We present new evidence on the effects of merit aid scholarship programs on residential migration and educational attainment using Census data on 24 to 32 year olds in the U.S. from 1990 to 2010. Eligibility for merit aid programs slightly increases the propensity of state natives to live...

Despite the widespread provision of retiree health insurance for public sector workers, little attention has been paid to its effects on employee retirement. This is in contrast to the large literature on health-insurance-induced "job-lock" in the private sector. I use the introduction of...

In 2001, amendments to the Higher Education Act made people convicted of drug offenses ineligible for federal financial aid for up to two years after their conviction. Using rich data on educational outcomes and drug charges in the NLSY 1997, we show that this law change had a large negative...

Public health insurance programs comprise a large share of federal and state government expenditures. Although a sizable literature analyzes the effects of these programs on health care utilization and health outcomes, little prior work has examined the long-term effects and resultant health...

This paper uses administrative data on schooling and earnings from Texas to estimate the effect of college quality on the distribution of earnings. We proxy college quality using the college sector from which students graduate and focus on identifying how graduating from UT-Austin, Texas A\&M or...

The higher education system in the United States is characterized by a large degree of quality heterogeneity, and there is a growing literature suggesting students attending higher quality universities have better educational and labor market outcomes. In this paper, we use NLSY97 data combined...

Time to completion of the baccalaureate degree has increased markedly in the United States over the last three decades, even as the wage premium for college graduates has continued to rise. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of the High School Class of 1972 and the National...

Value-added data are an increasingly common evaluation tool for schools and teachers. Many school districts have adopted these methods and released the results publicly. In this paper, we study the release of value-added data in Los Angeles by the Los Angeles Times newspaper to identify how...

Using data from a group incentive program that provides cash bonuses to teachers whose students perform well on standardized tests, we estimate the impact of incentive strength on student achievement. These awards are based on the performances of students within a grade, school and subject,...