We determine the prevalence of disability and examine how a wide range of outcomes change with disability. The outcomes we examine include employment, hours, earnings, income and consumption. We have five main findings. First, disability rates are high. We find that nearly one-fifth of male...

This paper investigates the degree to which the local prevalence of AIDS increases the demand for disease-preventing methods of contraception among young adults. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY), we find substantial evidence that the use of condoms was quite...

Forecasting the Food Stamp caseload has become increasingly important. One reason is the sheer frequency and magnitude of recent fluctuations. Over a span of less than fifteen years, the FSP caseload has exhibited three prominent turning points. The caseload declined from 22.4 million...

Households became more geographically segregated by income in the United States between 1970 and 1990. Economic inequality also increased between 1970 and 1990. Using 1970, 1980, and 1990 Census data, I find that an increase in income inequality at the state level is associated with an increased...

Interest groups can influence political decisions in two distinct ways: by offering contributions to political actors and by providing them with relevant information that is advantageous for the group. We analyze the conditions under which interest groups are more inclined to use one or the...

This responds to an invitation to comment on Steve Fuller’s severely critical appraisal of Thomas Kuhn. In a slightly different version it appears, along with other invited comments and a response from Steve Fuller, in Social Epistemology 17:211-213 (November 2003).

Why do international regimes like the European Union, NAFTA, and the WTO exist? The conventional wisdom says it is because they provide positive-sum benefits, facilitating collectively desirable equilibria that their member states could never hope to obtain -- at least not as efficiently -- on...

This paper examines the effects of girl’s early marriage on the risks of acquiring HIV/AIDS. It explores the counterintuitive finding that married adolescent girls in urban centers in Kenya and Zambia have higher rates of HIV than sexually active unmarried girls, by comparing several...

The so-called "charitable choice" policy of the Clinton and Bush administrations is another milestone in the transformation of a social services sector that was once decentralized, independent, often informal, and voluntary into a deliberate instrument of public policy. Issues associated with...

This paper examines unemployment duration and the incidence of claims following a 36 percent increase in the maximum weekly benefit in New York State. This benefit increase sharply increased benefits for a large group of claimants, while leaving them unchanged for a large share of claimants who...