differences between the NLS study and previous research. Restricting attention to the case of male high school graduates who did not attend college, the author examines three major means for the development of skills: (1) secondary education, including its several distinct curricula; (2) post-school training and learning opportunities of various kinds; and (3) informal training and learning associated with actual work experience. At the same time, the study explores facets of the labor market activities of the youth, using a series of measures of "success." Findings of the study relate primarily to questions concerning the relative effectiveness of the different means of preparation--individually and in combination. Thus, the scope of the study permits comparisons to previous research which utilize cost-benefit analysis to ascertain the effectiveness of vocational education. A brief overview of recent cost-benefit studies is presented.
Bibliography Citation
Grasso, John T. "Vocational Education, Training, and Work Experience as Investments for Youth." Presented: Princeton, NJ, Workshop on Current Research in Economics of Education, ETS and NBER, 1975.
91. Grogger, Jeffrey
Market Wages and Youth Crime
NBER Working Paper No. 5983, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1997.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5983
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Behavior; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Illegal Activities; Time Use; Wage Models; Wage Rates

Youth crime is widespread. To study the effect of market wages on youth crime, I analyze a time-allocation model in which consumers face parametric wages and diminishing marginal returns to crime. Under these assumptions, an individual who works will commit crime if the returns to the first hour of crime exceed his market wage. This decision rule imposes considerable structure on the econometric model, which I estimate using data from the National Longitudinal Survey Youth Cohort. The empirical model provides estimates of the determinants of criminal returns and of the wage responsiveness of criminal participation. Young men's behavior appears to be very responsive to price incentives. My estimates suggest that falling real wages may have been an important determinant of rising youth crime over the past two decades. Moreover, wages explain an important component of the racial differential in criminal participation, and they largely explain the age distribution of crime. Full-text available on-line: Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5983
Bibliography Citation
Grogger, Jeffrey. "Market Wages and Youth Crime." NBER Working Paper No. 5983, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1997.
92. Grossman, Michael
Kaestner, Robert
Markowitz, Sara
Get High and Get Stupid: The Effect of Alcohol and Marijuana Use on Teen Sexual Behavior
NBER Working Paper No. 9216, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 2002.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9216
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Drug Use; Risk-Taking; Sexual Behavior; Substance Use; Teenagers

Numerous studies have documented a strong correlation between substance use and teen sexual behavior, and this empirical relationship has given rise to a widespread belief that substance use causes teens to engage in risky sex. This causal link is often used by advocates to justify policies targeted at reducing substance use. Here, we argue that previous research has not produced sufficient evidence to substantiate a causal relationship between substance use and teen sexual behavior. Accordingly, we attempt to estimate causal effects using two complementary research approaches. Our findings suggest that substance use is not causally related to teen sexual behavior, although we cannot definitely rule out that possibility.
Bibliography Citation
Grossman, Michael, Robert Kaestner and Sara Markowitz. "Get High and Get Stupid: The Effect of Alcohol and Marijuana Use on Teen Sexual Behavior." NBER Working Paper No. 9216, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 2002.
93. Gruber, Jonathan
Hungerman, Daniel M.
The Church vs the Mall: What Happens When Religion Faces Increased Secular Competition?
NBER Working Paper No. 12410, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2006.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w12410.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Behavior; Drug Use; Legislation; Religious Influences; State-Level Data/Policy

Recently economists have begun to consider the causes and consequences of religious participation. An unanswered question in this literature is the effect upon individuals of changes in the opportunity cost of religious participation. In this paper we identify a policy-driven change in the opportunity cost of religious participation based on state laws that prohibit retail activity on Sunday, known as "blue laws." Many states have repealed these laws in recent years, raising the opportunity cost of religious participation. We construct a model which predicts, under fairly general conditions, that allowing retail activity on Sundays will lower attendance levels but may increase or decrease religious donations. We then use a variety of datasets to show that when a state repeals its blue laws religious attendance falls, and that church donations and spending fall as well. These results do not seem to be driven by declines in religiosity prior to the law change, nor do we see comparable declines in membership or giving to nonreligious organizations after a state repeals its laws. We then assess the effects of changes in these laws on drinking and drug use behavior in the NLSY. We find that repealing blue laws leads to an increase in drinking and drug use, and that this increase is found only among the initially religious individuals who were affected by the blue laws. The effect is economically significant; for example, the gap in heavy drinking between religious and non religious individuals falls by about half after the laws are repealed.
Bibliography Citation
Gruber, Jonathan and Daniel M. Hungerman. "The Church vs the Mall: What Happens When Religion Faces Increased Secular Competition?" NBER Working Paper No. 12410, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2006.
94. Gustafson, Cynthia Karen
Levine, Phillip B.
Less-Skilled Workers, Welfare Reform, and the Unemployment Insurance System
NBER Working Paper No. 6489, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1998.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6489
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Benefits; Family Background and Culture; Skilled Workers; Skills; Unemployment Compensation; Unemployment Insurance; Welfare

Examines how workers fare in the system, estimating their likelihood of becoming eligible for and collecting benefits; argues that the provision mandating that separations from jobs be involuntary prevents most workers from gaining insurance eligibility; 1957-97; US. Based on National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NSLY) data on family and personal backgrounds and labor market activity of 12,686 people born between 1957 and 1964.
Bibliography Citation
Gustafson, Cynthia Karen and Phillip B. Levine. "Less-Skilled Workers, Welfare Reform, and the Unemployment Insurance System." NBER Working Paper No. 6489, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1998.
95. Gustman, Alan L.
Steinmeier, Thomas L.
Employer Provided Pension Data in the NLS Mature Women's Survey and in the Health and Retirement Study
Working Paper, Dartmouth College/NBER and Texas Tech University, October 1998
Cohort(s): Mature Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Age and Ageing; Benefits; Job Tenure; Pensions; Retirement/Retirement Planning; Social Security

This study calculates the value and incentives from pensions held by respondents to the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Women (NLS-MOO) and compares those outcomes to values calculated from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). All estimates of pension values are based on employer provided pension data. The study also provides analytical tools for researchers to examine pensions in NLS-MOO study. These tools will be especially useful to those who are not pension experts. A pension plan may have a very simple structure. For example, a basic defined contribution (DC) pension may take the form of an account, such as a 401(k) plan, in which the individual's entitlement depends on the amount deposited and on accumulated returns. Or a pension may be an extremely complicated arrangement, such as a complex defined benefit (DB) plan providing benefits based on a formula, where benefits depend nonlinearly on earnings history, time on the job, including not just tenure, but the exact dates of employment, age and tenure at retirement and/or at benefit acceptance, social security entitlement, age relative to social security retirement age, changes in CPI since retirement, and on a number of other factors. Pensions are quite important, both as a source of total wealth and as a major influence on retirement behavior. On average, pensions account for about a quarter of wealth for households near retirement age, and more for those with higher lifetime incomes (Gustman and Steinmeier, forthcoming b). Some pensions, especially certain defined benefit plans offering special benefits to those who retire early, create incentives that greatly influence retirement behavior.'
Bibliography Citation
Gustman, Alan L. and Thomas L. Steinmeier. "Employer Provided Pension Data in the NLS Mature Women's Survey and in the Health and Retirement Study." Working Paper, Dartmouth College/NBER and Texas Tech University, October 1998.
96. Gustman, Alan L.
Steinmeier, Thomas L.
Employer Provided Pension Data in the NLS Mature Women's Survey and in the Health and Retirement Study
NBER Working Paper No. 7174, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 1999.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7174
Cohort(s): Mature Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Pensions; Retirement/Retirement Planning; Wealth

We compute pension wealth from employer provided pension plan descriptions matched to respondent surveys to the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Women (NLS-MW) and the Health and Retirement Study (HRS). These calculations provide detailed information on the level and distribution of pension wealth and a variety of incentives from pensions. Differences between the pensions of men and women are largely explained by differences in earnings. However, there also are differences in the shapes of the pension accrual profiles of defined benefit plans that are likely to reflect the lower tenure of women. Pension coverage is lower in the NLS-MW than in the HRS. As a result, pension wealth is lower in the NLS-MW than in the HRS. But the difference in coverage is not due to the effects of pension matching. Pension values for covered respondents are similar between the NLS-MW and HRS surveys. Systematic differences between the surveys in the rate at which pensions were matched do not have a major effect on findings as to the levels and distributions of pension wealth between the surveys.
Bibliography Citation
Gustman, Alan L. and Thomas L. Steinmeier. "Employer Provided Pension Data in the NLS Mature Women's Survey and in the Health and Retirement Study." NBER Working Paper No. 7174, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 1999.
97. Gustman, Alan L.
Steinmeier, Thomas L.
Retirement in Dual-Career Families: Estimates Using Firm-Reported Pensions
Working Paper, Dartmouth College and NBER, and Texas Tech University, June 1998
Cohort(s): Mature Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Dual-Career Families; Pensions; Retirement/Retirement Planning

This paper expands on a previous effort to construct and estimate a model applicable to a family where both the husband and wife are making retirement decisions. The paper uses a more refined model and additional data to characterize the economic retirement incentives better. It investigates three potential channels which might generate the elevated level of instances in which the spouses retire at around the same time. The conclusion is that joint retirement occurs primarily because husbands find retirement considerably more attractive when the wives are also retired.
Bibliography Citation
Gustman, Alan L. and Thomas L. Steinmeier. "Retirement in Dual-Career Families: Estimates Using Firm-Reported Pensions." Working Paper, Dartmouth College and NBER, and Texas Tech University, June 1998.
98. Gustman, Alan L.
Steinmeier, Thomas L.
Social Security, Pensions, and Retirement Behavior Within the Family
NBER Working Paper No. 8772, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2002
Cohort(s): Mature Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Life Cycle Research; Retirement/Retirement Planning; Social Security

This paper estimates a structural model of family retirement using U.S. data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and from the National Longitudinal Survey of Mature Women. Estimates using the HRS benefit from having, for each spouse, earnings histories provided by the respondent and the Social Security Administration, and employer provided pension plan descriptions. We find that a measure of how much each spouse values being able to spend time in retirement with the other accounts for a good portion of the apparent interdependence of the retirement decisions of husbands and wives. When we include this measure, the simulations almost double the frequency of predicted joint retirements. Once estimated, we use the model to investigate the labor supply effects of alternative social security policies, examining the effect of dividing credit for earnings evenly between spouses, or of basing social security benefits on the amounts accumulated in private accounts. Both policies change the relative importance of spouse and survivor social security benefits within the household and both raise the relative reward to work later in the life cycle. The incentives created are modest, and retirement responds accordingly. Nevertheless, at some ages, such as 65, there may be as much as a 6 percent increase in the old age work force under privatized accounts.
Bibliography Citation
Gustman, Alan L. and Thomas L. Steinmeier. "Social Security, Pensions, and Retirement Behavior Within the Family." NBER Working Paper No. 8772, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2002.
99. Hamermesh, Daniel S.
12 Million Salaried Workers Are Missing
NBER Working Paper No. 8016, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2000
Cohort(s): Mature Women, NLSY79, Young Men, Young Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Attitudes; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Earnings; General Social Survey (GSS); Job Satisfaction; Job Tenure; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Wages

Evidence from Current Population Surveys through 1997, various cohorts of the National Longitudinal Surveys, and the Panel Study of Income Dynamics suggests that the fraction of American employees paid salaries stayed constant from the late 1960s through the late 1970s, but fell slightly thereafter through the late 1990s. Accounting for the changing industrial, occupational, demographic and economic structure of the work force shows that the fraction was 9 percentage points below what would have been expected in the late 1970s. This shortfall is not explained by growth in the temporary help industry, by institutional changes in overtime or wage payment regulation, by the increasing openness of American labor and product markets, nor by convergence of nonwage aspects of hourly and salaried employment. A theory of worker commitment and employers' monitoring costs explains the determination of pay status. While monitoring costs may have changed consistent with the decline in salaried work, only declining worker commitment is also consistent with an observed relative decline in earnings of hourly workers. Various waves of the General Social Surveys provide direct evidence that workers' commitment/trustworthiness declined during this period. Data from several cohorts of men in the NLS imply that there was a detrimental change in the work attitudes of young men in the lower half of the distribution of early-career job satisfaction, a conclusion that is bolstered by the relative decline in job tenure among hourly-paid workers.
Bibliography Citation
Hamermesh, Daniel S. "12 Million Salaried Workers Are Missing." NBER Working Paper No. 8016, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2000.
100. Hamermesh, Daniel S.
The Changing Distribution of Job Satisfaction
NBER Working Paper No. 7332, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 1999.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7332
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Cross-national Analysis; German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP); Germany, German; Job Satisfaction; Skills; Wages; Wages, Young Men

The distribution of job satisfaction widened across cohorts of young men in the United States between 1978 and 1988, and between 1978 and 1996, in ways correlated with changing wage inequality. Satisfaction among workers in upper earnings quantiles rose relative to that of workers in lower quantiles. An identical phenomenon is observed among men in West Germany in response to a sharp increase in the relative earnings of high-wage men in the mid-1990s. Several hypotheses about the determinants of satisfaction are presented and examined using both cross-section data on these cohorts and panel data from the NLSY and the German SOEP. The evidence is most consistent with workers regret about the returns to their investment in skills affecting their satisfaction. Job satisfaction is especially responsive to surprises in the returns to observable skills, less so to surprises in the returns to unobservables; and the effects of earnings shocks on job satisfaction dissipate over time.
Bibliography Citation
Hamermesh, Daniel S. "The Changing Distribution of Job Satisfaction." NBER Working Paper No. 7332, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 1999.
101. Han, Euna
Norton, Edward C.
Powell, Lisa M.
Direct and Indirect Effects of Teenage Body Weight on Adult Wages
NBER Working Paper No. 15027, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2009.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w15027.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Teenagers; Wage Effects; Wages; Weight

Previous estimates on the association between body weight and wages in the literature have been contingent on education and occupation. This paper examines the direct effect of BMI on wages and the indirect effects operating through education and occupation choice, particularly for late-teen BMI and adult wages. Using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 data, we show that education is the main pathway for the indirect BMI wage penalty. The total BMI wage penalty is underestimated by 18% for women without including those indirect effects. Whereas for men there is no statistically significant direct BMI wage penalty, we do observe a small indirect wage penalty through education.
Bibliography Citation
Han, Euna, Edward C. Norton and Lisa M. Powell. "Direct and Indirect Effects of Teenage Body Weight on Adult Wages." NBER Working Paper No. 15027, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2009.
102. Hao, Lingxin
Hotz, V. Joseph
Jin, Ginger Zhe
Games Daughters and Parents Play: Teenage Childbearing, Parental Reputation, and Strategic Transfers
NBER Working Paper No. W7670, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2000.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W7670
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Childbearing, Adolescent; Family Models; Family Studies; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Parent-Child Relationship/Closeness; Parental Influences; Siblings; Teenagers; Transfers, Family; Transfers, Financial; Transfers, Parental

