At the private university we analyze, the gap between white and black grade point averages falls by half between the students' freshmen and senior year. This outcome could suggest that affirmative action policies are playing a key role to reduce racial differences. However, this convergence...

We develop a two-sided directed search model of relationship formation that can be used to disentangle male and female preferences over partner characteristics and over relationship terms from only a cross section of observed matches. Individuals direct their search for a partner on the basis of...

Proposition 209 banned the use of racial preferences in admissions at public colleges in California. We analyze unique data for all applicants and enrollees within the University of California (UC) system before and after Prop 209. After Prop 209, minority graduation rates increased by 4.35...

The estimation of nonstationary dynamic discrete choice models typically requires making assumptions far beyond the length of the data. We extend the class of dynamic discrete choice models that require only a few-period-ahead conditional choice probabilities, and develop algorithms to calculate...