Using matched data from the 1996 to 2004 Current Population Survey (CPS), we examine racial patterns in annual transitions into and out of health insurance coverage. We first decompose racial differences in static health insurance coverage rates into group differences in transition rates into...

It has been well documented in the literature that ethnicity matters significantly in the determination of self-employment rates. In particular, African-American self-employment rates lag far behind rates for other racial groups. Similarly, the literature also provides evidence of the long lived...

Some workers bargain with prospective employers before accepting a job. Others could bargain, but find it undesirable, because their right to bargain has induced a sufficiently favorable offer, which they accept. Yet others perceive that they cannot bargain over pay; they regard the posted wage...

We show how small initial wealth differences between low skilled black and white workers can generate large differences in their labor-market outcomes. This even occurs in the absence of a taste for discrimination against blacks or exogenous differences in the distance to jobs. Because of the...

This paper examines differences in two important components of non-wage compensation, employer provided health insurance and pensions, across African Americans and the whites in the United States. Using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth...

This paper estimates the rate of return to the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program, an early intervention program targeted toward disadvantaged African-American youth. Estimates of the rate of return to the Perry program are widely cited to support the claim of substantial economic benefits from...

In this paper we ask three questions: First, is there evidence of a Black-White gap in self-employment between 1994-2002 and could the inclusion of the White immigrant population be driving this result? Second, do within race differences in self-employment exist among the U.S. born? Finally, do...

This paper explores the relationship between anti-miscegenation laws, interracial marriage and black males' geographical distribution in the U.S. during and after the Great Migration. The U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Loving v. Virginia in 1967, which forced the last 16 Southern...

The purpose of this research is to explain the variation in the utilization of drug therapy for the medical conditions of depression, high cholesterol, and hypertension between Hispanics, non-Hispanic blacks, and non-Hispanics whites using Oaxaca-type decomposition analysis based on logit...

We investigate the effect of skin tone on employment probabilities in a longitudinal data set. Using an objective measure of skin tone from a light-spectrometer and a self-reported measure of race we find that over time the effect of skin tone on employment has diminished. These results hold...