Research Papers

We explored the presence of nonlinearities in economic growth and their implications for policy, considering how different growth regimes may require different policy responses.

We aimed to provide insights into the effectiveness of policy interventions by acknowledging and understanding the nonlinearities in economic growth processes.

Our recognition of nonlinearities in economic growth help policymakers tailor interventions to specific growth contexts, enhancing the precision and effectiveness of economic policies.

We explored the concept of poverty traps with a focus on the Appalachian region, examining factors contributing to persistent poverty.

We aimed to provide a nuanced understanding of poverty traps in a specific geographic context, offering insights that could inform targeted anti-poverty policies.

We contribute to the literature on poverty traps, providing region-specific insights that can guide policymakers in designing effective interventions to break the cycle of poverty.

We analyzed how education influences beliefs about racial stereotypes, discrimination awareness, and support for affirmative action policies among whites, Asians, Hispanics, and blacks.

We aimed to fill gaps in existing research that predominantly focuses on white attitudes toward blacks, neglecting other minority populations.

Our findings reveal that higher education levels among whites, Hispanics, and blacks are associated with rejecting negative stereotypes and increased awareness of discrimination against minorities. However, education does not uniformly increase support for affirmative action policies across all racial groups, highlighting complex dynamics influenced by racial hierarchy positions.

We explored the implications of complexity theory for economics and public policy, considering how complex systems thinking can enhance policy analysis.

Our goal was to integrate insights from complexity theory into economic and policy analysis, providing a more realistic framework for understanding and addressing complex social and economic phenomena.

We contribute to advancing the application of complexity theory in policy analysis, offering a more robust and adaptable approach to addressing real-world challenges.

We examined the inertia in taxpayers’ adjustments to income tax prepayments following changes in tax liability, analyzing how taxpayers’ prepayments change over time.

We aimed to investigate why many US taxpayers receive income tax refunds and to explore the role of inertia in their tax prepayment behavior, beyond the previously suggested precautionary and forced savings motives.

Our findings indicate that default withholding rules significantly impact consumption smoothing, especially for low-income taxpayers, suggesting that policies around withholding can have broader economic implications than previously understood.

We investigated the observational implications of taste-based discrimination in racial profiling, considering how biases in law enforcement decisions may manifest in observed data.

We aimed to provide insights into the challenges of identifying and addressing taste-based discrimination in racial profiling through statistical and econometric analysis.

We contribute to the understanding of the complexities involved in studying and combating racial profiling, emphasizing the importance of careful empirical analysis.

We investigated the effects of long-term exposure to disadvantaged neighborhoods on high school graduation by following 4,154 children in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, measuring neighborhood context annually from age 1 to 17.

We aimed to address the gap in previous research that typically measures neighborhood context only once, failing to account for the duration of residence and understating the detrimental effects of long-term neighborhood disadvantage.

Our findings reveal that sustained exposure to disadvantaged neighborhoods significantly reduces the probability of high school graduation, with impacts larger than previously reported. For black children, graduation rates drop from 96% to 76%, and for nonblack children, from 95% to 87%. These results highlight the importance of addressing long-term neighborhood disadvantage to improve educational outcomes.

We explored the relationship between imprisonment and crime rates, considering the possibility of reducing both imprisonment rates and crime.

We wanted to challenge the prevailing notion that increasing imprisonment rates are the only effective strategy for reducing crime, suggesting alternative approaches.

We contribute to the debate on criminal justice policies, advocating for a balanced approach that considers both crime prevention and the social costs of imprisonment.

We reexamined the relationship between religion and economic growth, considering the impact of specific religious beliefs and practices on growth rates.

We aimed to provide a nuanced analysis of the role of religion in economic growth by investigating the detailed aspects of religious beliefs and practices, which previous research may have overlooked.

We contribute to a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between religion and economic growth, emphasizing the importance of considering specific aspects of religious influence for more accurate policy implications.

This paper provides a general description of the relationship between individual decision problems and aggregate crime regressions to elucidate the behavioral and statistical assumptions that are implicit in the use of aggregate crime regressions.

We wish to understand how aggregate crime regressions may be appropriately used to inform positive and normative questions. We hope our discussion will prove useful in highlighting some of the limitations of the use of these regressions and, in particular, indicate how empirical findings may be overinterpreted when careful attention is not given to the link between the aggregate data and individual behavior.

Despite recent efforts to employ microeconomic data and natural experiments, aggregate crime regressions continue to play a significant role in criminological analyses.