In this paper, we examine the empirical implications of reputation formation using a game-theoretic model of intra-familial interactions. We consider parental reputation in repeated two-stage games in which daughters' decision to have a child as a teenager and the willingness of parents to continue to house and support their daughters given their decisions. Drawing on the work of Milgrom and Roberts (1982) and Kreps and Wilson (1982) on reputation in repeated games, we show that parents have, under certain conditions, the incentive to penalize teenage (and typically out-of-wedlock) childbearing of older daughters, in order to get the younger daughters to avoid teenage childbearing. The two key empirical implications of this model is that the likelihood of teenage childbearing and parental transfers to a daughter who had a teen birth will decrease with the number of the daughter's sisters at risk. We test these two implications, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort (NLSY79), exploiting the availability of repeated observations on young women (daughters) and of observations on multiple daughters (sisters) available in this data. Controlling for daughter- and family-specific fixed effects, we find evidence of differential parental financial transfer responses to teenage childbearing by the number of the daughter's sisters and brothers at risk.
Bibliography Citation
Hao, Lingxin, V. Joseph Hotz and Ginger Zhe Jin. "Games Daughters and Parents Play: Teenage Childbearing, Parental Reputation, and Strategic Transfers." NBER Working Paper No. W7670, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2000.
103. Hao, Lingxin
Hotz, V. Joseph
Jin, Ginger Zhe
Games Parents and Adolescents Play: Risky Behaviors, Parental Reputation, and Strategic Transfers
NBER Working Paper No. 11872, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11872.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Behavior; Childbearing, Adolescent; Demography; Family Models; Family Studies; High School Dropouts; Siblings

This paper examines reputation formation in intra-familial interactions. We consider parental reputation in a repeated two-stage game in which adolescents decide whether to give a teen birth or drop out of high school, and given adolescent decisions, the parent decides whether to house and support his children beyond age 18. Drawing on the work of Milgrom and Roberts (1982) and Kreps and Wilson (1982), we show that the parent has, under certain conditions, the incentive to penalize older children for their teenage risky behaviors in order to dissuade the younger children from the same risky behaviors. The model generates two empirical implications: the likelihood of teen risky behaviors and parental transfers to a child who engaged in teen risky behaviors will decrease with the number of remaining children at risk. We test these two implications, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 Cohort (NLSY79). Exploiting the availability of repeated observations on individual respondents and of observations on multiple siblings, we find evidence in favor of both predictions.
Bibliography Citation
Hao, Lingxin, V. Joseph Hotz and Ginger Zhe Jin. "Games Parents and Adolescents Play: Risky Behaviors, Parental Reputation, and Strategic Transfers." NBER Working Paper No. 11872, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005.
104. Heckman, James J.
Lessons from the Technology of Skill Formation
NBER Working Paper No. 11142, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2005
Also: http://www.mineduc.cl/biblio/documento/w11142.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Bias Decomposition; Children, Academic Development; Children, Behavioral Development; Family Income; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Skill Formation

This paper discusses recent advances in our understanding of differences in human abilities and skills, their sources, and their evolution over the lifecycle....The study of human skill formation is no longer handicapped by the taboo that once made it impermissible to talk about differences among people. It is now well documented that people are very diverse on a large array of abilities, that these abilities account for a substantial amount of the variation found among people in terms of their socioeconomic success, and that gaps among children from various socioeconomic groups open up at early ages, and, if anything, widen as children become adults. The family plays a powerful role in shaping these abilities. From a variety of intervention studies, we know that these gaps can be partially remedied if the remediation is attempted at early enough ages. The remediation efforts that appear to be most effective are those that supplement family resources for young children from disadvantaged environments. Since the family is the fundamental source of human inequality, programs that target young children from disadvantaged families have the greatest economic and social returns. I make this case through a series of arguments, bolstered by graphs and tables extracted from Heckman and Masterov (2004), Cunha and Heckman (2003) and Carneiro and Heckman (2003).
Bibliography Citation
Heckman, James J. "Lessons from the Technology of Skill Formation." NBER Working Paper No. 11142, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2005.
105. Heckman, James J.
Carneiro, Pedro M.
Human Capital Policy
NBER Working Paper No. 9495, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2003.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W9495
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Behavioral Problems; Family Background and Culture; Family Income; Job Training; Life Cycle Research; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Racial Equality/Inequality; School Quality; Skill Formation; Skills; Tuition

This paper considers alternative policies for promoting skill formation that are targetted to different stages of the life cycle. We demonstrate the importance of both cognitive and noncognitive skills that are formed early in the life cycle in accounting for racial, ethnic and family background gaps in schooling and other dimensions of socioeconomic success. Most of the gaps in college attendance and delay are determined by early family factors. Children from better families and with high ability earn higher returns to schooling. We find only a limited role for tuition policy or family income supplements in eliminating schooling and college attendance gaps. At most 8% of American youth are credit constrained in the traditional usage of that term. The evidence points to a high return to early interventions and a low return to remedial or compensatory interventions later in the life cycle. Skill and ability beget future skill and ability. At current levels of funding, traditional policies like tuition subsidies, improvements in school quality, job training and tax rebates are unlikely to be effective in closing gaps.
Bibliography Citation
Heckman, James J. and Pedro M. Carneiro. "Human Capital Policy." NBER Working Paper No. 9495, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2003.
106. Heckman, James J.
LaFontaine, Paul A.
The American High School Graduation Rate: Trends and Levels
NBER Working Paper 13670, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2007.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13670
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97, Young Men, Young Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Educational Aspirations/Expectations; Gender Differences; High School Completion/Graduates; Methods/Methodology

This paper uses multiple data sources and a unified methodology to estimate the trends and levels of the U.S. high school graduation rate. Correcting for important biases that plague previous calculations, we establish that (a) the true high school graduation rate is substantially lower than the official rate issued by the National Center for Educational Statistics; (b) it has been declining over the past 40 years; (c) majority/minority graduation rate differentials are substantial and have not converged over the past 35 years; (d) the decline in high school graduation rates occurs among native populations and is not solely a consequence of increasing proportions of immigrants and minorities in American society; (e) the decline in high school graduation explains part of the recent slowdown in college attendance; and (f) the pattern of the decline of high school graduation rates by gender helps to explain the recent increase in male-female college attendance gaps.
Bibliography Citation
Heckman, James J. and Paul A. LaFontaine. "The American High School Graduation Rate: Trends and Levels." NBER Working Paper 13670, National Bureau of Economic Research, December 2007.
107. Heckman, James J.
Lochner, Lance John
Taber, Christopher Robert
Explaining Rising Wage Inequality: Explorations with a Dynamic General Equilibrium Model of Labor Earnings with Heterogeneous Agents
NBER Working Paper No. 6384, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1998.
Also: http://www.nber.org/cgi-bin/wpsearch.pl?action=bibliography&paper=W6384&year=98
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); College Enrollment; College Graduates; Earnings; Human Capital; Modeling; Schooling; Skill Formation; Skills; Training, On-the-Job; Training, Post-School; Transition, School to Work; Wage Differentials; Wage Equations

This paper develops and estimates an overlapping generations general equilibrium model of labor earnings, skill formation and physical capital accumulation with heterogeneous human capital. The model analyzes both schooling choices and post-school on-the-job investment in skills in a framework in which different schooling levels index different skills. A key insight in the model is that accounting for the distinction between skill prices and measured wages is important for analyzing the changing wage structure, as they often move in different directions. New methods are developed and applied to estimate the demand for unobserved human capital and to determine the substitution relationships in aggregate technology among skills and capital. We estimate skill-specific human capital accumulation equations that are consistent with the general equilibrium predictions of the model. Using our estimates, we find that a model of skill-biased technical change with a trend estimated from our aggregate technology is consistent with the central feature of rising wage equality measured by the college-high school wage differential and by the standard deviation of log earnings over the past 15 years. Immigration of low skill workers contributes little to rising wage inequality. When the model is extended to account for the enlarged cohorts of the Baby Boom, we find that the same parameter estimates of the supply functions for human capital that are used the explain the wage history of the last 15 years also explain the last 35 years of wage inequality as documented by Katz and Murphy (1992).
Bibliography Citation
Heckman, James J., Lance John Lochner and Christopher Robert Taber. "Explaining Rising Wage Inequality: Explorations with a Dynamic General Equilibrium Model of Labor Earnings with Heterogeneous Agents." NBER Working Paper No. 6384, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1998.
108. Heckman, James J.
Lochner, Lance John
Taber, Christopher Robert
General Equilibrium Cost Benefit Analysis of Education and Tax Policies
NBER Working Paper No. 6881, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1999.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6881
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Cost-Benefit Studies; Endogeneity; Heterogeneity; Human Capital; Modeling; Schooling; Skill Formation; Taxes; Training, On-the-Job; Tuition

This paper formulates and estimates an open-economy overlapping generation general-equilibrium model of endogenous heterogeneous human capital in the form of schooling and on-the-job training. Physical capital accumulation is also analyzed. We use the model to explain rising wage inequality in the past two decades due to skill-biased technical change and to estimate investment responses. We compare an open economy version with a closed economy version. Using our empirically grounded general equilibrium model that explains rising wage inequality, we evaluate two policies often suggested as solutions to the problem of rising wage inequality: (a) tuition subsidies to promote skill formation and (b) tax policies. We establish that conventional partial equilibrium policy evaluation methods widely used in labor economics and public finance give substantially misleading estimates of the impact of national tax and tuition policies on skill formation. Conventional microeconomic methods for estimating the schooling response to tuition overestimate the response by an order of magnitude. Simulations of our model also reveal that move to a flat consumption tax raises capital accumulation and the real wages of all skill groups and barely affects overall measures of income inequality.
Bibliography Citation
Heckman, James J., Lance John Lochner and Christopher Robert Taber. "General Equilibrium Cost Benefit Analysis of Education and Tax Policies." NBER Working Paper No. 6881, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1999.
109. Heckman, James J.
Masterov, Dimitriy V.
The Productivity Argument for Investing in Young Children
NBER Working Paper No. 13016, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2007.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w13016
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Childbearing; Children, Academic Development; Children, Behavioral Development; Crime; Education; Family Structure; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Skill Formation

This paper presents a productivity argument for investing in disadvantaged young children. For such investment, there is no equity-efficiency tradeoff. [It] graphs time series of alternative measures of the percentage of children in disadvantaged families. The percentage of children born into, or living in, nontraditional families has increased greatly in the last 30 years.1,2 Approximately 25% of children are now born into single parent homes. While the percentages of children living in poverty and born into poor families have fallen recently, they are still high, especially among certain subgroups.

Adverse environments place children at risk for social and economic failure. The accident of birth plays a powerful role in determining adult success.3 Many have commented on this phenomenon, and most analyses have cast the issue of assisting children from disadvantaged families as a question of fairness or social justice.

This paper makes a different argument.

Bibliography Citation
Heckman, James J. and Dimitriy V. Masterov. "The Productivity Argument for Investing in Young Children." NBER Working Paper No. 13016, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2007.
110. Heckman, James J.
Tobias, Justin L.
Vytlacil, Edward
Simple Estimators for Treatment Parameters in a Latent Variable Framework with an Application to Estimating the Returns to Schooling
NBER Working Paper No. W7950, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2000.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W7950
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB); College Education; Earnings; Education; Educational Returns; Modeling; Schooling; Selectivity Bias/Selection Bias; Siblings

This paper derives simply computed closed-form expressions for the Average Treatment Effect (ATE), the effect of Treatment on the Treated (TT), Local Average Treatment Effect (LATE) and Marginal Treatment Effect (MTE) in a latent variable framework for both normal and non-normal models. The techniques presented in the paper are applied to estimating a variety of treatment parameters capturing the returns to a college education for various populations using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY).
Bibliography Citation
Heckman, James J., Justin L. Tobias and Edward Vytlacil. "Simple Estimators for Treatment Parameters in a Latent Variable Framework with an Application to Estimating the Returns to Schooling." NBER Working Paper No. W7950, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2000.
111. Heckman, James J.
Vytlacil, Edward
Identifying the Role of Cognitive Ability in Explaining the Level of and Change in the Return to Schooling
NBER Working Paper No. 7820, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2000
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Cognitive Ability; Education; Schooling

This paper considers two problems that arise in determining the role of ability in explaining the level of and change in the rate of return to schooling. (1) Ability and schooling are so strongly dependent that it is not possible, over a wide range of variation in schooling and ability, to independently vary these two variables and estimate their separate impacts. (2) The structure of panel data makes it difficult to identify main age and time effects or to isolate crucial education-ability-time interactions needed to assess the role of ability in explaining the rise in the return to education.
Bibliography Citation
Heckman, James J. and Edward Vytlacil. "Identifying the Role of Cognitive Ability in Explaining the Level of and Change in the Return to Schooling." NBER Working Paper No. 7820, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2000.
112. Hotz, V. Joseph
Sanders, Seth G.
McElroy, Susan Williams
Teenage Childbearing and Its Life Cycle Consequences: Exploiting a Natural Experiment
NBER Working Paper No. W7397, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1999.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W7397
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Abortion; Adolescent Fertility; Childbearing, Adolescent; Educational Attainment; Family Structure; Fertility; Labor Market Outcomes; Labor Supply; Life Cycle Research; Mothers, Adolescent; Parents, Single; Poverty; Socioeconomic Factors; Variables, Instrumental

In this paper, we exploit a 'natural experiment' associated with human reproduction to identify the effect of teen childbearing on subsequent educational attainment, family structure, labor market outcomes and financial self-sufficiency. In particular, we exploit the fact that a substantial fraction of women who become pregnant experience a miscarriage (spontaneous abortion) and thus do not have a birth. If miscarriages were purely random and if miscarriages were the only way, other than by live births, that a pregnancy ended, then women, who had a miscarriage as a teen, would constitute an ideal control group with which to contrast teenage mothers. Exploiting this natural experiment, we devise an Instrumental Variables (IV) estimators for the consequences of teen mothers not delaying their childbearing, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1979 (NLSY79). Our major finding is that many of the negative consequences of not delaying childbearing until adulthood are much smaller than has been estimated in previous studies. While we do find adverse consequences of teenage childbearing immediately following a teen mother's first birth, these negative consequences appear short-lived. By the time a teen mother reaches her late twenties, she appears to have only slightly more children, is only slightly more likely to be single mother, and has no lower levels of educational attainment than if she had delayed her childbearing to adulthood. In fact, by this age teen mothers appear to be better off in some aspects of their lives. Teenage childbearing appears to raise levels of labor supply, accumulated work experience and labor market earnings and appears to reduce the chances of living in poverty and participating in the associated social welfare programs. These estimated effects imply that the cost of teenage childbearing to U.S. taxpayers is negligible. In particular, our estimates imply that the widely held view that teenage childbearing imposes a substantial cost on government is an artifact of the failure to appropriately account for pre-existing socioeconomic differences between teen mothers and other women when estimating the causal effects of early childbearing. While teen mothers are very likely to live in poverty and experience other forms of adversity, our results imply that little of this would be changed just by getting teen mothers to delay their childbearing into adulthood.
Bibliography Citation
Hotz, V. Joseph, Seth G. Sanders and Susan Williams McElroy. "Teenage Childbearing and Its Life Cycle Consequences: Exploiting a Natural Experiment." NBER Working Paper No. W7397, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1999.
113. Hotz, V. Joseph
Xu, Lixin Colin
Tienda, Marta
Ahituv, Avner
Are There Returns to the Wages of Young Men from Working While in School?
NBER Working Paper No. 7289, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1999.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W7289
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Heterogeneity; High School; Schooling; Selectivity Bias/Selection Bias; Wage Growth; Wages, Young Men; Work Experience

