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Now showing items 1-10 of 12
Toward a Framework for Understanding Forces that Contribute to or Reinforce Racial Inequality
(Springer-Verlag, 2009)
For many years social scientists have debated the role of social structure versus culture in explaining the social and economic outcomes of African Americans. The position that one takes often reflects ideological bias. ...
A Centered Index of Spatial Concentration: Axiomatic Approach with an Application to Population and Capital Cities
(John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University., 2009)
We construct an axiomatic index of spatial concentration around a center or capital point of interest, a concept with wide applicability from urban economics, economic geography and trade, to political economy and industrial ...
Labor Supply Responses to Marginal Social Security Benefits: Evidence from Discontinuities
(John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2009)
A key question for Social Security reform is whether workers currently perceive
the link on the margin between the Social Security taxes they pay and the Social Security
benefits they will receive. We estimate the effects ...
Patient Cost-Sharing and Hospitalization Offsets in the Elderly
(American Economic Association, 2009)
In the Medicare program, increases in cost sharing by a supplemental insurer can exert financial externalities. We study a policy change that raised patient cost sharing for the supplemental insurer for retired public ...
Uncomfortable Arithmetic — Whom to Cover versus What to Cover
(Massachusetts Medical Society, 2009)
Much of the current debate about expanding health insurance coverage avoids addressing an uncomfortable trade-off: with a limited budget, making benefits more generous means being able to cover fewer people. Moreover, ...
The Place Premium: Wage Differences for Identical Workers Across the US Border
(2009)
We estimate the “place premium”—the wage gain that accrues to foreign workers who arrive to work in the United States. First, we estimate the predicted, purchasing-power adjusted wages of people inside and outside the ...
On the Measurement of Poverty Dynamics
(John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2009)
This paper introduces a family of multi-period poverty measures derived from commonly used static poverty measures. Our measures trade-off poverty levels and changes (gains and losses) over time, and are consistent with ...
Here Today, Gone Tomorrow? Examining the Extent and Implications of Low Persistence in Child Learning
(2009)
Learning persistence plays a central role in models of skill formation, estimates of education production functions, and evaluations of educational programs. In non-experimental settings, estimated impacts of educational ...
Informal Taxation
(John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 2009)
Informal payments are a frequently overlooked source of local public finance in developing countries. We use microdata from ten countries to establish stylized facts on the magnitude, form, and distributional implications ...
Do Rising Top Incomes Lift All Boats?
(2009)
Pooling data for 1905 to 2000, we find no systematic relationship between top income shares and economic growth in a panel of 12 developed nations observed for between 22 and 85 years. After 1960, however, a one percentage ...