Beginning in 1959 the public schools in Prince Edward County, Virginia were closed for five years in opposition to court-ordered integration. The author combines data from numerous administrative sources to examine the effects of the school closings on the educational attainment and economic...

In this paper, we examine recent research in the area of neighborhood effects on children's development. We begin by reviewing the literature on the mechanisms through which neighborhoods may influence child development. Then we consider four issues which are fundamental to neighborhood effects...

In this paper, the authors examine trends and differentials in diarrhea prevalence and treatment in Brazil between 1986 and 1996. The results indicate that there was a very modest decline in diarrhea prevalence in Brazil over this ten year period. However, treatment with oral rehydration therapy...

This paper illustrates how demographic analysis and data get applied in affirmative action disputes. The focus is a racially-based quota system for admitting applicants to a public school program offering accelerated learning to gifted and exceptional students. The paper evaluates the effects of...

After over a quarter century of sustained economic growth, Indonesia was struck by a large and unanticipated crisis at the end of the 20th century. Real GDP declined by about 12% in 1998. Using 13 years of annual labor force data in conjunction with two waves of a household panel, the Indonesia...

Little is known about the long-term effects of participation in Head Start. This paper draws on unique non-experimental data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to provide new evidence on the effects of participation in Head Start on schooling attainment, earnings, and criminal behavior....

This paper relies on the variation of terror attacks across time and space as an instrument to identify the causal effects of terrorism on the preferences of the Israeli electorate. The authors find that the occurrence of a terror attack within three months of the elections is associated with a...

As part of recent reforms of the welfare programs in the U.S., many states and localities have refocused their Welfare-to-Work programs from an emphasis on human capital acquisition (i.e., providing basic education and vocational training) to an emphasis on "work-first," (i.e., moving welfare...

The authors examine responses to two fertility preference questions -- regarding whether more children are wanted and desired total family size (compared to actual family size) -- that were asked of women and their husbands as part of the First Malaysian Family Life Survey fielded in 1976-77 and...

This paper evaluates the effectiveness of recent welfare reforms, investigating the effects of both state-specific waivers in the early 1990s and the 1996 federal reform legislation. Unlike earlier work, the authors analyze a wide array of indicators, including welfare participation, labor...