Newborn health is an important component in the chain of intergenerational transmission of disadvantage. This paper contributes to the literature on the determinants of health at birth in two ways. First, we analyze the role of maternal endowments and investments (education and smoking in...

Stronger enforcement of discrimination laws can help to reduce disparities in economic outcomes with respect to race, ethnicity, and gender in the United States. However, the data necessary to detect possible discrimination and to act to counter it is not publicly available - in particular, data...

In this paper we reconsider the evidence on capital account liberalization and growth. While we find indications of a positive association, the effects vary with time, with how capital account liberalization is measured, and with how the relationship is estimated. The evidence that the effects...

We review and analyze the monetary and financial policies of the Clinton administration with a focus on the strong dollar policy, the Mexican rescue, the response to the Asian crisis, and the debate over reform of the international financial architecture. While we consider the role of ideas,...

Living wage laws, which were introduced in the mid-1990s and have expanded rapidly since then, are typically touted as anti-poverty measures. Yet they frequently restrict coverage to employers with city contracts, and in such cases apply to a small fraction of workers. This apparent...

The question of the effects of race and sex discrimination laws on relative economic outcomes for blacks and women has been of interest at least since the Civil Rights and Equal Pay Acts passed in the 1960s. We present new evidence on the effects of these laws based on variation induced first by...

Legislation prohibiting age discrimination in the United States dates back to the decade of the 1960s, when along with the Equal Pay Act and the Civil Rights Act barring discrimination against women and minorities, the U.S. Congress passed the 1967 Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Many...

Relying on data from the Health and Retirement Study, we examine differences between breast cancer survivors and a non-cancer control group in employment, hours worked, wages, and earnings. Overall, breast cancer has a negative impact on the decision to work. However, among survivors who work,...