This paper analyzes the impact of increases in the minimum drinking age on the prevalence of alcohol and marijuana consumption among high school seniors in the United States. The empirical analysis is based on a large sample of students from 43 states over the years 1980- 1989. We find that...

This paper presents a semiparametric procedure to analyze the effects of institutional and labor market factors on recent changes in the U.S. distribution of wages. The effects of these factors are estimated by applying kernel density methods to appropriately 'reweighted' samples. The procedure...

Using data from the 1987 to 1996 March Current Population Surveys we find no evidence for the conventional wisdom' that the imposition of pure community rating leads to an adverse selection death spiral.' Specifically, the percentage of individuals in small groups covered by health insurance did...

During the past two decades, union density has declined in the United States and employer provision of health benefits has undergone substantial changes in extent and form. Using individual data spanning the years 1983-1997, combined with establishment data for 1993, we update and extend...

"Accountability mandates" -- the explicit linking of school funding, resources, and autonomy to student performance on standardized exams -- have proliferated in the last 10 years. In this paper, we examine California's accountability system, which for several years financially rewarded schools...

Rising immigrant inflows have substantially affected the size and composition of the U.S. workforce. They are also exerting an even bigger intergenerational effect: at present one-in-ten native born children are in the 'second generation' born to immigrant parents. In this paper we present a...

Economic impacts of unionization on employers are difficult to estimate in the absence of large, representative data on establishments with union status information. Estimates are also confounded by selection bias, because unions could organize at highly profitable enterprises that are more...

The rise in wage inequality in the U.S. labor market during the 1980s is usually attributed to skill-biased technical change (SBTC), associated with the development of personal computers and related information technologies. We review the evidence in favor of this hypothesis, focusing on the...

Over the past thirty years, immigration has increased, immigrant characteristics have changed, and the relative mean wages of immigrants vis … vis the native born have declined. Using data from four U.S. Censuses (1960 - 1990) we examine changes in the wage structure and their role in...

Unions compress the wage distribution among workers covered by union contracts. We" ask whether unions also have an effect on the managers of unionized firms. To this end we" collected and assembled data on unionization and managerial pay within firms and industries in" the U.S. and across...