Interest groups can influence political decisions in two distinct ways: by offering contributions to political actors and by providing them with relevant information that is advantageous for the group. We analyze the conditions under which interest groups are more inclined to use one or the...

We use survey responses by firms to examine the firm-level determinants and effects of political influence, their perception of corruption and prevalence of bribe paying. We find that: (a) measures of political influence and corruption/bribes are uncorrelated at the firm level; (b) firms that...

Using data from the National Educational Longitudinal Study (NELS) of 1988, we find that teenagers living in non-intact families are on average less likely to graduate from high school and less likely to attend college. They also are more likely to use alcohol, tobacco, or marijuana and are more...

We explore the relationship between individual health status and three separate measures of state social capital using data from the Current Population Survey, the General Social Survey and Putnam (2000). We find that state social capital is significantly associated with health status, even...

A combination of welfare reform, expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit, and other policy changes led to increases in the labor supply of single mothers in the 1990s and a decline in their participation in cash welfare programs. Whether the material well-being of single mothers and their...

A variety of state and federal tax incentives have been used to subsidize gas electric hybrid vehicles. In this paper, I estimate the incidence of these tax incentives using microdata on sales of the Toyota Prius, in order to determine who benefits from these policies. I focus on three sharp...

We study a model of electoral control where the politician is a policy expert, but the voter is not. First, we focus on the case of an "ideologue," i.e., a politician who always wants the same policy Implemented regardless of the state. We show that the voter's lack of policy expertise comes at...

An indicator can be defined as a statistic utilized as part of an assessment exercise. There have been three relatively distinct waves of interest in indicators at the national level. Indicator work creates both opportunities and hazards for federal statistical agencies. Indicators increase the...

This Paper examines poverty in the United States from 1960 through 2005. We investigate how poverty rates and poverty gaps have changed over time, explore how these trends differ across family types, contrast these trends for several different income and consumption measures of poverty, and...