This paper presents the first analysis in the literature of the effect of test-based grade retention on adult criminal convictions. We exploit math and English test cutoffs for promotion to ninth grade in Louisiana using administrative data on all public K-12 students combined with...

Legal academics and journalists have marshaled statistics purporting to show that enrolling in law school is irrational. We investigate the economic value of a law degree and find the opposite: given current tuition levels, the median and even 25th percentile annual earnings premiums justify...

This paper presents the first analysis in the literature of the effect of test-based grade retention on adult criminal convictions. We exploit math and English test cutoffs for promotion to ninth grade in Louisiana using administrative data on all public K-12 students combined with...

Using data from three waves of Add Health we find that being very attractive reduces a young adult's (ages 18-26) propensity for criminal activity and being unattractive increases it for a number of crimes, ranging from burglary to selling drugs. A variety of tests demonstrate that this result...

Despite intense public interest in keeping guns out of schools, next to nothing is known about the effects of gun control policies on youth gun carrying or school violence. Using data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveys (YRBS) for the period 1993-2013, this study is the first to examine the...

Nuclear meltdown in Japan and civil society strife across the Middle East highlight the degree to which resilience is core to international peace and security. This article considers the means by which communities can become increasingly resilient through shared best practices across a range of...

This article explores the impact of the rising number of children in special education on eligibility under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. At the heart of the eligibility debate is the question of which children are disabled enough to qualify for protection and services under...

Most immigrants will tell you of the horror stories surrounding their survival. The Cold War which was metaphorically a gang war between the United States of America and the Soviet Union caused many to suffer. Containing the spread of communism and promoting free market economies was the main...

Conventional pedagogy treats negotiation as a strategic and instrumental process. With few exceptions, students are currently taught that the negotiator's central challenge is learning how to develop and enact rational strategies to claim and/or create maximum value that satisfy the negotiator's...