Drawing on the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we document a startling empirical pattern: the career earnings premium from a four-year college degree (relative to a high school diploma) for persons from low-income backgrounds is considerably less than it is for those from higher-income...

Using the historical random assignment of MBA students to peer groups at a top business school in the United States, I study the effect of the gender composition of a student's peers on the gender pay gap at graduation and long-term labor market outcomes. I find that a 10 percentage point...

We conduct an empirical simulation exercise that gauges the plausible impact of increased rates of college attainment on a variety of measures of income inequality and economic insecurity. Using two different methodological approaches-a distributional approach and a causal parameter approach-we...

This paper studies the effects of each U.S. recession since 1973 on local labor markets. We find that recession-induced declines in employment are permanent, suggesting that local areas experience permanent declines in labor demand relative to less-affected areas. Population also falls,...

This paper estimates future adult earnings effects associated with a universal pre-K program in Tulsa, Oklahoma. These informed projections help to compensate for the lack of long-term data on universal pre-K programs, while using metrics that relate test scores to valued social benefits....

This paper estimates future adult earnings effects associated with a universal pre-K program in Tulsa, Oklahoma. These informed projections help to compensate for the lack of long-term data on universal pre-K programs, while using metrics that relate test scores to valued social benefits....

Innovations in cancer treatment have lowered mortality, but little is known about their economic benefits. We assess the effect of two decades of improvements in cancer treatment options on the labor market outcomes of breast and prostate cancer patients. In addition, we compare this effect...

Innovations in cancer treatment have lowered mortality, but little is known about their economic benefits. We assess the effect of two decades of improvements in cancer treatment options on the labor market outcomes of breast and prostate cancer patients. In addition, we compare this effect...

Health, human capital, and labor market outcomes are linked though complex connections that are not fully understood. We explore these links by estimating a flexible yet tractable dynamic model of human capital accumulation in the presence of health shocks using administrative data from Chile....