College completion rates declined from the 1970s to the 1990s. We document that this trend has reversed--since the 1990s, college completion rates have increased. We investigate the reasons for the increase in college graduation rates. Collectively, student characteristics, institutional...

After increasing in the 1970s and 1980s, time to bachelor's degree has declined since the 1990s. We document this fact using data from three nationally representative surveys. We show that this pattern is occurring across school types and for all student types. Using administrative student...

While there is a great deal of literature focusing on the relationship between income and fertility, little is known about how wealth affects fertility decisions of the household. This paper fills this gap in the literature by investigating how changes in housing wealth affect fertility. In...

This paper empirically decomposes the costs of welfare participation using a model of labor supply and participation in multiple welfare programs. Prior estimates of the cost of welfare participation have not differentiated psychological costs, or stigma, from the effort required to become...

This paper examines changes in, and interactions between, the major components of the U.S. federal tax code that provide substantial child benefits, including stimulus payments that depend on children. The focus is on creating a measure of total child tax benefit by income level, tax filing...

Families with children receive preferential treatment in the U.S. federal income tax. Over the past 15 years, the real value of child tax benefits approximately doubled reaching nearly $1,900 per child in 2006. This paper examines the efficiency cost of providing child tax benefits. A...