This paper examines the impacts of work experience acquired while youth were in high school (and college) on young men's wage rates during the 1980s and 1990s. Previous studies have found evidence of sizeable and persistent rates of return to working while enrolled in school, especially high school, on subsequent wage growth. Such findings may represent causal effects of having acquired work experience while still enrolled in school, but they may also be the result of failure to fully account for individual differences in young adults' capacities to acquire such skills and be productive in the work force later in life. We re-examine the robustness of previous attempts to control for unobserved heterogeneity and selectivity. We explore more general methods for dealing with dynamic forms of selection by explicitly modeling the educational and work choices of young men from age 13 through their late twenties. Using data on young men from the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79), we find that the estimated returns to working while in high school or college are dramatically diminished in magnitude and statistical significance when one uses these dynamic selection methods. As such, our results indicate a decided lack of robustness to the inference about the effects of working while in school that has been drawn from previous work.
Bibliography Citation
Hotz, V. Joseph, Lixin Colin Xu, Marta Tienda and Avner Ahituv. "Are There Returns to the Wages of Young Men from Working While in School?" NBER Working Paper No. 7289, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1999.
114. Hoxby, Caroline M.
Terry, Bridget
Explaining Rising Income and Wage Inequality Among the College Educated
NBER Working Paper No. 6873, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1999.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6873
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): College Education; College Graduates; Demography; Income; Wage Equations; Wage Growth

The incomes and wages of college-educated Americans have become significantly more dispersed since 1970. This paper attempts to decompose this growing dispersion into three possible sources of growth. The first source, or extensive margin, is the increasing demographic diversity of people who attend college. The second is an increasing return to aptitude. The third, or intensive margin,' combines the increasing self-segregation (on the basis of aptitude) of students among colleges and the increasing correlation between the average aptitude of a college's student body and its expenditure on education inputs. These tendencies are the result of changes in the market structure of college education, as documented elsewhere. We find that about 70% of the growth in inequality among recipients of baccalaureate degrees can be explained with observable demographics, measures of aptitude, and college attributes. About 50% of the growth in inequality among people who have 2 years of college education can be similarly explained. Of the growth that can be explained, about 1/4th is associated with the extensive margin, 1/3rd with an increased return to measured aptitude, and 5/12ths with the intensive margin. If the intensive margin is not taken into account, the role of increasing returns to aptitude is greatly overstated.
Bibliography Citation
Hoxby, Caroline M. and Bridget Terry. "Explaining Rising Income and Wage Inequality Among the College Educated." NBER Working Paper No. 6873, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 1999.
115. Imbens, Guido W.
Hellerstein, Judith K.
Imposing Moment Restrictions from Auxiliary Data by Weighting
NBER Technical Working Paper No. 202, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1996.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/t0202
Cohort(s): Young Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Attrition; Census of Population; Data Analysis; Data Quality/Consistency; Earnings; Education; Educational Returns; Modeling, Mixed Effects; Sample Selection; Statistical Analysis; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT

In this paper we analyze estimation of coefficients in regression models under moment restrictions where the moment restrictions are derived from auxiliary data. Our approach is similar to those that have been used in statistics for analyzing contingency tables with known marginals. These methods are useful in cases where data from a small, potentially non-representative data set can be supplemented with auxiliary information from another data set which may be larger and/or more representative of the target population. The moment restrictions yield weights for each observation that can subsequently be used in weighted regression analysis. We discuss the interpretation of these weights both under the assumption that the target population and the sampled population are the same, as well as under the assumption that these populations differ. We present an application based on omitted ability bias in estimation of wage regressions. The National Longitudinal Survey Young Men's Cohort (NLS), as well as containing information for each observation on earnings, education and experience, records data on two test scores that may be considered proxies for ability. The NLS is a small data set, however, with a high attrition rate. We investigate how to mitigate these problems in the NLS by forming moments from the joint distribution of education, experience and earnings in the 1% sample of the 1980 U.S. Census and using these moments to construct weights for weighted regression analysis of the NLS. We analyze the impacts of our weighted regression techniques on the estimated coefficients and standard errors on returns to education and experience in the NLS controlling for ability, with and without assuming that the NLS and the Census samples are random samples from the same population.
Bibliography Citation
Imbens, Guido W. and Judith K. Hellerstein. "Imposing Moment Restrictions from Auxiliary Data by Weighting." NBER Technical Working Paper No. 202, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1996.
116. Imbens, Guido W.
Lynch, Lisa M.
Re-employment Probabilities over the Business Cycle
NBER Working Paper No. 4585, National Bureau of Economic Research, December, 1993.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W4585
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Business Cycles; Local Labor Market; Modeling, Hazard/Event History/Survival/Duration; Seasonality; Unemployment Duration; Unemployment Rate

Using a Cox proportional hazard model that allows for a flexible time dependence that can incorporate both seasonal and business cycle effects this paper analyzes the determinants of reemployment probabilities of young workers from 1978-1989. It finds considerable changes in the chances of young workers finding jobs over the business cycle, however, the characteristics of those starting jobless spells do not vary much over time. Therefore, government programs that target specific demographic groups may change individuals' positions within the queue of job seekers but will probably have a more limited impact on the overall re-employment probability. Living in an area with high local unemployment reduces re-employment chances as does being in a long spell of non-employment. However, when we allow for an interaction between the length of time of a jobless spell and the local unemployment rate we find the interaction term is positive. In other words, while workers appear to be scarred by a long spell of unemployment, the median age seems to be reduced if they are unemployed in an area with high overall unemployment.
Bibliography Citation
Imbens, Guido W. and Lisa M. Lynch. "Re-employment Probabilities over the Business Cycle." NBER Working Paper No. 4585, National Bureau of Economic Research, December, 1993.
117. Johnson, Richard W.
Neumark, David B.
Age Discrimination, Job Separations, And Employment Status of Older Workers: Evidence from Self-Reports
NBER Working Paper No. 5619, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 1996.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5619
Cohort(s): Older Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Age and Ageing; Discrimination, Age; Heterogeneity; Labor Market Outcomes; Self-Reporting

This paper explores the prevalence and consequences of age discrimination in the workplace by analyzing self-reports of discrimination by respondents in the National Longitudinal Survey of Older Men. Age discrimination was reported in seven percent of our cases, during the period 1966-1980. Workers with positive reports were much more likely to separate from their employer and less likely to remain employed than workers who report no age discrimination. The estimated effect of reported discrimination remains large and significant even when controlling for the existence of mandatory retirement provisions on the current job. These findings are generally robust to numerous attempts to correct the estimates for the inherent limitations of self-reported data, particularly the potential heterogeneity bias that arises from differences in the propensity to report discrimination, and the possibility that discrimination is reported in response to other negative labor market outcomes. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5619
Bibliography Citation
Johnson, Richard W. and David B. Neumark. "Age Discrimination, Job Separations, And Employment Status of Older Workers: Evidence from Self-Reports." NBER Working Paper No. 5619, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 1996.
118. Joyce, Mary
Neumark, David B.
An Introduction to School-to-Work Programs in the NLSY97: How Prevalent Are They, and Which Youths Do They Serve?
NBER Working Paper No. 7733, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2000.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W7733
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): High School; High School Completion/Graduates; Schooling; Work Experience

In the wake of the 1994 School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA), we introduce and study two new data sources to estimate the extent to which school-to-work programs have been implemented in U.S. high schools, and the extent to which high school students are participating in these programs. The first data source, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, 1997 (NLSY97), provides information directly form students on whether they participated in these programs. The second source, the 1996 School Administrators\'s Survey, was administered to schools attended by NLSY97 interviewees, and provides information directly from schools on whether they offered any school-to-work programs. Findings from the 1996 School Administrator\'s Survey show that school-to-work programs are commonly offered, with over 60 percent of schools providing at least one such program. Findings from the NLSY97 show that a fair number of high school students participate in school-to-work programs, with about 38 percent of students reporting participation in at least one program. The findings concerning whether schools with disadvantaged student populations are more likely to offer school-to-work programs, or whether less-advantaged students are more likely to participate in these programs, are mixed.
Bibliography Citation
Joyce, Mary and David B. Neumark. "An Introduction to School-to-Work Programs in the NLSY97: How Prevalent Are They, and Which Youths Do They Serve?" NBER Working Paper No. 7733, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2000.
119. Kaestner, Robert
Adolescent Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Correlates of Adult Health
NBER Working Paper 14924, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2009.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14924
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Childhood; Cognitive Ability; Family Environment; Family Income; Family Structure; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Home Environment; Self-Esteem; Well-Being

While it is widely acknowledged that the family and childhood environments affect adult well being, why they matter is still an area of significant debate. Previous research concerned with this issue has focused on the influence of family income, family structure, and cognitive ability. Much of this research has focused on economic and social outcomes. Notably, the influence of childhood environments on adult health has not received as much attention as other outcomes, and when health has been the focus, interest has been mainly on childhood health. Here, I present a descriptive analysis of the associations between cognitive and non-cognitive traits measured at the end of childhood (age 14) and mental and physical health at age 41. Results suggest that, on average, adolescent cognitive ability and self esteem have a significant association with health at age 41. Other non-cognitive factors such as locus of control and adolescent substance use do not have significant associations with adult health. Net of adolescent influences, completed education has a significant association with adult health.

The data for my analysis is drawn from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY79).

Bibliography Citation
Kaestner, Robert. "Adolescent Cognitive and Non-Cognitive Correlates of Adult Health." NBER Working Paper 14924, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2009.
120. Kaestner, Robert
Are Brothers Really Better? Sibling Sex Composition and Educational Achievement Revisited
NBER Working Paper No. 5521, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 1996.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5521
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Black Youth; Educational Attainment; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Psychological Effects; Racial Differences; Siblings

In this paper, I examine the relationship between sibling sex composition and educational achievement. First, I replicate the study of Butcher and Case (1994) using data on a more recent birth cohort Contrary to the findings of that study, I find basically no effect of sibling sex composition on the educational attainment of white males or females, although among black adults, those who grew up with a sister, or who had relatively more sisters, had greater levels of educational attainment than persons with no or fewer sisters. Second, I broaden the analysis by examining the educational outcomes of children and teenagers. This extension is important because it provides an additional opportunity to test for sibling sex composition effects, and it helps differentiate between potential causes of a sibling sex composition effect. The results obtained from the analysis of child and teen outcomes suggest that sibling sex composition had little effect on educational achievement. The only group to be affected was black teens between the ages of 15 and 18. Those who grew up with sisters had higher educational achievement levels than those who grew up with brothers. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5521
Bibliography Citation
Kaestner, Robert. "Are Brothers Really Better? Sibling Sex Composition and Educational Achievement Revisited." NBER Working Paper No. 5521, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 1996.
121. Kaestner, Robert
Does Drug Use Cause Poverty?
NBER Working Paper No. 6406, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 1998.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6406
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Drug Use; Poverty

In this study, I examine the effect of drug use on poverty. The main objective of the paper is to provide descriptive empirical information about the relationship between drug use and poverty, and to explore, in a preliminary fashion, the question of whether drug use causes poverty. Toward this end, I present the results of both descriptive and multivariate analyses of the relationship between drug use and poverty for two national samples of young adults. One sample is drawn from the National Household Survey of Drug Abuse (NHSDA), and the other from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). The results of the analysis indicate that for both samples, drug use is associated with greater poverty.
Bibliography Citation
Kaestner, Robert. "Does Drug Use Cause Poverty?" NBER Working Paper No. 6406, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 1998.
122. Kaestner, Robert
Effects of Cocaine and Marijuana Use on Marriage and Marital Stability
NBER Working Paper No. 5038, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 1995.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5038
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Age at First Marriage; Drug Use; Gender Differences; Marital Status; Marriage; Racial Differences; Substance Use

This paper examines the relationship between illicit drug use and marital status. The paper starts with an overview of the relevant economic theory for this problem. Then, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Market Experiences, the paper presents both cross sectional and longitudinal estimates of the effect of marijuana and cocaine use on marital status, time until first marriage, and duration of first marriage. The results indicate that in general, drug users are more likely to be unmarried due to a delay in the age at first marriage, and shorter marriage durations. The findings are not uniform, however, and differ according to the gender, race and age of the sample. (COPYRIGHT: This record is part of the Abstracts of Working Papers in Economics (AWPE) Database, copyright (c) 1995 Cambridge University Press.) Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5038
Bibliography Citation
Kaestner, Robert. "Effects of Cocaine and Marijuana Use on Marriage and Marital Stability." NBER Working Paper No. 5038, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 1995.
123. Kaestner, Robert
Corman, Hope
The Impact of Child Health and Family Inputs on Child Cognitive Development
NBER Working Paper No. 5257, National Bureau Economic Research, September 1995.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w5257
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Child Health; Cognitive Development; Family Characteristics; Illnesses; Labor Force Participation; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Mothers, Education; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading)

In this paper we extensively analyze the impact of child health and other family characteristics on the cognitive achievement of children between the ages of five and nine. We estimate both cross sectional and fixed effects models using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Several of our results challenge the conclusions found in the existing literature. First, we find only a weak relationship between several measures of child health and child cognitive development. Second, we find that additional maternal schooling does not improve child cognitive achievement. Finally, our estimates of the effect of mother's labor force participation suggest that working has a positive impact on child cognitive achievement.
Bibliography Citation
Kaestner, Robert and Hope Corman. "The Impact of Child Health and Family Inputs on Child Cognitive Development." NBER Working Paper No. 5257, National Bureau Economic Research, September 1995.
124. Kaestner, Robert
Grossman, Michael
Effects of Weight on Children's Educational Achievement
NBER Working Paper No. 13764, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2008.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13764
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Achievement; Children, Academic Development; Educational Attainment; Obesity; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); School Progress; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT; Weight; Younger Adult Worker Study

