It is now established that mortality and excess mortality from COVID-19 differed across racial and ethnic groups in 2020. Less is known about educational differences in mortality during the pandemic. We examine mortality rates by BA status within sex, age, and race/ethnic groups comparing 2020...

Deaths of despair, morbidity and emotional distress continue to rise in the US. The increases are largely borne by those without a four-year college degree--the majority of American adults. For many less-educated Americans, the economy and society are no longer providing the basis for a good...

We combine satellite-based pollution data and test scores from over 10,000 U.S. school districts to estimate the relationship between air pollution and test scores. To deal with potential endogeneity we instrument for air quality using (i) year-to-year coal production variation and (ii) a...

Teacher value-added (VA) measures how teachers improve their students' contemporaneous test scores. Many teachers, however, argue that contemporaneous test scores are a poor proxy for their permanent influence on students. This paper considers a new VA measure -- 'long-run VA' -- that captures...