Family economic mobility has been a policy concern for decades, with interest heating up further since the 1990s. Using data that tracks individual families' incomes during overlapping 10-year periods from 1978 through 2014, this paper investigates the relationships of factors - family...

Equal educational opportunity is a core American value. Yet many children of low-income or minority racial or ethnic status attend public schools that are lower quality compared with those that white children or high-income children attend. And data indicate that, on average, low-income or...

Much of America's promise is predicated on economic mobility - the possibility that people can move up and down the economic ladder during their lifetimes. Mobility is of particular consequence when economic disparities are increasing. Using panel data and mobility concepts and measures adapted...

This paper provides a review of the literature on U.S. central city growth and distress during the second half of the twentieth century.It finds that city growth tended to be higher in metropolitan areas with favorable weather, higher growth, and greater human capital, while distress was...

The high degree of fiscal stress experienced by state governments in the 2001 and the 2007-2009 recessions has prompted renewed discussions of alternative approaches to stabilizing state finances over the business cycle. Prompted by evidence of increased state tax revenue cyclicality in the...

This paper examines the long-term earnings consequences of permanent layoffs initiated during the early 1990s, using a sample of Massachusetts workers who enrolled in Job Training Partnership Act Title III programs, and who remained strongly attached to the state's labor force. The comparison...

This study develops a flexible, citations-adjusted ranking technique that allows a specified set of journals to be evaluated using a wide range of alternative criteria. As a result, the set of evaluated journals is not constrained to be identical to the set of evaluating journals. We also draw a...

As part of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's commitment to supporting efforts to revitalize the economy of Springfield, Massachusetts, this paper analyzes the economic development approaches of other mid-sized manufacturing-oriented cities during the past half century. From among a comparison...

As part of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston's commitment to supporting efforts to revitalize the economy of Springfield, Massachusetts, this paper explores the causes of and potential remedies for the city's low resident employment rates. When compared to the state as a whole and to other...