Inequality in the unconditional distribution of observed wage rates in the U.S. rose substan-
tially during the 1980s, mostly in the lower tail of the distribution. The causes of this rising
wage inequality are obscured by the fact that concurrent…

This paper presents evidence showing that individuals’ season of birth is
related to their educational attainment because of the combined effects of
school start age policy and compulsory school attendance laws. In most school
districts, individuals born in the beginning…

This paper estimates the effects of school quality -- measured by the
pupil-teacher ratio, the average term length, and the relative pay of
teachers -- on the rate of return to education for men born between 1920 and
1949. Using…

Federal legislation passed in the late 1980s greatly expanded the potential coverage of the
Medicaid program. Whereas in 1985 Medicaid was essentially limited to mothers and children
on AFDC, by the early 1990s eligibility was expanded to include all children…

Unlike existing models which rely heavily on assumptions regarding unions’
distributional preferences, we present a very simple model in which union
seniority-layoff rules and rising seniority-wage profiles result from
optimal price discrimination against the firm. Surprisingly, even when
cash transfers…

This paper examines the properties and prevalence of measurement
error in longitudinal earnings data. The analysis compares Current
Population Survey data to administrative Social Security payroll tax
records for a sample of heads of households over two years. In contrast

This paper develops a model of occupational matching where, within an
occupation, information at one job may be useful for predicting the match at
other jobs. Recent developments in the theory of superprocesses are used to
derive the optimal sampling…

This paper presents new evidence on the reasons for the recent decline in
the fraction of unemployed workers who receive unemployment insurance benefits.
Using samples of unemployed workers from the March Current Population Survey,
we estimate the fraction of unemployed…

This paper uses two data sets to examine the impact of the potential
duration of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits on the duration of
unemployment and the time pattern of the escape rate from unemployment in the
United States. The first…

Labor supply research has not yet produced a clear statement of the size of
the labor supply elasticity nor how it should be measured. Measurement error in
hourly wage data and the use of inappropriate identifying assumptions can account
for…