This paper examines the impact of state merit-aid programs on the labor market attachment of high school-aged youths. The labor force participation rate of teenagers has fallen substantially in recent decades, coinciding with the introduction of merit-aid programs. These programs reduce the...

This paper examines the impact of state merit-aid programs on the labor market attachment of high school-aged youths. The labor force participation rate of teenagers has fallen substantially in recent decades, coinciding with the introduction of merit-aid programs. These programs reduce the...

We develop, apply, and test a new measure of the marriage tax - the reduction in future spending from getting married - using SCF and ACS data. Our measure incorporates all major and most minor U.S. tax and benefit programs. And it assumes clone marriage - marrying oneself - to ensure the...

Three ferocious hurricanes in 2005 failed to dampen the country’s economic momentum, and disruptions to the nation’s oil and natural gas supply created only temporary shocks.

The information technology (IT) boom dramatically boosted the rapid growth of the U.S. economy during the 1990s, contributing 1.4 percentage points of the 4.6 percent national average real gross domestic product growth from 1996 to 2000. As the IT boom went bust in 2001, however, the IT...

It is well known that smoking leads to lower wages. However, the mechanism of this negative relationship is not well understood. This analysis includes a decomposition of the wage gap between smokers and nonsmokers, with a variety of definitions of smoking status designed to reflect differences...

Adams, Blackburn, and Cotti (ABC) found that increases in minimum wages were positively related to drunk driving–related traffic fatalities for those ages 16 to 20. The hypothesized mechanism for this relationship—increased alcohol consumption caused by minimum wage–induced income...