In this paper, we investigate the association between weight and children's educational achievement, as measured by scores on Peabody Individual Achievement Tests in math and reading, and grade attainment. Data for the study came from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), which contains a large, national sample of children between the ages of 5 and 12. We obtained estimates of the association between weight and achievement using several regression model specifications that controlled for a variety of observed characteristics of the child and his or her mother, and time-invariant characteristics of the child. Our results suggest that, in general, children who are overweight or obese have achievement test scores that are about the same as children with average weight.
Bibliography Citation
Kaestner, Robert and Michael Grossman. "Effects of Weight on Children's Educational Achievement." NBER Working Paper No. 13764, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2008.
125. Kaestner, Robert
Grossman, Michael
Yarnoff, Benjamin
Effects of Weight on Adolescent Educational Attainment
NBER Working Paper No. 14994, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2009 (Revised September 2009).
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14994
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Body Mass Index (BMI); Educational Attainment; Obesity; Weight

In this paper, we investigate the association between weight and adolescent's educational attainment, as measured by highest grade attended, highest grade completed, and drop out status. Data for the study came from the 1997 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), which contains a large, national sample of teens between the ages of 14 and 18. We obtained estimates of the association between weight and educational attainment using several regression model specifications that controlled for a variety of observed characteristics. Our results suggest that, in general, teens that are overweight or obese have levels of attainment that are about the same as teens with average weight.
Bibliography Citation
Kaestner, Robert, Michael Grossman and Benjamin Yarnoff. "Effects of Weight on Adolescent Educational Attainment." NBER Working Paper No. 14994, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2009 (Revised September 2009).
126. Kaestner, Robert
O'Neill, June E.
Has Welfare Reform Changed Teenage Behaviors?
NBER Working Paper No. 8932, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2002.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w8932
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Adolescent Fertility; Aid for Families with Dependent Children (AFDC); Educational Attainment; Marital Status; Program Participation/Evaluation; Welfare

We use data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth 1979 and 1997 cohorts to compare welfare use, fertility rates, educational attainment, and marriage rates among teenage women in the years before and the years immediately following welfare reform. Our first objective is to document differences between these cohorts in welfare use and outcomes and behaviors correlated with 'entry' into welfare, and with future economic and social well-being. Our second objective is to investigate the causal role of welfare reform in behavioral change. We find significant differences between cohorts in welfare use and in outcomes related to welfare use. Further, difference-in-differences estimates suggest that welfare reform has been associated with reduced welfare receipt, reduced fertility, reduced marriage, and lower school drop-out among young women who, because of a disadvantaged family background, are at high risk of welfare receipt (relative to those at lower risk). Finally, in the post-welfare reform era, teenage mothers are less likely to receive welfare and are more likely to live with a spouse or to live with at least one parent than in the pre-reform era. Establishing definitively that welfare reform is responsible for these changes among teenagers will require further investigation.
Bibliography Citation
Kaestner, Robert and June E. O'Neill. "Has Welfare Reform Changed Teenage Behaviors?" NBER Working Paper No. 8932, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2002.
127. Kane, Thomas J.
Rising Public College Tuition and College Entry: How Well Do Public Subsidies Promote Access to College?
NBER Working Paper No. 5164, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 1995.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w5164
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): College Cost; College Enrollment; Cost-Benefit Studies; Educational Costs; Educational Returns; Schooling; Tuition

Though economists have spent the past decade analyzing the rising payoff to schooling, we know much less about the responses of youth or the effectiveness of policies aimed at influencing those decisions. States and the federal government currently spend more than $53 billion annually, hoping to promote greater access to college. This paper evaluates the price sensitivity of youth, using several sources of non-experimental variation in costs. The bulk of the evidence points to large enrollment impacts, particularly for low-income students and for those attending two-year colleges. The states have chosen to promote college enrollment by keeping tuition low through across-the-board subsidies rather than using more targeted, means-tested aid. As public enrollments increase, this has become an expensive strategy. Means-tested aid may be better targeted. However, the evidence of enrollment responses to such targeted aid is much weaker. After a federal means-tested grant program was established in 1973, there was no disproportionate increase in enrollment by low-income youth. Given the number of public dollars at stake, the two sets of results should be reconciled. This paper is available in PDF (1626 K) format: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W5164.pdf
Bibliography Citation
Kane, Thomas J. "Rising Public College Tuition and College Entry: How Well Do Public Subsidies Promote Access to College?" NBER Working Paper No. 5164, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 1995.
128. Kenkel, Donald S.
Lillard, Dean R.
Mathios, Alan D.
The Roles of High School Completion and GED Receipt in Smoking and Obesity
NBER Working Paper No 11990, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2006.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11990.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Cognitive Ability; Education; Family Background and Culture; GED/General Educational Diploma/General Equivalency Degree/General Educational Development; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; High School Diploma; Obesity; Smoking (see Cigarette Use); Variables, Instrumental

We analyze data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 to explore the relationships between high school completion and the two leading preventable causes of death--smoking and obesity. We focus on three issues that have received a great deal of attention in research on the pecuniary returns to schooling. First, we investigate whether GED recipients differ from other high school graduates in their smoking and obesity behaviors. Second, we explore the extent to which the relationships between schooling and these health-related behaviors are sensitive to controlling for family background measures and cognitive ability. Third, we estimate instrumental variables (IV) models of the impact of schooling on smoking and obesity. Although our IV estimates are imprecise, both the OLS and IV results tend to suggest that the returns to high school completion include a reduction in smoking. We find little evidence that high school completion is associated with a lower probability of being overweight or obese for either men or women. The results also suggest that the health returns to GED receipt are much smaller than the returns to high school completion.
Bibliography Citation
Kenkel, Donald S., Dean R. Lillard and Alan D. Mathios. "The Roles of High School Completion and GED Receipt in Smoking and Obesity." NBER Working Paper No 11990, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2006.
129. Kenkel, Donald S.
Wang, Ping
Are Alcoholics in Bad Jobs?
NBER Working Paper No. 6401, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1998.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6401
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Benefits, Fringe; Earnings; Employment, Youth; Firm Size; Health/Health Status/SF-12 Scale; Job Rewards; Peers/Peer influence/Peer relations

Alcohol abuse has important implications for the productivity of the U.S. workforce. The lost earnings of workers suffering from alcohol problems have been estimated at $36.6 billion in 1990. After completing schooling, young workers face critical labor market choices with long ranging consequences for future jobs and lifetime earnings, while many of them also drink alcohol to excess. In this paper, we provide evidence on whether the drinking choices of young adults also have long-ranging consequences for future jobs and lifetime earnings. In doing so we extend previous research on the productivity effects of alcohol to include non-wage job attributes as part of total employee compensation. The goal of this research is to establish benchmark empirical patterns describing relationships between alcoholism and job choice. Our empirical results based on the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) data show that male alcoholics are less likely to receive a variety of fringe be nefits, are more likely to be injured on the job, and work for smaller firms. When the conventional methodology is extended to include non-wage job attributes, of an estimated total loss of $2380 per alcoholic, about $450, or almost 20% of the total, is the value of the lost fringe benefits. The data also show that male alcoholics are less likely to be in a white collar occupation, but conditional upon being in a white collar occupation their earnings are similar to their non-alcoholic peers. While alcoholics are more likely to be in a blue collar occupation, conditional upon being in such an occupation they are estimated to earn 15 percent less than their non-alcoholic peers. These findings can help evaluate more systematically and more accurately the potential effects and interactions between alcohol, education, and income policies and health policy. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6401
Bibliography Citation
Kenkel, Donald S. and Ping Wang. "Are Alcoholics in Bad Jobs?" NBER Working Paper No. 6401, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1998.
130. Kennan, John
Walker, James R.
The Effect of Expected Income on Individual Migration Decisions
NBER Working Paper No. 9585, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2003.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9585
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): High School Completion/Graduates; Male Sample; Migration; Wage Differentials

The paper develops a tractable econometric model of optimal migration, focusing on expected income as the main economic influence on migration. The model improves on previous work in two respects: it covers optimal sequences of location decisions (rather than a single once-for-all choice), and it allows for many alternative location choices. The model is estimated using panel data from the NLSY on white males with a high school education. Our main conclusion is that interstate migration decisions are influenced to a substantial extent by income prospects. On the other hand we find no evidence of a response to geographic differences in wage distributions. Instead, the results suggest that the link between income and migration decisions is driven by a tendency to move in search of a better locational match when the income realization in the current location is unfavorable.
Bibliography Citation
Kennan, John and James R. Walker. "The Effect of Expected Income on Individual Migration Decisions." NBER Working Paper No. 9585, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 2003.
131. Kleiner, Morris M.
Krueger, Alan B.
Analyzing the Extent and Influence of Occupational Licensing on the Labor Market
NBER Working Paper 14979, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2009.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14979
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Census of Population; Labor Market Demographics; Occupations; Unions; Wage Determination

This study examines the extent and influence of occupational licensing in the U.S. using a specially designed national labor force survey. Specifically, we provide new ways of measuring occupational licensing and consider what types of regulatory requirements and what level of government oversight contribute to wage gains and variability. Estimates from the survey indicated that 35 percent of employees were either licensed or certified by the government, and that 29 percent were fully licensed. Another 3 percent stated that all who worked in their job would eventually be required to be certified or licensed, bringing the total that are or eventually must be licensed or certified by government to 38 percent. We find that licensing is associated with about 14 percent higher wages, but the effect of governmental certification on pay is much smaller. Licensing by multiple political jurisdictions is associated with the highest wage gains relative to only local licensing. Specific requirements by the government for a worker to enter an occupation, such as education level and long internships, are positively associated with wages. We find little association between licensing and the variance of wages, in contrast to unions. Overall, our results show that occupational licensing is an important labor market phenomenon that can be measured in labor force surveys.

[..general estimates of crosssectional studies using Census data of state licensing's influence on wages with standard labor market controls show a range from 10 to 15 percent for higher wages associated with occupational licensing. Estimates were developed from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) from 1984 to 2000 and show the difference in wages between changers from unlicensed to licensed occupations and between those who move from a licensed occupation to an unregulated one. The estimates show an impact of about 17 percent of moving to a licensed occupation relative to moving from a licensed occupation to an unlicensed one….]

Bibliography Citation
Kleiner, Morris M. and Alan B. Krueger. "Analyzing the Extent and Influence of Occupational Licensing on the Labor Market." NBER Working Paper 14979, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2009.
132. Kling, Jeffrey R.
Interpreting Instrumental Variables Estimates of the Returns to Schooling
NBER Working Paper No. 7989, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2000
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Colleges; High School; Schooling; Variables, Instrumental

This paper synthesizes economic insights from theoretical models of schooling choice based on individual benefits and econometric work interpreting instrumental variables estimates as weighted averages of individual-specific causal effects. Linkages are illustrated using college proximity to instrument for schooling. After characterizing groups differentially affected by the instrument according to family background, I directly compute weights underlying estimation of the averall return. In analyzing the level of schooling at which individuals change their behavior in response to the instrument, I demonstrate that this instrument has its greatest impact on the transition from high school to college. Specification robustness is also examined.
Bibliography Citation
Kling, Jeffrey R. "Interpreting Instrumental Variables Estimates of the Returns to Schooling." NBER Working Paper No. 7989, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2000.
133. Kohen, Andrew I.
Parnes, Herbert S.
Shea, John R.
Income Instability Among Young and Middle-Aged Men
In: Personal Distribution of Income and Wealth. J. Smith, ed. New York, NY: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1975.
Also: Center for Human Resource Research, 1973.
Cohort(s): Older Men, Young Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Earnings; Household Income

In this paper, the authors attempt: (1) to quantify the influence on measured income inequality of lengthening the accounting period; (2) to describe the mechanism through which income instability among male heads of household is manifested (e.g., changes in sources of income, hours worked, and wage rates); and (3) to identify some of the demographic and economic characteristics of those household heads whose income is "unstable" over a two-or three- year period, in the sense of changing at above-average or below-average rates.
Bibliography Citation
Kohen, Andrew I., Herbert S. Parnes and John R. Shea. "Income Instability Among Young and Middle-Aged Men" In: Personal Distribution of Income and Wealth. J. Smith, ed. New York, NY: National Bureau of Economic Research, 1975.
134. Korenman, Sanders D.
Winship, Christopher
A Reanalysis of The Bell Curve
NBER Working Paper No. 5230, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1995.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w5230
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Crime; Family Background and Culture; I.Q.; Marriage; Parents, Single; Siblings; Socioeconomic Status (SES); Welfare

In The Bell Curve Herrnstein and Murray argue that a youth's intelligence (IQ) is a more important determinant of social and economic success in adulthood than is the socioeconomic status (SES) of his or her parents. Herrnstein and Murray base this conclusion on comparison of effects of IQ score (measured at ages 15 and 23) and the effects of an index of parents' SES from models of economic status, marriage, welfare use, involvement in crime, as well as several outcomes for young children. Reviewers of The Bell Curve have questioned whether Herrnstein and Murray's estimates of the effects of IQ are overstated by their use of a rather crude measure of parents' SES. Comparisons of siblings in the Herrnstein and Murray sample, a more complete and accurate way to control for family background, reveal little evidence that Herrnstein and Murray's estimates of the effects of IQ score are biased by omitted family background characteristics (with the possible exception of outcomes for young children). However, there is evidence of substantial bias due to measurement error in their estimates of the effects of parents' socioeconomic status. In addition, Herrnstein and Murray's measure of parental SES fails to capture the effects of important elements of family background (such as single-parent family structure at age 14). As a result, their analysis gives an exaggerated impression of the importance of IQ relative to parents' SES, and relative to family background more generally. Estimates based on a variety of methods, including analyses of siblings, suggest that parental family background is at least as important, and may be more important than IQ in determining socioeconomic success in adulthood. This paper is available in PDF (1578 K) format: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W5230.pdf
Bibliography Citation
Korenman, Sanders D. and Christopher Winship. "A Reanalysis of The Bell Curve." NBER Working Paper No. 5230, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 1995.
135. Kruse, Douglas L.
Mahony, Douglas
Illegal Child Labor in the United States: Prevalence and Characteristics
NBER Working Paper No. 6479, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1998.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w6479
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Child Health; Child Labor; Children; Children, Well-Being; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Data Quality/Consistency; Illegal Activities; Labor Market, Secondary; Labor Supply; Work Hours/Schedule

