This article surveys the existing evidence on the return to a college education and offers new calculations based on recent data. We focus on an individual’s decision and outline the standard conceptual framework used by economists to analyze investments in education. We then compare...

Using data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, we investigate whether the Earned Income Credit (EIC) leads to changes in seasonal expenditure patterns of low-income workers. We find that EIC eligible households spend approximately 3 percent more total during February, the modal month of EIC...

From 1978 to 2000 the fraction of adult men in full-year non-employment increased from 17.1 to 21.6 percent. Previous research focused on the role of disability insurance policy and wage structure changes to explain this increase. Using Current Population Surveys from 1979 to 2003 we assess how...

During the economic expansion of the 1990s, the United States enjoyed both low inflation rates and low levels of unemployment. Juhn, Murphy, and Topel (2002) point out that the low unemployment rates for men in the 1990s were accompanied by historically high rates of non-employment suggesting...

In this paper, I examine the relationship between private school location and the local public school and neighborhood characteristics. Using data from Illinois, I find statistically significant positive relationships between the number of private schools in 1998 and average 3rd grade class size...