This paper investigates the connection between incarceration dynamics and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) infection rates, with particular emphasis on the black-white AIDS rate disparity. Using case-level U.S. data spanning 1982-96, we model the dynamic relationship between AIDS...

We evaluate the effects of state policy design features on SCHIP take up rates and on the degree to which SCHIP benefits crowd out private benefits. The results indicate that overall program take up rates range from 10.1 to 10.5 percent. However, there is considerable heterogeneity across...

Using the Current Population Surveys, the authors investigate whether employer sanctions for hiring undocumented workers introduced by the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) adversely affected the hourly earnings of Latino workers in the southwestern United States. The analysis...

To assess whether near-poor parents' job mobility is reduced due to the non-portability of employer-provided health insurance--an effect termed job lock--the authors examine data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation for 1996 and 2001, years bracketing the introduction of the State...

It is generally believed that the increased incidence of homelessness in the US has arisen from broad societal factors - changes in the institutionalization of the mentally ill, increases in drug addiction and alcohol usage, etc. This paper reports on a comprehensive test of the alternate...

Rapidly rising homelessness in the 1980s shocked Americans and led to a flurry of studies, a deluge of news stories, and to Public Law 100-77, the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act of July 1987. The McKinney Act marked the entrance of the federal government into homelessness policy,...

In this paper, we analyze employer demand for ex-offenders. We use data from a recent survey of employers to analyze not only employer preferences for offenders, but also the extent to which they check criminal backgrounds in the presence of very imperfect information about the job applicants...

This paper analyzes the employment prospects of former prison inmates and reviews recent evaluations of reentry programs that either aim to improve employment among the formerly incarcerated or aim to reduce recidivism through treatment interventions centered on employment. I present an...

A recent expansion of the San Francisco Bay Area's heavy rail system represents an exogenous change in the accessibility of inner-city minority communities to a concentrated suburban employment center. We evaluate this natural experiment by conducting a two-wave longitudinal survey of firms,...