in prison using new administrative data on all released prisoners in the state of Missouri over nearly 25 years, and a … initiatives. These educational programs are expected to increase prisoners' post-release employability, with the hope that these … lead to both private and public benefits. One of the most popular programs prepares prisoners to pass the GED exam, which …

prisons in 2002-08. The employment rate of the prisoners falls short of 20% one year before incarceration, and they earn 25 …% below the national average. We identify the effect of prison by exploiting differences in the timing of incarceration and … also by estimating fixed-effect models. For convicts with a single prison term, we find an initially negative effect on …