This paper examines the extent to which a democratic society characterized by an unequal distribution of income, is capable of transforming potential efficiency gains into actual economy-wide welfare gains. The model emphasizes the distortive effects of these potential efficiency gains on the...

We analyze the problem of economic integration using a cooperative approach. By explicitly introducing time as an endogenous variable, we make sharp predictions about the timing of admission to coalitions, about the equilibrium coalition structure, about the equilibrium payoff distribution, as...

Using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) of 1988, we find that teenagers living in non-intact families are on average less likely to graduate from high school and less likely to attend college. They also are more likely to use alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana and are more...

We explore the relationship between individual health status and three separate measures of state social capital using data from the Current Population Survey, the General Social Survey and Putnam (2000). We find that state social capital is significantly associated with health status, even...

A combination of welfare reform, expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit, and other policy changes led to increases in the labor supply of single mothers in the 1990s and a decline in their participation in cash welfare programs. Whether the material well-being of single mothers and their...

A variety of state and federal tax incentives have been used to subsidize gas electric hybrid vehicles. In this paper, I estimate the incidence of these tax incentives using microdata on sales of the Toyota Prius, in order to determine who benefits from these policies. I focus on three sharp...

We study a model of electoral control where the politician is a policy expert, but the voter is not. First, we focus on the case of an "ideologue," i.e., a politician who always wants the same policy Implemented regardless of the state. We show that the voter's lack of policy expertise comes at...

An indicator can be defined as a statistic utilized as part of an assessment exercise. There have been three relatively distinct waves of interest in indicators at the national level. Indicator work creates both opportunities and hazards for federal statistical agencies. Indicators increase the...

This Paper examines poverty in the United States from 1960 through 2005. We investigate how poverty rates and poverty gaps have changed over time, explore how these trends differ across family types, contrast these trends for several different income and consumption measures of poverty, and...

In this paper, I first summarize how the U.S. Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) operates and describe the characteristics of recipients. I then discuss empirical work on the effects on hours of work and marriage, and problems of compliance with the tax system. I then simulate the effects of the...