Was the $278 billion reboot of the $800 billion Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) in early 2021 disbursed equitably to minority communities? This paper provides the first analysis of how PPP funds were disbursed to minority communities in the third and final round of the program, which was...

Enrollment increased slightly at both the California State University and University of California systems in fall 2020, but the effects of the pandemic on enrollment in the California Community College system are mostly unknown and might differ substantially from the effects on 4-year colleges....

Graduate student teaching assistants from underrepresented groups may provide salient role models and enhanced instruction to minority students in STEM fields. We explore minority student-TA interactions in an important course in the sciences and STEM - introductory chemistry labs - at a large...

We explore whether COVID-19 disproportionately affected women in the labor market using CPS data through the end of 2020. We find that male-female gaps in the employment-to-population ratio and hours worked for women with school-age children have widened but not for those with younger children....

This paper uses data from 802,777 veterans assigned to 7,548 primary care providers (PCPs) within the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) to examine variations in the efficacy of primary care providers (PCPs), their consequences for health outcomes, and their determinants. Leveraging...

Although there is a large gap between Black and White American life expectancies, the gap fell 48.9% between 1990-2018, mainly due to mortality declines among Black Americans. We examine age-specific mortality trends and racial gaps in life expectancy in rich and poor U.S. areas and with...

We examine the impact of the opening of a new urgent care center (UCC) on health care costs and the utilization of care among nearby Medicare beneficiaries. We focus on 2006-2016, a period of rapid UCC expansion. We find that total Medicare spending rises when residents of a zip code are first...

Social distancing restrictions and health- and economic-driven demand shifts from COVID-19 shut down many small businesses with especially negative impacts on minority owners. Is there evidence that the unprecedented federal government response to help small businesses - the $659 billion...

This study evaluates two interventions for residential water conservation. Comparing households across an enforcement algorithm's cutoff using a regression discontinuity design, we find that automated irrigation violation warnings cause substantial water conservation but also shift some...

The continuing drug overdose crisis in the U.S. has highlighted the urgent need for greater access to treatment. This paper examines the impact of openings and closings of substance abuse treatment facilities in New Jersey on emergency room visits for substance abuse issues among nearby...