Research

State of the Union - The Poverty and Inequality Report 2016: Education

The United States is an outlier on many measures of inequality. When compared to other well-off countries, it has unusually high levels of income inequality, unusually high levels of wealth inequality, and unusually high levels of poverty. The purpose of this article is, in part, to ask whether the “income achievement gap”—the test score gap between children from high- and lowincome families—is also unusually high in the U.S.

The Continuing Increase in Income Segregation, 2007-2012

Income segregation in the United States grew substantially from 1970 to 2007 (Bischoff & Reardon, 2014; Jargowsky, 1996; Reardon & Bischoff, 2011a, 2011b; Watson, 2009). Income segregation grew sharply in the 1980s, changed little in the 1990s, and then grew again in the early 2000s. A primary cause of this growth in segregation has been the rise in income inequality over the last four decades (Bischoff & Reardon, 2014; Reardon & Bischoff, 2011b; Watson, 2009). Income inequality in the U.S. continued to rise in the 2000s.

Asian children’s verbal development: A comparison of the United States and Australia

Using longitudinal cohort studies from Australia and the United States, we assess the pervasiveness of the Asian academic advantage by documenting White-Asian differences in verbal development from early to middle childhood. In the United States, Asian children begin school with higher verbal scores than Whites, but their advantage erodes over time. The initial verbal advantage of Asian American children is partly due to their parent’s socioeconomic advantage and would have been larger had it not been for their mother’s English deficiency.

Was Moynihan Right?

In his 1965 report on the black family, Daniel Patrick Moynihan highlighted the rising fraction of black children growing up in households headed by unmarried mothers. He attributed the increase largely to the precarious economic position of black men, many of whom were no longer able to play their traditional role as their family’s primary breadwinner. Moynihan’s claim that growing up in a fatherless family reduced a child’s chances of educational and economic success was furiously denounced when the report appeared in 1965, with many critics calling Moynihan a racist.

The Academic Consequences of Early Childhood Problem Behaviors

Social/emotional skills in early childhood are associated with education, labor market, and family formation outcomes throughout the life course. One explanation for these associations is that poor social/emotional skills in early childhood interfere with the development of cognitive skills.

Does the benefits schedule of cash assistance programs affect the purchase of temptation goods? Evidence from Peru

A critique of cash assistance programs is that beneficiaries may spend the money on "temptation goods" such as alcohol and tobacco. We exploit a change in the payment schedule of Peru's conditional cash transfer program to identify the impact of benefit receipt frequency on the purchase of temptation goods. We use annual household data among cross-sectional and panel samples to analyze the effect of the policy change on the share of the household budget devoted to four categories of temptation goods.

Health Behaviors, Mental Health, and Health Care Utilization Among Single Mothers After Welfare Reforms in the 1990s

We studied the health of low-income US women affected by the largest social policy change in recent US history: the 1996 welfare reforms. Using the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (1993–2012), we performed 2 types of analysis.

Alternative strategies to achieve cardiovascular mortality goals in China and India: A microsimulation of target-versus risk-based blood pressure treatment

BACKGROUND:

The World Health Organization aims to reduce mortality from chronic diseases including cardiovascular disease (CVD) by 25% by 2025. High blood pressure is a leading CVD risk factor. We sought to compare 3 strategies for treating blood pressure in China and India: a treat-to-target (TTT) strategy emphasizing lowering blood pressure to a target, a benefit-based tailored treatment (BTT) strategy emphasizing lowering CVD risk, or a hybrid strategy currently recommended by the World Health Organization.

Who Wants Affordable Housing in their Backyard? An Equilibrium Analysis of Low Income Property Development

We estimate the spillovers of properties financed by the Low Income Housing Tax Credit (LIHTC) onto surrounding neighborhood residents. We nonparametrically estimate the impact of LIHTC development on nearby house prices by developing a new difference-in-differences style estimator which exploits smoothness in housing prices across geographic distance and time. We find LIHTC development helps revitalize low income neighborhoods, driving up house prices 6.5%, lowering crime rates, and attracting a more racially and income diverse population.

Shared Prosperity in America's Communities

While the nation's GDP has doubled in the last thirty years, significant increases in family income have been restricted to a small subset of the American population. This disjunct between national economic growth and stagnating incomes in all but the very top tier of the population corresponds with increasing economic inequality and a lack of social and economic mobility. As a consequence, neighborhoods and metropolitan areas have become more polarized.

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