In a 2006 article in Demography, Jo AnnaGray Jean Stockard and Joe Stone (GSS i)observe that among black women and white women ages 20 to 39, birth rates increased sharply for unmarried women over the period 1974 to 2000. But they also increased for married women, as well, and yet the total...

The authors employ a newly developed method to disentangle age, period and cohort effects on nonmarital fertility ratios (NFR) from 1972 to 2002 for U.S. women aged 20-44 – with a focus on three specific cohort factors: family structure, school enrollment, and the ratio of men to women. All...

This paper proposes and tests a simple joint explanation for i) increases in marital and nonmarital birth rates in the United States over recent decades, ii) the dramatic rise in the share of nonmarital births, and iii) the pronounced racial differences in the timing of childbearing. The...

The authors test Ricardian equivalence within an endogenous growth model for U.S. states, which have high rates of migration relative to most countries. Results are consistent with both Ricardian equivalence and endogenous growth, despite the relative ease of migration. Increases in productive...

We develop a model of fertility and marriage that implies a magnified effect of marriage rates on the share of births to unmarried women. For U.S. data, plots and regression estimates support the prediction that the share of unmarried births is driven primarily by the square of the share of...

Previous models of the popular vote in U.S. Presidential elections emphasize economic growth and price stability, the role of parties and incumbency, and pre-election expectations for the future. Despite the closeness of the pre-election polls in 2004, formal models instead predict a landslide...

This paper reviews the evidence on the effectiveness of individual merit pay systems for teachers on student achievement, and it presents new empirical results based on a system established within a collective bargaining environment. While many merit pay systems have been established in school...

The authors test Ricardian equivalence within an endogenous growth model for U.S. states, which have high rates of migration relative to most countries. Results are consistent with both Ricardian equivalence and endogenous growth, despite the relative ease of migration. Increases in productive...

Applying a Barro-style model of endogenous growth to a fifty-year panel of states from 1957 to 2007, We examine the extent to which expenditures on public education and infrastructure— together with the taxes necessary to support them— enhance or impede the steady-state growth of state and...

By examining disaggregate state-level data, we address two weaknesses of prior estimates of economic voting models in U.S. Presidential elections. First, our disaggregate approach substantially improves statistical power, thus reducing the danger of “over- fitting.†Second, our...