In the United States, religious attendance rises sharply with education across individuals, but religious attendance declines sharply with education across denominations. This puzzle is explained if education both increases the returns to social connection and reduces the extent of religious...

We demonstrate that data from digital platforms such as Yelp have the potential to improve our understanding of gentrification, both by providing data in close to real time (i.e. nowcasting and forecasting) and by providing additional context about how the local economy is changing. Combining...

American technological creativity is geographically concentrated in areas that are generally distant from the country's most persistent pockets of joblessness. Could a more even spatial distribution of innovation reduce American joblessness? Could Federal policies disperse innovation without...

We use a data set of federal corruption convictions in the U.S. to investigate the causes and consequences of corruption. More educated states, and to a less degree richer states, have less corruption. This relationship holds even when we use historical factors like education in 1928 or...

This paper uses data on adopted children to examine the relative importance of biology and environment in determining educational and labor market outcomes. I employ three long-term panel data sets which contain information on adopted children, their adoptive parents, and their biological...