We explore how teachers unions affect education production by comparing outcomes between districts allocating new tax revenue amidst collective bargaining negotiations and districts allocating tax revenue well before. Districts facing union pressure …
Since the beginning of the all-volunteer era, millions of young Americans have chosen to enlist in the military. These volunteers disproportionately come from disadvantaged backgrounds, and while some aspects of military service are likely to be …
We explore how teachers unions affect education production by comparing outcomes between districts allocating new tax revenue amidst collective bargaining negotiations and districts allocating tax revenue well before. Districts facing union pressure …
This paper explores the role of social interactions on a youth’s decision to begin smoking. Specifically, we estimate the effect of cigarette taxes during early childhood on beginning smoking later in adolescence in a discrete-time hazard model. These taxes do not directly affect children but may change the prevalence of smoking among parents, older relatives, or other adults. We find that a $0.25 cigarette tax increase during childhood decreases smoking initiation by 12.
Opportunities to estimate the causal effect of school spending on student achievement are infrequent and have been based, almost entirely, on variation in spending from large school finance reforms. Property values also affect school spending through both local property tax revenue and the level of state aid provided to each school district. However, little is known about the effect property values have on student achievement through their impact on school revenue.
Over the past half-century, court-ordered increases in public school spending dramatically changed the level and distribution of school resources in the United States. Recent evidence from surveys suggests that school finance reforms improved students’ short- and long-run outcomes. However, the policy implications remain unclear because, although observed effects are significantly different from zero, we do not know whether the benefits exceed the costs, or whether the internal rate of return exceeds benchmark interest rates.
In this paper, we provide new evidence on the distribution of claims in the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program across employers and industries. We also relate SSDI claims to employer and employee wage premiums and discuss implications for measures of inequality. Our research makes use of the universe of individual tax returns for the period 2000-2018, which allows to develop measures of the incidence of SSDI claims for all U.
Over the past half-century, court-ordered increases in public school spending dramatically changed the level and distribution of school resources in the United States. Recent evidence from surveys suggests that school finance reforms improved students’ short- and long-run outcomes. However, the policy implications remain unclear because, although observed effects are significantly different from zero, we do not know whether the benefits exceed the costs, or whether the internal rate of return exceeds benchmark interest rates.