Electricity consumption produces private goods, such as heat for homes, but fossil fuel consumption impacts the public goods of clean air and water. While self interests can increase usage, social interests, such as global climate change, can impact an individual's attitude toward energy...

A change to Title IX has spurred new single-sex public schooling in the US. Until recently, nearly all gender-segregated schools were private, and I therefore address potential selection bias in the effects on educational and labor market outcomes using within private sector comparisons, an...

Increasing interest in voucher programs and privatizing public schools reveals a commonlyheld belief that private schools are better able to produce a quality education. While state and national standards do not directly affect these schools, their private control yields strong student...

In this study I examine the relationship between accountability (e.g., state sanctions for poor performance, or the presence of goals required by the district) and public secondary principal pay and school performance. Though such incentives and standards are increasingly common, the existing...

Facing substantial financial pressure, many districts close schools in order to preserve solvency and improve student outcomes. Using a new longitudinal data set on all non-Cook County Illinois schools, we examine the determinants of high school closure decisions from 1991 through 2005. Our...

A change to Title IX has spurred new single-sex public schooling in the US. Until recently, nearly all gender-segregated schools were private, and comprehensive data for public school comparisons are not yet available. To investigate the effects of single-sex education, I focus on within private...

In our current challenging budgetary environment, school closures remain a potentially attractive choice. With a large panel of Illinois schools from 1991 to 2005, I investigate which factors contribute to school closures. Among elementary schools, declining enrolments and rural locations...

We use data from the 2007-2008 Ph.D. economist job market to investigate initial job placement in terms of job location, job type, and job rank. Our results suggest gender differences in all three dimensions of job placement. Relative to their male counterparts, female candidates are less (more)...

In this paper we use a relatively new panel data quantile regression technique to examine native-immigrant earnings differentials 1) throughout the conditional wage distribution, and 2) controlling for individual heterogeneity. No previous papers have simultaneously considered these factors. We...

Although school accountability incentives and standards, such as district-mandated goals and state sanctions for poor performance, are increasingly common, few studies have investigated their effectiveness. The author of this paper seeks evidence on whether such policies affect public secondary...