We present a model of efficient regulation along the lines of Demsetz (1967). In this model, setting up and running regulatory institutions takes a fixed cost, and therefore jurisdictions with larger populations affected by a given regulation are more likely to have them. Consistent with the...

Is there an economic rationale for pronatalist policies? In this paper we propose and analyze a particular market failure that may lead to inefficiently low equilibrium fertility and therefore to a need for government intervention. The friction we investigate is related to the ownership of...

This paper investigates how fertility responds to changes in the price of a marginal child and in household income. We construct a large, individual-level panel data set of married Israeli women during the period 1999-2005 that contains fertility histories and detailed controls. We exploit...

We provide evidence that lower fertility can simultaneously increase income per capita and lower carbon emissions, eliminating a trade-off central to most policies aimed at slowing global climate change. We estimate the effect of lower fertility on carbon emissions accounting for the fact that...

There is longstanding debate in population policy about the relationship between modern contraception and abortion. Although theory predicts that they should be substitutes, the existing body of empirical evidence is difficult to interpret. What is required is a large-scale intervention that...

This paper investigates the problem of responseand coding errors in the Current Population Survey. It draws upon a potentially rich source o finformation for verifying survey answers, a three month matched sample of CPS respondents, to analyze whether individuals' questionnaire responses...

Survey refusal in the Current Population Survey (CPS) has tripled over the last decade. This rise coincides with the emergence of rhetoric, largely from the political right, questioning the accuracy and integrity of government statistics. We examine how support for the Tea Party and the...

We discover and document errors in public use microdata samples ("PUMS files") of the 2000 Census, the 2003-2006 American Community Survey, and the 2004-2009 Current Population Survey. For women and men ages 65 and older, age- and sex-specific population estimates generated from the PUMS files...

Expansions of Medicaid eligibility intend to improve access to care, and to shift care from emergency rooms and inpatient hospital care to more appropriate sites. We examine the effect of Medicaid recipiency on the level and site of medical service utilization using data from 1985 and 1987...

Linking individuals across historical datasets relies on information such as name and age that is both non-unique and prone to enumeration and transcription errors. These errors make it impossible to find the correct match with certainty. We suggest a fully automated method for linking...