Credit use varies widely among U.S. households; racial and ethnic differences are particularly striking. We examine whether household and residential-area characteristics can account for differences in use of bank credit (e.g., credit cards) and nonbank credit (e.g., payday loans). We use a...

We provide new evidence on the effect of education on later life health. Using variation in state compulsory schooling laws, we examine education's effect on a range of outcomes encompassing physical health, decision-making, and life expectancy. We employ under-utilized Health and Retirement...

type="main" <p>This article examines trends in mortgage refinancing activity during the housing boom and bust, with a focus on homeowners in lower income and minority market (LIMM) areas. Unlike any other period in recent history, during the boom LIMM homeowners refinanced their mortgages more...</p>

After a long decline, the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) of older men in the United States leveled off in the 1980s, and began to increase in the late 1990s. We examine how changes in Social Security rules affected these trends. We attribute only a small portion of the decline from the...

We study the effect of receiving an inheritance on the labor force participation (LFP) of both the recipient and the recipient's spouse in a population of older married couples. An inheritance is not subject to laws governing division of marital property at divorce, because it is not acquired...