This paper investigates the persistence of poverty over individuals' life-times using a hazard rate approach that accounts for multiple spells of poverty and incorporates spell duration, individual and household characteristics, and unobserved heterogeneity. The findings highlight the importance...

We examine the effects of family structure on economic resources, controlling for unobservable family characteristics. In the year following a divorce, family income falls by 41 percent and family food consumption falls by 18 percent. Six or more years later, the family income of the average...