This study provides the first comprehensive estimates of children and youth working under conditions that violate federal and state child labor laws. Using the CPS, NLS, and other sources, it is estimated that 148,000 minors are employed illegally in an average week-working too many hours or in hazardous occupations-and 290,000 are employed illegally at some point during a year. The total number of hours worked illegally is about 113 million per year, for which these minors are paid over $560 million. Whites, males, and 1 15-year-olds are the most likely to be working in volation of child labor laws. Youths working illegally in hazardous jobs earn on average $ 1.38 per hour less than legal young adults in the same occupations, which combined with the savings from employing youths for excessive hours adds up to a total employer cost savings of roughly $155 million per year. In addition to raising important policy concerns about the health and well-being of these youths, the findings make a case for the development of high-quality employment data on children and youths, to improve estimates of illegal employment and study its effects.
Bibliography Citation
Kruse, Douglas L. and Douglas Mahony. "Illegal Child Labor in the United States: Prevalence and Characteristics." NBER Working Paper No. 6479, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1998.
136. Levine, Phillip B.
Gustafson, Tara A.
Velenchik, Ann D.
More Bad News for Smokers? The Effects of Cigarette Smoking on Labor Market Outcomes
NBER Working Paper No. 5270, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 1995.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5270
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Cigarette Use (see Smoking); Employment; Heterogeneity; Household Structure; Labor Market Outcomes; Modeling; Siblings; State Welfare; Wage Differentials; Wages

This paper uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine the effect of smoking on wages and employment. The panel nature and household structure of these data enable us to implement methods to account for differences in observed and unobserved individual characteristics that may be correlated with both smoking and wages. Changes in wages associated with changes in smoking behavior and models that utilize sibling comparisons are estimated to address the potential heterogeneity problem. Estimates from alternative specifications all indicate that smoking reduces wages by roughly 4-8%. No robust, statistically significant effect on employment is observed. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5270
Bibliography Citation
Levine, Phillip B., Tara A. Gustafson and Ann D. Velenchik. "More Bad News for Smokers? The Effects of Cigarette Smoking on Labor Market Outcomes." NBER Working Paper No. 5270, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 1995.
137. Levine, Phillip B.
Trainor, Amy B.
Zimmerman, David J.
The Effect of Medicaid Abortion Funding Restrictions on Abortions, Pregnancies, and Births
NBER Working Paper No. 5066, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1995.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5066
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Abortion; Behavior; Childbearing; Fertility; Government Regulation; Medicaid/Medicare; Poverty; Pregnancy and Pregnancy Outcomes; State Welfare

This paper considers whether state Medicaid abortion funding restrictions affect the likelihood of getting pregnant, having an abortion, and bearing a child. Aggregate, state-level data and microdata from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) are applied in the empirical work. Changes in laws resulting from Supreme Court decisions create a natural experiment which is utilized to examine fertility behavior. Multivariate models controlling for state and, in the NLSY, personal characteristics are also estimated using alternative fixed effect specifications. We find that Medicaid funding restrictions are associated with a reduction in both the number of abortions and pregnancies, resulting in either no change or a reduction in births. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5066
Bibliography Citation
Levine, Phillip B., Amy B. Trainor and David J. Zimmerman. "The Effect of Medicaid Abortion Funding Restrictions on Abortions, Pregnancies, and Births." NBER Working Paper No. 5066, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1995.
138. Levine, Phillip B.
Zimmerman, David J.
An Empirical Analysis of the Welfare Magnet Debate Using the NLSY
NBER Working Paper No. 5264, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 1995.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5264.
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Migration; Migration Patterns; State Welfare; Welfare

This paper examines the extent to which differences in welfare generosity across states leads to interstate migration. Using microdata from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) between 1979 and 1992, we employ a quasi-experimental design that utilizes the categorical eligibility of the welfare system. The pattern of cross-state moves among poor single women with children who are likely to be eligible for benefits is compared to the pattern among other poor households. We find little evidence indicating that welfare-induced migration is a widespread phenomenon. Full-text available on-line at http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5264; and Discussion Paper No. 1098-96, Institute for Research on Poverty, University of Wisconsin - Madison, July 1996, http://www.ssc.wisc.edu/irp
Bibliography Citation
Levine, Phillip B. and David J. Zimmerman. "An Empirical Analysis of the Welfare Magnet Debate Using the NLSY." NBER Working Paper No. 5264, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 1995.
139. Levine, Phillip B.
Zimmerman, David J.
Children's Welfare Exposure and Subsequent Development
NBER Working Paper No. 7522, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2000.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7522
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Children, Poverty; Hispanics; Household Income; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Mothers, Income; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Siblings; Variables, Instrumental; Welfare

We examine the extent to which children are exposed to the welfare system through their mother's receipt of benefits and its impact on several developmental outcomes. Using data from the matched mother-child file from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), we find that children's welfare exposure is substantial. By age 10 over one-third of all children will have lived in a welfare household; black, non-Hispanic children face a much higher rate of exposure. Simple correlations suggest a strong negative relationship between maternal welfare receipt and children's outcomes. In this paper we implement three alternative strategies (instrumental variables, sibling difference, and child fixed effects models) designed to identify whether this correlation can be attributed to the mother's welfare receipt directly or to other characteristics of mothers who receive welfare, regardless of whether or not those characteristics are observable to the researcher. Based on the results of all three estimation strategies, we find little evidence of any causal link between maternal welfare receipt and children's developmental outcomes.
Bibliography Citation
Levine, Phillip B. and David J. Zimmerman. "Children's Welfare Exposure and Subsequent Development." NBER Working Paper No. 7522, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2000.
140. Lochner, Lance John
Education, Work, and Crime a Human Capital Approach
NBER Working Paper No. 10478, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2004.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w10478.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Crime; Educational Attainment; Human Capital; Modeling; Self-Reporting; Training

This paper develops a model of crime in which human capital increases the opportunity cost of crime from foregone work and expected costs associated with incarceration. Older, more intelligent, and more educated adults should commit fewer street (unskilled) crimes. White collar crimes decline less (or increase) with age and education. Predictions for age-crime and education-crime relationships receive broad empirical support in self-report data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and arrest data from the Uniform Crime Reports. The effects of education, training, and wage subsidies, as well as enforcement policies on criminal behavior are discussed
Bibliography Citation
Lochner, Lance John. "Education, Work, and Crime a Human Capital Approach." NBER Working Paper No. 10478, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2004.
141. Lochner, Lance John
Individual Perceptions of the Criminal Justice System
NBER Working Paper No. 9474, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2003.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9474.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Arrests; Crime; Delinquency/Gang Activity

This paper empirically examines perceptions of the criminal justice system held by young males using longitudinal survey data from the recent National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 Cohort and the National Youth Survey. While beliefs about the probability of an arrest are positively correlated with local official arrest rates, they are largely idiosyncratic and unresponsive to information about the arrests of other random individuals and local neighborhood conditions. There is little support, therefore, for the 'broken windows' theory of Wilson and Kelling (1982). Yet, perceptions do respond to changes in an individual's own criminal and arrest history. Young males who engage in crime but are not arrested revise their perceived probability of arrest downward, while those who are arrested revise their probability upwards. Beliefs respond similarly to changes in a sibling's criminal and arrest history. The perceived probability of arrest is then linked to subsequent criminal behavior. Cross-sectionally, youth with a lower perceived probability of arrest are significantly more likely to engage in crime during subsequent periods. Following an arrest, individuals commit less crime, consistent with deterrence theory and the fact that their perceived probability of arrest increases.

Earlier versions of this paper are available at:
http://www.econ.rochester.edu/lochner/arrest_probability.pdf
http://adfdell.pstc.brown.edu/papers/loch02.pdf

Bibliography Citation
Lochner, Lance John. "Individual Perceptions of the Criminal Justice System." NBER Working Paper No. 9474, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2003.
142. Lochner, Lance John
Moretti, Enrico
The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests, and Self-Reports
NBER Working Paper No. 8605, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2001.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w8605.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Arrests; Census of Population; Crime; Endogeneity; High School Completion/Graduates; Incarceration/Jail; Racial Differences; Schooling; Self-Reporting

We estimate the effect of high school graduation on participation in criminal activity accounting for endogeneity of schooling. We begin by analyzing the effect of high school graduation on incarceration using Census data. Instrumental variable estimates using changes in state compulsory attendance laws as an instrument for high school graduation uncover a significant reduction in incarceration for both blacks and whites. When estimating the impact of high school graduation only, OLS and IV estimators estimate different weighted sums of the impact of each schooling progression on the probability of incarceration. We clarify the relationship between OLS and IV estimates and show that the 'weights' placed on the impact of each schooling progression can explain differences in the estimates. Overall, the estimates suggest that completing high school reduces the probability of incarceration by about .76 percentage points for whites and 3.4 percentage points for blacks. We corroborate these findings using FBI data on arrests that distinguish among different types of crimes. The biggest impacts of graduation are associated with murder, assault, and motor vehicle theft. We also examine the effect of drop out on self-reported crime in the NLSY and find that our estimates for imprisonment and arrest are caused by changes in criminal behavior and not educational differences in the probability of arrest or incarceration conditional on crime. We estimate that the externality of education is about 14-26% of the private return to schooling, suggesting that a significant part of the social return to education comes in the form of externalities from crime reduction.
Bibliography Citation
Lochner, Lance John and Enrico Moretti. "The Effect of Education on Crime: Evidence from Prison Inmates, Arrests, and Self-Reports." NBER Working Paper No. 8605, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2001.
143. Lusardi, Annamaria
Financial Literacy: An Essential Tool for Informed Consumer Choice?
NBER Working Paper 14084, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2008.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14084
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Demography; Economics of Minorities; Financial Investments; Literacy; Savings

Increasingly, individuals are in charge of their own financial security and are confronted with ever more complex financial instruments. However, there is evidence that many individuals are not well-equipped to make sound saving decisions. This paper demonstrates widespread financial illiteracy among the U.S. population, particularly among specific demographic groups. Those with low education, women, African-Americans, and Hispanics display particularly low levels of literacy. Financial literacy impacts financial decision-making. Failure to plan for retirement, lack of participation in the stock market, and poor borrowing behavior can all be linked to ignorance of basic financial concepts. While financial education programs can result in improved saving behavior and financial decision-making, much can be done to improve these programs' effectiveness.
Bibliography Citation
Lusardi, Annamaria. "Financial Literacy: An Essential Tool for Informed Consumer Choice?" NBER Working Paper 14084, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2008.
144. Lynch, Lisa M.
Private Sector Training and Its Impact on the Earnings of Young Workers
NBER Working Paper No. 2872, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1989.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W2872
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Apprenticeships; Educational Returns; Gender Differences; Job Training; Private Sector; Racial Differences; Training; Unions; Wages, Youth

While there have been numerous studies devoted to examining the impact of governmental training programs on workers who have experienced difficulties in the labor market, there has been remarkably little research on the actual occurrence and consequences of training provided by the private sector in the U.S. Using data from the NLSY, this paper analyzes how personal characteristics including employment histories, and local demand conditions determine the probability of receiving training and its effect on wages and wage growth of young workers. More specifically, some of the issues addressed here include the relative importance of training and tenure for wage determination and the rate of return to company provided training compared to the rate of return to training received outside the firm and schooling. The portability of company training from employer to employer and the existence of differentials in the returns to training by union status, race and sex are also investigated.
Bibliography Citation
Lynch, Lisa M. "Private Sector Training and Its Impact on the Earnings of Young Workers." NBER Working Paper No. 2872, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1989.
145. MaCurdy, Thomas E.
Using Information on the Moments of Disturbances to Increase the Efficiency of Estimation
NBER Technical Working Paper No. 022, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 1982.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/T0022
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Data Quality/Consistency; Educational Returns; Schooling; Treatment Response: Monotone, Semimonotone, or Concave-monotone; Variables, Independent - Covariate; Wages; Wages, Men

Econometric analyses of treatment response commonly use instrumental variable (IV) assumptions to identify treatment effects. Yet the credibility of IV assumptions is often a matter of considerable disagreement, with much debate about whether some covariate is or is not a 'valid instrument' in an application of interest. There is therefore good reason to consider weaker but more credible assumptions. To this end, we introduce monotone instrumental variable (MIV) assumptions. A particularly interesting special case of an MIV assumption is monotone treatment selection (MTS). IV and MIV assumptions may be imposed alone or in combination with other assumptions. We study the identifying power of MIV assumptions in three informational settings: MIV alone; MIV combined with the classical linear response assumption; MIV combined with the monotone treatment response (MTR) assumption. We apply the results to the problem of inference on the returns to schooling. We analyze wage data reported by white male respondents to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) and use the respondent's AFQT score as an MIV. We find that this MIV assumption has little identifying power when imposed alone. However, combining the MIV assumption with the MTR and MTS assumptions yields fairly tight bounds on two distinct measures of the returns to schooling.
Bibliography Citation
MaCurdy, Thomas E. "Using Information on the Moments of Disturbances to Increase the Efficiency of Estimation." NBER Technical Working Paper No. 022, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 1982.
146. Mehay, Stephen L.
Pacula, Rosalie Liccardo
Effectiveness of Workplace Drug Prevention Policies: Does 'Zero Tolerance' Work?
NBER Working Paper No. 7383, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1999.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w7383.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Drug Use; Military Service; Punishment, Criminal; Substance Use

Workplace drug testing programs are becoming increasingly more common although there is little research demonstrating that they have any effect on drug use by employees. This paper analyzes the deterrence effect of a particularly aggressive workplace drug-testing policy implemented by the military in 1981. The military's policy incorporates random drug testing of current employees and zero tolerance. Using data from various years of the Department of Defense's Worldwide Survey of Health Related Behaviors and the NHSDA, we find illicit drug prevalence rates among military personnel are significantly lower than civilian rates in years after the implementation of the program but not before, suggesting a sizeable deterrence effect. These basic findings are replicated with data from the NLSY. The NLSY are also used to explore sensitivity of the deterrence effect to the probability of detection and severity of punishment, which varied across military branches during the first few years of the program's implementation.
Bibliography Citation
Mehay, Stephen L. and Rosalie Liccardo Pacula. "Effectiveness of Workplace Drug Prevention Policies: Does 'Zero Tolerance' Work?" NBER Working Paper No. 7383, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1999.
147. Michelacci, Claudio
Quadrini, Vincenzo
Financial Markets and Wages
NBER Working Paper No. 11050, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2005.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11050.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Family Size; Modeling; Skilled Workers; Wage Equations; Wage Levels

We study a labor market equilibrium model in which firms sign optimal long-term contracts with workers. Firms that are financially constrained offer an increasing wage profile: They pay lower wages today in exchange of higher wages once they become unconstrained and operate at a larger scale. In equilibrium, constrained firms are on average smaller and pay lower wages. In this way the model generates a positive relation between firm size and wages. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) we show that the key dynamic properties of the model are supported by the data.
Bibliography Citation
Michelacci, Claudio and Vincenzo Quadrini. "Financial Markets and Wages." NBER Working Paper No. 11050, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2005.
148. Moore, Michael J.
Cook, Philip J.
Habit and Heterogeneity in the Youthful Demand for Alcohol
NBER Working Paper No. 5152, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 1995.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w5152
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Addiction; Adolescent Behavior; Alcohol Use; Heterogeneity

