This paper evaluates the evidence regarding teens' sexual activity and birth control use with an emphasis on the contribution of economic analysis. Researchers in other disciplines often view teen sexual activity as spontaneous and irrational, so that teen pregnancies are often considered...

In this paper, we assess whether boosting minority car-ownership rates would narrow inter-racial employment rate differentials. We pursue two empirical strategies. First, we explore whether the effect of auto ownership on the probability of being employed is greater for more segregated groups of...

Interpersonal preferences - preferences that depend on the characteristics of others - are typically hard to infer from observable individual behavior. As an alternative approach, this paper uses survey data to investigate interpersonal preferences. The General Social Survey contains...

In his State of the Union Address, President Clinton again called for an increase in the federal minimum wage in two 50-cent increments, from $5.15 to $6.15 per hour. Once again business groups and some economists argue that raising the minimum wage hinders the employment prospects of...

Using a new survey of a representative sample of single mothers who were welfare recipients in an urban Michigan county, the authors explore how certain employment barriers, often ignored by previous welfare researchers and policy makers, constrain these single mothers' employability. <p> The...</p>

A popular scheme for providing affordable housing involves the use of rental vouchers given directly to families who choose their own market-rate housing. In this paper we present a methodology for calculating localized economic benefits and costs to various groups affected by a hypothetical...

The primary purpose of the paper is to examine 1) the patterns of program participation in the Food Stamp Program (FSP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) during the time of welfare reform in Illinois; and 2) the effects of WIC on young...

The focus of the new U.S. welfare reform legislation is to move welfare recipients into jobs. There is widespread agreement that at least three components of this transition should be reflected in the measurement of a state's performance with respect to this objective: The percent of eligible...

I estimate the effect of the change in the gini coefficient of household income since 1970 on children's chances of graduating from high school, enrolling in college and graduating from college by combining PSID data on individual children with state-level data from the 1970, 1980, and 1990...

Studies of the types of women who are still on the welfare rolls, subsequent to welfare reform, are less common than studies of the types of women who have left the rolls. The conventional wisdom is that more skilled women have left the rolls and therefore that less skilled women remain on...