The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is intended to encourage work. But EITC-induced increases in labor supply may drive wages down, shifting the intended transfer toward employers. I simulate the economic incidence of the EITC under a range of plausible supply and demand elasticities. In all of...

The rate at which racial gaps in pre-collegiate academic achievement can plausibly be expected to erode is a matter of great interest and much uncertainty. In her opinion in Grutter v. Bollinger, Supreme Court Justice O’Connor took a firm stand: “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of...

Racial segregation is often blamed for part of the achievement gap between blacks and whites. In this paper we study the effects of school and neighborhood segregation on the relative SAT scores of black students across different metropolitan areas, using large microdata samples for the...

The EITC is designed to encourage work. But EITC-induced increases in labor supply may drive wages down, shifting the intended transfer toward employers and hurting non- EITC low-skill workers. I exploit variation across family types and skill levels to identify the eect of a large EITC...

An important criticism of affirmative action policies in admissions is that they may hurt minority students who are thereby induced to attend selective schools. We use two comparisons to identify so-called “mismatch” effects in law schools, with consistent results. Black students attain...

Non-random assignment of students to teachers can bias value added estimates of teachers’ causal effects. Rothstein (2008) shows that typical value added models indicate large counter-factual effects of 5th grade teachers on students’ 4th grade learning, implying that assignments do not...

An important criticism of affirmative action policies in admissions is that they may hurt minority students who are thereby induced to attend selective schools. We use two comparisons to identify so-called “mismatch” effects in law schools, with consistent results. Black students attain...

This paper analyzes the impact of voter-approved school bond issues on school district balance sheets, local housing prices, and student achievement. We draw on the unique characteristics of California’s system of school finance to obtain clean identification of bonds’ causal effects,...

The Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is intended to encourage work. But EITC-induced increases in labor supply may drive wages down, shifting the intended transfer toward employers. I simulate the economic incidence of the EITC under a range of plausible supply and demand elasticities. In all of...

Non-random assignment of students to teachers can bias value added estimates of teachers’ causal effects. Rothstein (2008) shows that typical value added models indicate large counter-factual effects of 5th grade teachers on students’ 4th grade learning, implying that assignments do not...