Observed patterns of youthful drinking indicate substantial persistence. This paper analyzes how much of that persistence reflects the actual development of a habit, and how much is due to unobserved aspects of the individual and the environment. The role of restrictions on alcohol availability, both in the current period and in adolescence, is also explored. We find that much of the observed persistence represents habit formation, and not unobserved characteristics. Consequently, restrictions on availability, particularly at an early age, alter subsequent patterns of alcohol consumption and abuse. This paper is available in PDF (1408 K) format: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W5152.pdf
Bibliography Citation
Moore, Michael J. and Philip J. Cook. "Habit and Heterogeneity in the Youthful Demand for Alcohol." NBER Working Paper No. 5152, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 1995.
149. Moretti, Enrico
Estimating the Social Return to Higher Education: Evidence From Longitudinal and Repeated Cross-Sectional Data
NBER Working Paper No. 9108, National Bureau of Economic Research, University of California - Los Angeles, August 2002.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w8605.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Census of Population; College Graduates; Education; Modeling; Wage Rates

Economists have speculated for at least a century that the social return to education may exceed the private return. In this paper, I estimate spillovers from college education by comparing wages for otherwise similar individuals who work in cities with different shares of college graduates in the labor force. OLS estimates show a large positive relationship between the share of college graduates in a city and individual wages, over and above the private return to education. A key issue in this comparison is the presence of unobservable individual characteristics, such as ability, that may raise wages and be correlated with college share. I use a confidential version of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) to estimate a model of non-random selection of workers among cities. By observing the same individual over time, I can control for differences in unobserved ability across individuals and differences in the return to skills across cities. I then investigate the hypothesis that the correlation between college share and wages is due to unobservable city-specific shocks that may raise wages and attract more highly educated workers to different cities. To control for this source of potential bias, I turn to Census data and use two instrumental variables: the lagged city demographic structure and the presence of a land-grant college. The results from Census data are remarkably consistent with those based on the NLSY sample. A percentage point increase in the supply of college graduates raises high school drop-outs' wages by 1.9%, high school graduates' wages by 1.6%, and college graduates wages by 0.4%. The effect is larger for less educated groups, as predicted by a conventional demand and supply model. But even for college graduates, an increase in the supply of college graduates increases wages, as predicted by a model that includes conventional demand and supply factors as well as spillovers.
Bibliography Citation
Moretti, Enrico. "Estimating the Social Return to Higher Education: Evidence From Longitudinal and Repeated Cross-Sectional Data." NBER Working Paper No. 9108, National Bureau of Economic Research, University of California - Los Angeles, August 2002.
150. Mulligan, Casey B.
Rubinstein, Yona
Selection, Investment, and Women's Relative Wages Since 1975
NBER Working Paper No. W11159, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2005
Cohort(s): NLSY79, Young Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Gender Differences; Modeling, Hazard/Event History/Survival/Duration; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Wage Differentials; Wage Gap; Wage Growth; Wages, Women

In theory, growing wage inequality within gender should cause women to invest more in their market productivity and should differentially pull able women into the workforce, thereby closing the measured gender gap even though women's wages might have grown less than men's had their behavior been held constant. Using the CPS repeated cross-sections between 1975 and 2001, we use control function (Heckit) methods to correct married women's conditional mean wages for selectivity and investment biases. Our estimates suggest that selection of women into the labor market has changed sign, from negative to positive, or at least that positive selectivity bias has come to overwhelm investment bias. The estimates also explain why measured women's relative wage growth coincided with growth of wage inequality within-gender, and attribute the measured gender wage gap closure to changing selectivity and investment biases, rather than relative increases in women's earning potential. Using PSID waves 1975-93 to control for the changing female workforce with person-fixed effects, we also find little growth in women's mean log wages. Finally, we make a first attempt to gauge the relative importance of selection versus investment biases, by examining the family and cognitive backgrounds of members of the female workforce. PSID, NLS, and NLSY data sets show how the cross-section correlation between female employment and family/cognitive background has changed from "negative" to "positive" over the last thirty years, in amounts that might be large enough to attribute most of women's relative wage growth to changing selectivity bias.
Bibliography Citation
Mulligan, Casey B. and Yona Rubinstein. "Selection, Investment, and Women's Relative Wages Since 1975." NBER Working Paper No. W11159, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2005.
151. Munasinghe, Lalith Roshan
Sicherman, Nachum
Wage Dynamics and Unobserved Heterogeneity: Time Preference or Learning Ability?
NBER Working Paper No. 11031, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w11031.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Heterogeneity; Modeling; Wage Differentials; Wage Growth; Wage Rates

A large portion of the variation in wages and wage growth rates among individuals is due to "unobserved" heterogeneity, and the source of individual heterogeneity is typically attributed to data limitations and/or the unobservability of certain productivity related factors. In this paper we develop a test that discriminates between two inherently unobservable sources of heterogeneity (both of which can clearly account for the variation in wages and wage growth rates): learning ability and workers' inter-temporal preferences (discounting). We apply this test to the large observed differences in wages and wage growth rates between smokers and non-smokers. The evidence supports the discounting hypothesis.

Data are from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth are used to test their model. They find that the interaction term in their equations are negative, that the result supports the time preference alternative, and that the result is robust across several model specifications and controls. Thus, they conclude that research on the sources of individual discount rates would be a fruitful direction for wage research to follow.

Bibliography Citation
Munasinghe, Lalith Roshan and Nachum Sicherman. "Wage Dynamics and Unobserved Heterogeneity: Time Preference or Learning Ability?" NBER Working Paper No. 11031, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005.
152. Munshi, Kaivan
Wilson, Nicholas
Identity, Parochial Institutions, and Occupational Choice: Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest
NBER Working Paper 13717, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2008.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w13717.pdf
Cohort(s): NLS General, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Endogeneity; Ethnic Groups/Ethnicity; Immigrants; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Labor Market Demographics; Mobility, Labor Market; Occupational Choice; Religion

This paper documents the presence of non-economic career motivations in the U.S. labor market, explores reasons why such motivations could arise, and provides an explanation for why they might have persisted across many generations. The analysis links ethnic (migrant) labor market networks in the American Midwest when it was first being settled, the local identity or attachment to place that emerged endogenously to maintain the integrity of these networks, and occupational choice today. While fractionalization may adversely affect the performance of secular institutions, ethnic competition in the labor market could at the same time have strengthened within-group loyalty and parochial institutions. These values and their complementary institutions, notably the church, could have mutually reinforced each other over many overlapping generations, long after the networks themselves had ceased to be salient. Counties with greater ethnic fractionalization in 1860 are indeed associated with steadily increasing participation in select religious denominations historically dominated by the migrants all the way through the twentieth century. Complementing this result, individuals born in high fractionalization counties are significantly less likely to select into geographically mobile professional occupations and, hence, to migrate out of their county of birth, despite the fact that these counties are indistinguishable from low fractionalization counties in terms of local public good provision and economic activity today.
Bibliography Citation
Munshi, Kaivan and Nicholas Wilson. "Identity, Parochial Institutions, and Occupational Choice: Linking the Past to the Present in the American Midwest." NBER Working Paper 13717, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2008.
153. Murnane, Richard J.
Willett, John B.
Boudett, Kathryn Parker
Does Acquisition of a GED Lead to More Training, Post-Secondary Education, and Military Service for School Dropouts?
NBER Working Paper No. 5992, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 1997.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5992
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): GED/General Educational Diploma/General Equivalency Degree/General Educational Development; Military Service; Modeling, Probit; School Dropouts; Schooling, Post-secondary; Training

This paper uses longitudinal data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to examine whether acquisition of a GED increases the probability that male and female school dropouts obtain training, post-secondary education, or military service. Random effects probit models are used to account for both the dichotomous nature of the dependent variables and non-zero correlations among error terms pertaining to different years of data for the same individual. We find that acquisition of a GED increases the probability that school dropouts obtain post-secondary education and the probability that they obtain non-company training defined as training provided by government or by proprietary schools. However, it is still the case that the majority of GED recipients obtain no post-secondary education or training through the age of 26. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5992
Bibliography Citation
Murnane, Richard J., John B. Willett and Kathryn Parker Boudett. "Does Acquisition of a GED Lead to More Training, Post-Secondary Education, and Military Service for School Dropouts?" NBER Working Paper No. 5992, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 1997.
154. Neal, Derek A.
The Complexity of Job Mobility Among Young Men
NBER Working Paper No. 6662, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1998.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6662
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Job Satisfaction; Life Cycle Research; Mobility, Occupational; Occupational Aspirations; Work History

Examines how complexity changes during a worker\'s life cycle, and workers' concerns with his or her match with career and employer; based on work history data about 3,003 cases from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY).
Bibliography Citation
Neal, Derek A. "The Complexity of Job Mobility Among Young Men." NBER Working Paper No. 6662, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1998.
155. Neal, Derek A.
The Effect of Catholic Secondary Schooling on Educational Attainment
NBER Working Paper No. 5353, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 1995.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5353
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Education, Secondary; Educational Attainment; Minorities; Minority Groups; Schooling

Based on data from the National Catholic Educational Association and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this paper provides a detailed analysis of the effect of Catholic secondary schooling on high-school graduation rates and also examines Catholic schooling's effect on college graduation rates and future wages. The paper uses data from the National Catholic Educational and the Survey of Churches and Church Membership to construct measures of access to Catholic secondary schooling for each county in the United States. These measures of access provide potential instruments for Catholic school attendance. The results indicate that Catholic secondary schools are geographically concentrated in urban areas and that Catholic schooling greatly increases educational attainment among urban minorities. The gains from Catholic schooling are modest for urban whites and negligible for suburban whites. Related analyses suggest that urban minorities benefit greatly from access to Catholic schooling primarily because the public schools available to them are quite poor. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5353
Bibliography Citation
Neal, Derek A. "The Effect of Catholic Secondary Schooling on Educational Attainment." NBER Working Paper No. 5353, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 1995.
156. Neal, Derek A.
The Measured Black-White Wage Gap among Women Is Too Small
NBER Working Paper No. 9133, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 2002.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9133.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Census of Population; Current Population Survey (CPS) / CPS-Fertility Supplement; Income; Labor Supply; Racial Differences; Wage Gap; Wages; Wages, Women; Women

Taken as a whole, the literature on black-white wage inequality suggests that racial gaps in potential wages are much larger among men than women, and further that one can accurately assess black-white gaps in potential wages among women without accounting for black-white differences in patterns of female labor supply. This paper challenges both pieces of this conventional wisdom. I provide several estimates of the black-white gap in potential wages for the year 1990 using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), a panel data set that includes persons born between 1957 and 1964. I exploit data on wages and income sources for years before and after 1990 to develop imputation methods that allow me to adjust measures of the black-white wage gap among women for racial differences in selection patterns. Among young adult employed women in 1990, the Census, Current Population Surveys, and NLSY data yield median log wage gaps of -.11, -.16, and -.18 respectively. Based on several different imputation procedures, I estimate that the median black-white gap in log potential wages among women in the NLSY is apporoximately -.25.
Bibliography Citation
Neal, Derek A. "The Measured Black-White Wage Gap among Women Is Too Small." NBER Working Paper No. 9133, National Bureau of Economic Research, September 2002.
157. Neal, Derek A.
Johnson, William R.
The Role of Pre-Market Factors in Black-White Wage Differences
NBER Working Paper No. 5124, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 1995.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5124
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Discrimination, Racial/Ethnic; Family Background and Culture; Labor Market Segmentation; Racial Differences; Schooling, Post-secondary; Skills; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT; Wage Differentials; Wage Gap

Many attempts to measure the wage effects of current labor market discrimination against minorities include controls for worker productivity that (1) could themselves be affected by market discrimination and (2) are very imprecise measures of worker skill. The resulting estimates of residual wage gaps may be biased. Our approach is a parsimoniously specified wage equation which controls for skill with the score of a test administered as teenagers prepared to leave high school and embark on work careers or post-secondary education. Independent evidence shows that this test score is a racially unbiased measure of the skills and abilities these teenagers were about to bring to the labor market. We find that this one test score explains all of the black-white wage gap for young women and much of the gap for young men. For today's young adults, the black-white wage gap primarily reflects a skill gap, which in turn can be traced. at least in part, to observable differences in the family backgrounds and school environments of black and white children. While our results do provide some evidence of current labor market discrimination, skill gaps play such a large role that we believe future research should focus on the obstacles black children face in acquiring productive skills. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5124
Bibliography Citation
Neal, Derek A. and William R. Johnson. "The Role of Pre-Market Factors in Black-White Wage Differences." NBER Working Paper No. 5124, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 1995.
158. Neumark, David B.
Korenman, Sanders D.
Sources of Bias in Women's Wage Equations: Results Using Sibling Data
NBER Working Paper No. 4019, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1992.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W4019
Cohort(s): Young Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Educational Attainment; Endogeneity; Family Size; Gender Differences; Job Tenure; Marital Status; Racial Differences; Siblings; Simultaneity; Wage Equations; Wages, Women; Work Experience

We use data on sisters to jointly address heterogeneity bias and endogeneity bias in estimates of wage equations for women. This analysis yields evidence of biases in OLS estimates of wage equations for white and black women, some of which are detected only when these two sources of bias are addressed simultaneously. For both white and black women there is evidence of upward bias in the estimated returns to schooling. Bias-corrected estimates of the effect of marriage on wages, for white women, suggest a positive marriage premium. We also use the sibling data to identify our models, and test a number of other commonly used identifying assumptions as overidentifying restrictions.
Bibliography Citation
Neumark, David B. and Sanders D. Korenman. "Sources of Bias in Women's Wage Equations: Results Using Sibling Data." NBER Working Paper No. 4019, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1992.
159. Neumark, David B.
Rothstein, Donna S.
Do School-To-Work Programs Help the "Forgotten Half"?
NBER Working Paper No. 11636, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge MA, September 2005.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/W11636
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Apprenticeships; Gender Differences; Program Participation/Evaluation; Training, Post-School; Transition, School to Work; Vocational Guidance; Vocational Rehabilitation

