Over the past three decades, much research has attempted to identify the determinants of the natural rate of unemployment. The authors reach two main conclusions about this body of work. First, there has been considerable theoretical progress over the past thirty years. A framework emerged that...

For-profit, or proprietary, colleges are the fastest-growing postsecondary schools in the nation, enrolling a disproportionately high share of disadvantaged and minority students and those ill-prepared for college. Because these schools, many of them big national chains, derive most of their...

The history of coeducation in U.S. higher education is explored through an analysis of a database containing almost all 4-year undergraduate institutions that operated in 1897, 1924, 1934, or 1980. The opening of coeducational institutions was continuous throughout its history, and the switching...

Nearly 9 million Americans live in extreme-poverty neighborhoods, places that also tend to be racially segregated and dangerous. Yet, the effects on the well-being of residents of moving out of such communities into less distressed areas remain uncertain. Using data from Moving to Opportunity, a...

Background: The question of whether neighborhood environment contributes directly to the development of obesity and diabetes remains unresolved. The study reported on here uses data from a social experiment to assess the association of randomly assigned variation in neighborhood conditions with...

During the past two decades, wages of skilled workers in the United States rose while those of unskilled workers fell; less-educated young men in particular have suffered unprecedented losses in real earnings. These twelve original essays explore whether this trend is unique to the United States...