Experimental estimates from Moving to Opportunity (MTO) show no significant impacts of moves to lowerâ€poverty neighborhoods on adult economic selfâ€sufficiency four to seven years after random assignment. The authors disagree with Clampetâ€Lundquist and Massey's claim that MTO was a...

We present the first estimates of the returns to years of schooling before 1940 using a large sample individuals (from the 1915 Iowa State Census). The returns to a year of high school or college were substantial in 1915—about 11 percent for all males and in excess of 12 percent for young...

We present the first estimates of the returns to years of schooling before 1940 using a large sample individuals (from the 1915 Iowa State Census). The returns to a year of high school or college were substantial in 1915—about 11 percent for all males and in excess of 12 percent for young...

Women are currently the majority of U.S. college students and of those receiving a bachelor's degree, but were 39 percent of undergraduates in 1960. We use three longitudinal data sets of high school graduates in 1957, 1972, and 1992 to understand the narrowing of the gender gap in college and...

We develop a model in which a worker’s skills determine the worker’s current wage and sector. The market and the worker are initially uncertain about some of the worker’s skills. Endogenous wage changes and sector mobility occur as labor market participants learn about these...

The fraction of U.S. college graduate women entering professional programs increased substantially just after 1970, and the age at first marriage among all U.S. college graduate women began to soar around the same year. We explore the relationship between these two changes and the diffusion of...

This paper reviews the evidence on the efficacy of neighborhood and school interventions in improving the long-run outcomes of children growing up in poor families. We focus on studies exploiting exogenous sources of variation in neighborhoods and schools and which examine at least medium-term...

Private for-profit institutions have been the fastest-growing part of the U.S. higher education sector. For-profit enrollment increased from 0.2 percent to 9.1 percent of total enrollment in degree-granting schools from 1970 to 2009, and for-profit institutions account for the majority of...