This paper tests whether school-to-work (STW) programs are particularly beneficial for those less likely to go to college in their absence--often termed the "forgotten half"' in the STW literature. The empirical analysis is based on the NLSY97, which allows us to study six types of STW programs, including job shadowing, mentoring, coop, school enterprises, tech prep, and internships/apprenticeships. For men there is quite a bit of evidence that STW program participation is particularly advantageous for those in the forgotten half. For these men, specifically, mentoring and coop programs increase post-secondary education, and coop, school enterprise, and internship/apprenticeship programs boost employment and decrease idleness after leaving high school. There is less evidence that STW programs are particularly beneficial for women in the forgotten half, although internship/apprenticeship programs do lead to positive earnings effects concentrated among these women. (Abstract by the author.)
Bibliography Citation
Neumark, David B. and Donna S. Rothstein. "Do School-To-Work Programs Help the "Forgotten Half"?" NBER Working Paper No. 11636, National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge MA, September 2005.
160. Neumark, David B.
Rothstein, Donna S.
School-to-Career Programs and Transitions to Employment and Higher Education
NBER Working Paper No. 10060, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2003.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10060.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Employment; High School Completion/Graduates; High School Curriculum; Higher Education; Transition, School to Work

The 1994 Federal School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STWOA) provided more than $1.5 billion over five years to support increased career preparation activities in the country's public schools. However, the STWOA was not re-authorized, so state governments face decisions about levels of funding support for school-to-career (STC) programs. Coupled with the availability of a new longitudinal data source with rich information on STC programs the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY97) it is therefore an opportune time to study the effectiveness of STC programs. This paper uses the NLSY97 to assess the effects of STC programs on transitions to employment and higher education among youths leaving high school, with a focus on estimating the causal effects of this participation given possible non-random selection of youths into STC programs.
Bibliography Citation
Neumark, David B. and Donna S. Rothstein. "School-to-Career Programs and Transitions to Employment and Higher Education." NBER Working Paper No. 10060, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2003.
161. Neumark, David B.
Taubman, Paul
Why Do Wage Profiles Slope Upwards? Tests of the General Human Capital Model
NBER Working Paper No. 4688, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1994.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W4688
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Human Capital Theory; Wage Growth; Wage Levels; Wage Theory; Work Experience

This paper presents tests of the Lazear contract, human capital, and forced-saving explanations of rising wage profiles. The human capital model of general investment implies that the ratio of the present value of the earnings stream of investors to that of non-investors equals one. In contrast, the Lazear model implies that the ratio of the present value of the earnings stream for those on rising profiles to those on flat profiles exceeds one, while the forced-saving model implies that this ratio is below one. One test exploits a weaker form of this implication, that those with higher rates of growth of wages, all else the same, have lower initial wages. The forced-saving hypothesis also predicts a negative correlation between wage levels and rates of growth, while the Lazear model could generate a positive correlation. The evidence points to a correlation that is either positive or zero, consistent with the Lazear model but neither the human capital nor the forced-saving model. A second test makes direct use of the implications for present values. Under a variety of assumptions regarding discount rates and wage equation specifications, the results provide no evidence consistent with the forced-saving hypothesis, unless discount rates are near zero. But the calculations are somewhat inconclusive regarding the human capital and Lazear hypotheses; each receives some support depending on the assumed discount rate and wage equation specification. Nonetheless, under a variety of assumptions this test provides evidence supporting the Lazear hypothesis.
Bibliography Citation
Neumark, David B. and Paul Taubman. "Why Do Wage Profiles Slope Upwards? Tests of the General Human Capital Model." NBER Working Paper No. 4688, National Bureau of Economic Research, March 1994.
162. Norberg, Karen
Effects of Daycare Reconsidered
NBER Working Paper No. 6769, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1998.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6769
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Child Care; Child Development; Child Health; Children, Illness; Disability; Maternal Employment; Motor and Social Development (MSD); Re-employment; Temperament; Work History

Abstract: Do children of employed mothers differ from other children, even before mother's (re)entry to the labor force? Preexisting differences among children may be an alternative explanation for many apparent daycare outcome effects. Data from the 1994 wave of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth were available for 6603 singleton infants followed from birth. Mothers of children with intrauterine growth retardation, birth defects, or extended hospitalization at birth began working significantly later after the birth of the child, and mothers of infants with higher development scores and more difficult temperament, and mothers of healthy premature infants, began working significantly earlier. The associations with newborn health persisted when the comparisons were made among siblings. The magnitudes of the effects were large enough to have practical importance. After controlling for both observed and unobserved differences between families, a mother was only 50% as likely to have been employed at all in the first five years after the birth of a high risk infant. About 20% of low-income newborns in the sample were classified as problems may therefore have resulted in a 10% lower labor force participation rate among low-income mothers of children under five. Examines the possibility that infant health, temperament, and development may have significant effects on mothers' employment; focuses on work history, timing of job (re)entry, allocation of household resources, and four indicators of newborns' health; 1980-94, chiefly; US. Based on data for 6,603 infants followed from birth, from the 1994 wave of the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.
Bibliography Citation
Norberg, Karen. "Effects of Daycare Reconsidered." NBER Working Paper No. 6769, National Bureau of Economic Research, 1998.
163. Oyer, Paul
Salary or Benefits?
NBER Working Paper No. 11817, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11817.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Benefits; Child Care; Firm Size; Firms; Insurance, Health; Modeling

Employer-provided benefits are a large and growing share of compensation costs. In this paper, I consider three factors that can affect the value created by employer-sponsored benefits. First, firms have a comparative advantage (for example, due to scale economies or tax treatment) in purchasing relative to employees. This advantage can vary across firms based on size and other differences in cost structure. Second, employees differ in their valuations of benefits and it is costly for workers to match with firms that offer the benefits they value. Finally, some benefits can reduce the marginal cost to an employee of extra working time. I develop a simple model that integrates these factors. I then generate empirical implications of the model and use data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to test these implications. I examine access to employer-provided meals, child-care, dental insurance, and health insurance. I also study how benefits are grouped together and differences between benefits packages at for-profit, not-for-profit, and government employers. The empirical analysis provides evidence consistent with all three factors in the model contributing to firms' decisions about which benefits to offer.
Bibliography Citation
Oyer, Paul. "Salary or Benefits?" NBER Working Paper No. 11817, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005.
164. Pacula, Rosalie Liccardo
Adolescent Alcohol and Marijuana Consumption: Is there Really a Gateway Effect?
NBER Working Paper No. 6348, National Bureau of Economic Research, January, 1997.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6348
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Cigarette Use (see Smoking); Drug Use; Heterogeneity; Modeling; Substance Use

This research analyzes the contemporaneous and intertemporal relationship between the demands for alcohol and marijuana by youths and young adults. A general theory of multi-commodity habit formation is developed and tested using data from the 1983-1984 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. An Adjusted Tobit specification is employed for estimating the empirical model. Habit persistence is distinguished from unobserved heterogeneity through a reduced form instrumental variable technique. The results show that higher beer prices significantly reduce the demand for both alcohol and marijuana, indicating a contemporaneous complementarity between these two substances even after controlling for commodity-specific habit formation. Further, prior use of alcohol and cigarettes significantly increases the likelihood of currently using marijuana, providing evidence in support of the gateway hypothesis. Full-text available on-line:http://nber.nber.org/papers/W6348
Bibliography Citation
Pacula, Rosalie Liccardo. "Adolescent Alcohol and Marijuana Consumption: Is there Really a Gateway Effect?" NBER Working Paper No. 6348, National Bureau of Economic Research, January, 1997.
165. Pollak, Robert A.
Ginther, Donna K.
Does Family Structure Affect Children's Educational Outcomes?
NBER Working Paper No. 9628, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2003.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/9628
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Children, Academic Development; Children, Behavioral Development; Education; Endogeneity; Family Structure; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Siblings; Taxes

This paper makes two contributions. First, it adds to the growing literature describing correlations between children's educational outcomes and family structure. Although popular discussions focus on the distinction between two-parent families and single-parent families, McLanahan and Sandefur [1994] show that outcomes for stepchildren are similar to outcomes for children in single-parent families. McLanahan and Sandefur describe their results as showing that the crucial distinction is between children who were reared by both biological parents and children who were not. This description is misleading.

This paper shows that educational outcomes for both types of children in blended families -- stepchildren and their half-siblings who are the joint biological children of both parents -- are similar to each other and substantially worse than outcomes for children reared in traditional nuclear families. We conclude that, as a description of the data, the crucial distinction is between children reared in traditional nuclear families (i.e., families in which all children are the joint biological children of both parents) and children reared in other family structure (e.g., single-parent families or blended families).

The paper's second contribution is to clarify the question, "What is the effect of family structure on outcomes for children?" Interpreted literally, the question asks about the effect of one endogenous variable on another. We argue for reformulating the family structure question by specifying some explicit counterfactual, and express a preference for a policy-relevant counterfactual. As an example, we suggest considering the effect of reducing the "marriage penalty" in the earned-income tax credit (EITC) that makes the credit essentially unavailable to two-earner couples. The EITC marriage penalty counterfactual, like any policy-relevant counterfactual, focuses attention on outcomes for those children whose parent's behavior is affected by the incentives created by the policy change.

Bibliography Citation
Pollak, Robert A. and Donna K. Ginther. "Does Family Structure Affect Children's Educational Outcomes?" NBER Working Paper No. 9628, National Bureau of Economic Research, April 2003.
166. Rothstein, Jesse
Wozny, Nathan
Permanent Income and the Black-White Test Score Gap
Working Paper No. 17610. National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2011.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w17610
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS-B, ECLS-K); Economics of Discrimination; Ethnic Differences; Family Income; Modeling, Instrumental Variables; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Racial Differences; Test Scores/Test theory/IRT; Tests and Testing

Analysts often examine the black-white test score gap conditional on family income. Typically only a current income measure is available. We argue that the gap conditional on permanent income is of greater interest, and we describe a method for identifying this gap using an auxiliary data set to estimate the relationship between current and permanent income. Current income explains only about half as much of the black-white test score gap as does permanent income, and the remaining gap in math achievement among families with the same permanent income is only 0.2 to 0.3 standard deviations in two commonly used data sets. When we add permanent income to the controls used by Fryer and Levitt (2006), the unexplained gap in 3rd grade shrinks below 0.15 standard deviations, less than half of what is found with their controls.
Bibliography Citation
Rothstein, Jesse and Nathan Wozny. "Permanent Income and the Black-White Test Score Gap." Working Paper No. 17610. National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2011.
167. Ruebeck, Christopher S.
Harrington, Joseph E., Jr.
Moffitt, Robert A.
Handedness and Earnings
NBER Working Paper No. 12387, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2006.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w12387.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Earnings; Education; Gender Differences; Handedness; Labor Market Demographics

We examine whether handedness is related to performance in the labor market and, in particular, earnings. We find a significant wage effect for left-handed men with high levels of education. This positive wage effect is strongest among those who have lower than average earnings relative to those of similar high education. This effect is not found among women.
Bibliography Citation
Ruebeck, Christopher S., Joseph E. Harrington and Robert A. Moffitt. "Handedness and Earnings." NBER Working Paper No. 12387, National Bureau of Economic Research, July 2006.
168. Ruhm, Christopher J.
How Well Do Parents With Young Children Combine Work and Family Life?
NBER Working Paper No. 10247, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2004.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w10247.pdf
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Child Care; Maternal Employment; Work History

This study examines trends in labor force involvement, household structure, and some activities that may complicate the efforts of parents with young children to balance work and family life. Next I consider whether employer policies mitigate or exacerbate these difficulties and, since the policies adopted in the United States diverge dramatically from those in many other industrialized countries, provide some international comparisons before speculating on possible sources and effects of the differences.
Bibliography Citation
Ruhm, Christopher J. "How Well Do Parents With Young Children Combine Work and Family Life?." NBER Working Paper No. 10247, National Bureau of Economic Research, January 2004.
169. Ruhm, Christopher J.
Is High School Employment Consumption or Investment?
NBER Working Paper No. 5030, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 1995.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5030
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Benefits, Fringe; Educational Attainment; Employment, In-School; High School; Job Satisfaction; Occupational Attainment

Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this study examines whether employment by high school students improves or worsens economic attainment 6 to 9 years after the scheduled date of high school graduation. There is no indication that light to moderate job commitments ever have a detrimental impact and hours worked during the senior grade are positively correlated with future earnings, fringe benefits, and occupational status. These results are robust across a variety of specifications and suggest that employment increases net investments in human capital and facilitates the school- to-work transition, particularly towards the end of high school and for students not continuing on to college. Full-text available on-line: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W5030
Bibliography Citation
Ruhm, Christopher J. "Is High School Employment Consumption or Investment?" NBER Working Paper No. 5030, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 1995.
170. Ruhm, Christopher J.
Maternal Employment and Adolescent Development
NBER Working Paper No. 10691, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2004.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10691
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Behavior Problems Index (BPI); Behavior, Antisocial; Behavioral Problems; Body Mass Index (BMI); Child Health; Child Self-Administered Supplement (CSAS); Obesity; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Smoking (see Cigarette Use); Substance Use; Weight

This study investigates how maternal employment is related to the outcomes of 10 and 11 year olds after controlling for a wide variety of child, mother and family background characteristics. The results suggest that the mother's labor supply has deleterious effects on cognitive development, obesity and possibly risky behaviors such as smoking or drinking, while reducing behavior problems. These negative consequences are quite small for the average child, however, and usually restricted to relatively long maternal work hours. Less intensive employment is often associated with favorable outcomes and labor supply after the first three years typically has little effect. By contrast, large adverse consequences are frequently obtained for "advantaged" adolescents, with negative impacts predicted even for limited amounts of maternal labor supply and for work during the child's fourth through ninth year.
Bibliography Citation
Ruhm, Christopher J. "Maternal Employment and Adolescent Development." NBER Working Paper No. 10691, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2004.
171. Ruhm, Christopher J.
Parental Employment and Child Cognitive Development
NBER Working Paper No. W7666 (April), Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2000, Revised, September 2002.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7666.pdf?new_window=1
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Cognitive Development; Employment; Maternal Employment; Mothers, Education; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading); Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT); Work Hours/Schedule

This study investigates the relationship between parental employment and child cognitive development using data from multiple years of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Maternal labor supply during the first three years of the child's life is predicted to have a small negative effect on the verbal ability of 3 and 4 year olds and a substantial detrimental impact on the reading and math achievement of 5 and 6 year olds. Working during the second and third years appears to have less favorable or more deleterious consequences when the mother is also employed in the first year. The results are robust to the inclusion of controls for day care arrangements or paternal job-holding and there is some indication that early employment may be particularly costly for children in traditional' two-parent families. Finally, the data suggest that paternal and maternal employment have qualitatively similar effects, hinting at the importance of time investments by fathers. The overall conclusion is that previous research may have provided an overly optimistic assessment of the effects of parental employment on child cognitive development.
Bibliography Citation
Ruhm, Christopher J. "Parental Employment and Child Cognitive Development." NBER Working Paper No. W7666 (April), Cambridge: National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2000, Revised, September 2002.
172. Sacerdote, Bruce
The Nature and Nurture of Economic Outcomes
NBER Working Paper No. 7949, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2000
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Adoption; Armed Forces Qualifications Test (AFQT); Comparison Group (Reference group); Cross-national Analysis; Educational Attainment; Fathers, Biological; Income; Labor Market Outcomes; Mothers, Education; NCDS - National Child Development Study (British); Parental Influences

