Researchers have increasingly realized the need to account for within-group dependence in estimating standard errors of regression parameter estimates. The usual solution is to calculate cluster-robust standard errors that permit heteroskedasticity and within-cluster error correlation, but...

In this paper we propose a new variance estimator for OLS as well as for nonlinear estimators such as logit, probit and GMM, that provcides cluster-robust inference when there is two-way or multi-way clustering that is non-nested. The variance estimator extends the standard cluster-robust...

Many papers use fixed effects (FE) to identify causal impacts of an intervention. In this paper we show that when the treatment status only varies within some groups, this design can induce non-random selection of groups into the identifying sample, which we term selection into identification...

This paper exploits a new source of variation in Head Start funding to identify the program's effects on health and schooling. In 1965 the Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) provided technical assistance to the 300 poorest counties in the U.S. to develop Head Start funding proposals. The...

Despite the importance of living arrangements for well-being and production, the effect of changes in household income on living arrangements is not well understood. This study overcomes the identification problems that have limited the study of the link between income and living arrangements by...

The casual links between health and economic resources have long concerned social scientists. We use four waves of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to analyze the impact of wealth upon an individual's health status. The difficulty in approaching this task that has bedeviled previous...

This paper evaluates the health impact of a central piece in the U.S. safety net for families with children: the Earned Income Tax Credit. Using tax-reform induced variation in the federal EITC, we examine the impact of the credit on infant health outcomes. We find that increased EITC income...

In this paper we examine how business cycles affect labor market outcomes in the United States. We conduct a detailed analysis of how cycles affect outcomes differentially across persons of differing age, education, race, and gender, and we compare the cyclical sensitivity during the Great...

A growing literature documents cyclical movements in mortality and health. We examine this pattern more closely and attempt to identify the mechanisms behind it. Specifically, we distinguish between mechanisms that rely on fluctuations in own employment or time use and those involving factors...

Head Start is a federal early childhood intervention designed to reduce disparities in preschool outcomes. The first randomized experimental study of Head Start, the National Head Start Impact Study (NHSIS), found impacts on academic outcomes of .15 to .3 standard deviations measured at the end...