Credit use varies widely among U.S. households; racial and ethnic differences are particularly striking. We examine whether household and residential-area characteristics can account for differences in use of bank credit (e.g., credit cards) and nonbank credit (e.g., payday loans). We use a...

We provide new evidence on the effect of education on later life health. Using variation in state compulsory schooling laws, we examine education's effect on a range of outcomes encompassing physical health, decision-making, and life expectancy. We employ under-utilized Health and Retirement...

We study the effect of receiving an inheritance on the labor force participation (LFP) of both the recipient and the recipient's spouse in a population of older married couples. An inheritance is not subject to laws governing division of marital property at divorce, because it is not acquired...

We provide empirical evidence on the determinants of voter turnout using the randomized outcomes of a school choice lottery. We show that those losing the lottery to attend their first-choice school are significantly more likely to vote in the ensuing school board election than lottery winners....

Several recent education reform measures, including the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), couple school choice with accountability measures to allow parents of children in under-performing schools the opportunity to choose higher-performing schools. We use the introduction of NCLB in the...

"There is growing empirical evidence that low-income parents place lower weights on academics when choosing schools, implying that school choice plans may have the smallest impact on the choices of the families they are targeting. This paper uses a natural experiment generated by the 2004...

We analyze two experiments that provided direct information on school test scores to lower-income families in a public school choice plan. We find that receiving information significantly increases the fraction of parents choosing higher-performing schools. Parents with high-scoring alternatives...

Several recent education reform measures, including the federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), couple school choice with accountability measures to allow parents of children in under-performing schools the opportunity to choose higher-performing schools. We use the introduction of NCLB in the...