This paper uses data on adopted children to examine the relative importance of biology and environment in determining educational and labor market outcomes. I employ three long-term panel data sets which contain information on adopted children, their adoptive parents, and their biological parents. In at least two of the three data sets the mechanism for assigning children to adoptive parents is fairly random and does not match children to adoptive parents based on health, race, or ability. I find that adoptive parents' education and income have a modest impact on child test scores but a large impact on college attendance, marital status, and earnings. In contrast with existing work on IQ scores, I do not find that the influence of adoptive parents declines with child age.
Bibliography Citation
Sacerdote, Bruce. "The Nature and Nurture of Economic Outcomes." NBER Working Paper No. 7949, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 2000.
173. Saffer, Henry
Dave, Dhaval
Alcohol Advertising and Alcohol Consumption By Adolescents
NBER Working Paper No. 9676, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2003.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9676.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY97
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Alcohol Use; Data Linkage (also see Record Linkage); Gender Differences; Market Level Data; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Monitoring the Future (MTF); Racial Differences

The purpose of this paper is to empirically estimate the effects of alcohol advertising on adolescent alcohol consumption. The theory of brand capital is used to explain the effects of advertising on consumption. The industry response function and the evidence from prior studies indicate that the empirical strategy should maximize the variance in the advertising data. The approach in this paper to maximizing the variance in advertising data is to employ cross sectional data. The Monitoring the Future (MTF) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) data sets, which include only data for adolescents, are employed for the empirical work. These data sets are augmented with alcohol advertising data, originating on the market level, for five media. Use of both the MTF and the NLSY97 data sets improves the empirical analysis since each data set has its own unique advantages. The large size of the MTF makes it possible to estimate regressions with race and gender specific subsamples. The panel nature of the NLSY97 makes it possible to estimate individual fixed effects models. In addition, very similar models can be estimated with both data sets. Since the data sets are independent, the basically consistent findings increase the confidence in all the results. The results indicate that blacks participate in alcohol less than whites and their participation cannot be explained with the included variable as well as it can for whites. A comparison of male and female regressions shows that price and advertising effects are generally larger for females. Models which control for individual heterogeneity result in larger advertising effects implying that the MTF results may understate the effect of alcohol advertising. The results based on the NLSY97 suggest that a complete ban on all alcohol advertising could reduce adolescent monthly alcohol participation by about 24 percent and binge participation by about 42 percent. The past month price-participat ion elasticity was estimated at about -0.28 and the price-binge participation elasticity was estimated at about -0.51. Both advertising and price policies are shown to have the potential to substantially reduce adolescent alcohol consumption.
Bibliography Citation
Saffer, Henry and Dhaval Dave. "Alcohol Advertising and Alcohol Consumption By Adolescents." NBER Working Paper No. 9676, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2003.
174. Samwick, Andrew A.
Interaction Between Labor Market Outcomes and Asset Accumulation
Working Paper, Dartmouth College and NBER, October 1998
Cohort(s): Mature Women, Older Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Assets; Income; Income Dynamics/Shocks; Job Turnover; Labor Market Outcomes; Savings

Rational expectations model of the permanent income hypothesis predict that assets are used to buffer consumption against shocks to income. This prediction is robust to the formal modeling of precautionary motives for saving and liquidity constraints. This paper tests this prediction using the savings response to job transitions in the National Longitudinal Surveys Old Cohort databases. The main empirical finding is that households that experience a job transition do not save systematically less than those who remain with the same
Bibliography Citation
Samwick, Andrew A. "Interaction Between Labor Market Outcomes and Asset Accumulation." Working Paper, Dartmouth College and NBER, October 1998.
175. Sen, Bisakha
Mennemeyer, Stephen T.
Gary, Lisa C.
The Relationship Between Neighborhood Quality and Obesity Among Children
NBER Working Paper No. 14985, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2009.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14985
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Child Health; Mothers, Education; Neighborhood Effects; Obesity; Weight

It has long been posited by scientists that we need to have a better understanding in the role that larger contextual factors -- like neighborhood quality and the built environment -- may have on the nation's obesity crisis. This paper explores whether maternal perceptions of neighborhood quality affect children's bodyweight outcomes, and whether racial and ethnic differences in such perceptions may explain any of the hitherto unexplained gap in bodyweight and obesity prevalence among Whites and minorities. The project uses data from the NLSY79 and the CoNLSY datasets. Results indicate that overall neighborhood quality is not significantly related to children's bodyweight. However, one particular characteristic, namely whether or not the mother believes there is enough police protection in the neighborhood, is related. Lack of police protection has robust and significant effects on the BMI-percentile of the children, though it has less robust effects on the risk of becoming obese per se. Finally, there are differences in perceptions about adequate police protection in their neighborhood between Whites and minorities which remain after controlling for other socio-economic characteristics like maternal education, family income and family structure. However, these differences play a minor role in explaining part of the gap in bodyweight between White and minority children.
Bibliography Citation
Sen, Bisakha, Stephen T. Mennemeyer and Lisa C. Gary. "The Relationship Between Neighborhood Quality and Obesity Among Children." NBER Working Paper No. 14985, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2009.
176. Shin, Donggyun
Solon, Gary
New Evidence on Real Wage Cyclicality within Employer-Employee Matches
NBER Working Papers No. w12262, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2006.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12262.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Wage Dynamics; Wages

In the most thorough study to date on wage cyclicality among job stayers, Devereux's (2001) analysis of men in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics produced two puzzling findings: (1) the real wages of salaried workers are noncyclical, and (2) wage cyclicality among hourly workers differs between two alternative wage measures. We examine these puzzles with additional evidence from other sources. Devereux's finding of noncyclical real wages among salaried job stayers is not replicated in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth data. The NLSY data, however, do corroborate his finding of a discrepancy for hourly workers between the cyclicality of the two alternative wage measures. Evidence from the PSID Validation Study contradicts Devereux's conjecture that the discrepancy might be due to a procyclical bias from measurement error in average hourly earnings. Evidence from the Bureau of Labor Statistics establishment survey supports his hypothesis that overtime work accounts for part (but not all) of the discrepancy. We conclude that job stayers' real average hourly earnings are substantially procyclical and that an important portion of that procyclicality probably is due to compensation beyond base wages.
Bibliography Citation
Shin, Donggyun and Gary Solon. "New Evidence on Real Wage Cyclicality within Employer-Employee Matches." NBER Working Papers No. w12262, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2006.
177. Simon, Kosali Ilayperuma
Kaestner, Robert
Do Minimum Wages Affect Non-Wage Job Attributes? Evidence on Fringe Benefits and Working Conditions
NBER Working Paper No. 9688, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2003.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w9688.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Benefits; Benefits, Fringe; Minimum Wage; Wage Effects; Wage Levels; Wages

Neoclassical labor market theories imply that employers will react to binding minimum wages by changing the level of employment. A multitude of studies consider this aspect of minimum wages, yet fail to reach a consensus as to its employment effects. While the employment effects of the minimum wage are certainly important, the empirical literature has not adequately explored the possibility that employers may also adjust non-wage components of the job such as fringe benefits, job safety, and access to training opportunities. We study the effect of minimum wage legislation on fringe benefits (employer provision of health insurance, pension coverage, dental insurance, vacation pay, and training/educational benefits) and working conditions (shift work, irregular shifts, and workplace safety) doing the period of 1979 to 2000 using the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and the Current Population Survey. We examine effects of state and federal variation in the minimum wages on groups unlikely to be affected by minimum wage. These effects are compared to estimates found for groups unlikely to be affected by minimum wages. Our results indicate no discernible effect of the minimum wage on fringe benefit generosity for low-skilled workers. This conclusion is unchanged whether we use only state level variations or federal and state variation in minimum wages.
Bibliography Citation
Simon, Kosali Ilayperuma and Robert Kaestner. "Do Minimum Wages Affect Non-Wage Job Attributes? Evidence on Fringe Benefits and Working Conditions." NBER Working Paper No. 9688, National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2003.
178. Steckel, Richard Hall
Jayanthi, Krishnan
Wealth Mobility in America: A View from the National Longitudinal Survey
NBER Working Paper No. 4137, National Bureau of Economic Research, August, 1992.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/w4137.v5.pdf
Cohort(s): Mature Women, Older Men, Young Men, Young Women
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Age and Ageing; Household Income; Longitudinal Surveys; Marital Status; Mobility; Poverty; Racial Differences; Wealth

We depict and analyze wealth mobility in a national sample of nearly 4,000 households interviewed by the National Longitudinal Survey over a ten year period from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s. A transition matrix, the Shorrocks measure, average decile position for various subgroups, and wealth in period two compared with wealth in period one are used to describe patterns of wealth mobility. These results and regression models of change in percentile position, of persistence in the top, of movement into the top, of persistence into the bottom, and of movement into the bottom identify winners and losers. The losers include single people, blacks, and those who experienced marital disruption, while winners were the skilled and more educated. These finding have implication for the interpretation of cross-sectional measure of inequality, the explanation of long-term trends in wealth mobility, and the consequences of recent trends in the wage structure.
Bibliography Citation
Steckel, Richard Hall and Krishnan Jayanthi. "Wealth Mobility in America: A View from the National Longitudinal Survey." NBER Working Paper No. 4137, National Bureau of Economic Research, August, 1992.
179. Stevens, Ann Huff
The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same: Trends in Long-term Employment in the United States, 1969-2002
NBER Working Paper No. 11878, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w11878.pdf
Cohort(s): Older Men
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Job Tenure; Mobility; Retirement History Study; Retirement/Retirement Planning; Unemployment

This study considers whether there has been a decline in the attachment of workers and firms in the United States over the past several decades. Specifically, it compares snapshots of job tenure taken at the end of workers' careers from 1969 to 2002, using data from the Retirement History Survey, the National Longitudinal Survey of Older Men, and the Health and Retirement Study. The primary finding is one of stability in the prevalence of long-term employment relationships for men in the United States. In 1969, average tenure in the longest job for males aged 58-62 was 21.9 years. In 2002, the comparable figure was 21.4 years. Just over half of men ending their careers in 1969 had been with a single employer for at least 20 years; the same is true in 2002. This finding is robust to adjustments for minor differences in question details across data sources and for educational and retirement age changes over this time period.
Bibliography Citation
Stevens, Ann Huff. "The More Things Change, The More They Stay the Same: Trends in Long-term Employment in the United States, 1969-2002." NBER Working Paper No. 11878, National Bureau of Economic Research, 2005.
180. Wada, Roy
Tekin, Erdal
Body Composition and Wages
NBER Working Paper No. 13595, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2007.
Also: http://papers.nber.org/papers/W13595
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Economics of Discrimination; Heterogeneity; National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES); Obesity; Wage Determination; Wage Models

This paper examines the effect of body composition on wages. We develop measures of body composition – body fat (BF) and fat-free mass (FFM) – using data on bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) that are available in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey III and estimate wage models for respondents in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979. Our results indicate that increased body fat is unambiguously associated with decreased wages for both males and females. This result is in contrast to the mixed and sometimes inconsistent results from the previous research using body mass index (BMI). We also find new evidence indicating that a higher level of fat-free body mass is consistently associated with increased hourly wages. We present further evidence that these results are not the artifacts of unobserved heterogeneity. Our findings are robust to numerous specification checks and to a large number of alternative BIA prediction equations from which the body composition measures are derived.

Our work addresses an important limitation of the current literature on the economics of obesity. Previous research relied on body weight or BMI for measuring obesity despite the growing agreement in the medical literature that they represent misleading measures of obesity because of their inability to distinguish between body fat and fat-free body mass. Body composition measures used in this paper represent significant improvements over the previously used measures because they allow for the effects of fat and fat free components of body composition to be separately identified. Our work also contributes to the growing literature on the role of non-cognitive characteristics on wage determination.

Bibliography Citation
Wada, Roy and Erdal Tekin. "Body Composition and Wages." NBER Working Paper No. 13595, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2007.
181. Watson, Tara Elizabeth
Fertig, Angela R.
Minimum Drinking Age Laws and Infant Health Outcomes
NBER Working Paper No. 14118, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2008.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w14118.pdf
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Behavior; Birthweight; Ethnic Differences; Fertility; Pre-natal Care/Exposure; Racial Differences; Record Linkage (also see Data Linkage); State-Level Data/Policy

Alcohol policies have potentially far-reaching impacts on risky sexual behavior, prenatal health behaviors, and subsequent outcomes for infants. We examine whether changes in minimum drinking age (MLDA) laws affect the likelihood of poor birth outcomes. Using data from the National Vital Statistics (NVS) for the years 1978-88, we find that a drinking age of 18 is associated with adverse outcomes among births to young mothers -- including higher incidences of low birth weight and premature birth, but not congenital malformations. The effects are largest among black women. We find suggestive evidence from both the NVS and the 1979 National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY) that the MLDA laws alter the composition of births that occur. In states with lenient drinking laws, young black mothers are more likely to have used alcohol 12 months prior to the birth of their child and less likely to report paternal information on the birth certificate. We suspect that lenient drinking laws generate poor birth outcomes because they increase the number of unplanned pregnancies.
Bibliography Citation
Watson, Tara Elizabeth and Angela R. Fertig. "Minimum Drinking Age Laws and Infant Health Outcomes." NBER Working Paper No. 14118, National Bureau of Economic Research, June 2008.
182. Yamada, Tetsuji
Kendix, Michael
Yamada, Tadashi
The Impact of Alcohol Consumption and Marijuana Use on High School Graduation
NBER Working Paper No. 4497, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1994.
Also: http://nber.nber.org/papers/W4497
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Alcohol Use; Drug Use; High School Completion/Graduates; High School Dropouts; Substance Use

According to a report published by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, about 90 percent of high school seniors in 1990 had consumed alcohol within the past two weeks. Nearly one-third of the survey group had consumed five or more drinks in a row. The same report indicated that about three million youths aged 10 to 17 experienced multiple problems resulting from alcohol and drug abuse. Now an NBER study by the authors shows that alcohol and marijuana use have significant adverse effects on high school graduation. They find that frequent drinking, liquor and wine consumption, and frequent marijuana use reduce the probability of high school graduation by 4.3, 0.3, and 5.6 percent, respectively.
Bibliography Citation
Yamada, Tetsuji, Michael Kendix and Tadashi Yamada. "The Impact of Alcohol Consumption and Marijuana Use on High School Graduation." NBER Working Paper No. 4497, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1994.