State and federal reforms of the 1990s transformed the U.S. cash assistance program for single parents and their children. Despite an extensive literature examining these changes and their impacts, there have been few studies that consider the effects of these reforms from the perspective of the...

We evaluate the labor-market returns to General Educational Development (GED) certification using state administrative data. We develop a fuzzy regression discontinuity (FRD) method to account for the fact that GED test takers can repeatedly retake the test until they pass it. Our technique can...

We study differences in life-cycle labor supply among white, black, and Hispanic women, focusing on the interaction between race/ethnicity, education, and fertility. We use panel data that capture women's labor market and fertility histories and an econometric model that accounts for the...

This paper provides among the first rigorous estimates of the labor-market returns to community college certificates and diplomas, as well as estimating the returns to the more commonly-studied associate's degrees. Using administrative data from Kentucky, we estimate panel-data models that...

Welfare reform has transformed the U.S. cash assistance program for single parents and their children. Although there remains substantial uncertainty about the importance of reform in producing the subsequent decline in the welfare caseload, even less is known about its impact on the experiences...

Recent welfare reforms are prompting some state and local welfare agencies to use temporary help service firms to help place welfare recipients into jobs. Concerns have arisen that these jobs are more likely to pay low wages, provide fewer benefits, and offer less stability. We explore the...

This paper estimates labor-market returns for students pursuing certificates or associate's degrees in eight broad fields of study at community colleges and for-profit institutions. The data contain 400,000 students beginning their studies between 2005 and 2012 in one state. We estimate two-step...