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Program Report: Children and Families
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On July 1, the Program on Children was renamed the Program on Children and Families. This change, which better captures the range of research carried out by its 171 affiliates, in part marks a return to the program’s roots. In 1993, the late Alan Krueger launched an NBER project on the Economics of Families and Children. It subsequently became a program and has been known as the Program on Children since 1997. Broadening the program name recognizes the complex web of interactions, economic and otherwise, that involve children. Economic and other forces that affect families can have important effects on children, and developments involving children in turn have significant influence on the wellbeing of adult family members.
In the eight years since our last program report, scholars affiliated with the program have authored 919 working papers on a wide array of topics. We begin this report with a sampling of their continuing research in core areas, such as the long-term consequences of early-life conditions and the effects of public programs affecting children. We then summarize studies...
A research summary from the monthly NBER Digest
Pay Trajectories for Younger and Older Workers in Europe
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As the workforce in Europe and the US has grown older, the average wages of older workers have risen more rapidly than those of their younger colleagues. This seems inconsistent with a simple supply-and-demand analysis, which would suggest that as the supply of older workers grows, their wages should fall; it raises the question of what other factors could be responsible for the growing age-pay gap.
In Countries for Old Men: An Analysis of the Age-Pay Gap (NBER Working Paper 32340), Nicola Bianchi and Matteo Paradisi analyze administrative data covering 38 million workers at 3.7 million firms in Italy and Germany,…
From the NBER Bulletin on Health
Decision-Making by Medical Surrogates for End-of-Life Patients
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As the population ages, the need for surrogate decision-makers for patients near the end of their lives is rising. When hospitalized older adults are unable to actively participate in decisions about their care, surrogates must make choices, often with limited information. Advance care planning with written directives may improve surrogate decision-making, but directives have limitations: preferences may change after completion, directions may not apply to the ultimate situation, and there can be communication challenges between the surrogates and care teams.
In How Do Surrogates Make Treatment Decisions for Patients with Dementia? An Experimental Survey Study (NBER Working Paper 32116), researchers Lauren Hersch Nicholas, Kenneth M. Langa, Scott D. Halpern, and Mario Macis examined...
From the NBER Bulletin on Retirement and Disability
Racial and Ethnic Disparities in SSDI Entry and Health
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In a new study of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in SSDI Entry and Health (NBER RDRC Center Paper NB23-04), Colleen Carey, Nolan H. Miller, and David Molitor document significant racial and ethnic differences in the use of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). Non-Hispanic Blacks and Native Americans enter the SSDI program at the highest rates relative to their share of the population while non-Hispanic Asians enter at the lowest rates. Average health status, measured by medical expenditure…
From the NBER Bulletin on Entrepreneurship
Immigration Policy and Entrepreneurs’ Choice of Startup Location
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Immigrants play a significant role in the entrepreneurial landscape. In the United States, immigrants are 80 percent more likely to start businesses than native-born Americans. More than half of America's billion-dollar startup companies trace their roots to immigrant founders. There is limited research, however, on the factors that influence immigrants' decisions about where to locate their startup businesses.
In The Effect of Immigration Policy on Founding Location Choice: Evidence from Canada's Start-up Visa Program (NBER Working Paper 31634), Saerom Lee and Britta Glennon investigate the impact of Canada's Start-up Visa Program on US-based…
Featured Working Papers
Bond market expectations of future nominal interest rates and inflation, which had been stable for the previous 20 years, shifted in  2020–22 in a way that suggested the Federal Reserve was placing less weight on inflation stabilization. This shift could account for half of the increase in inflation during this period, according to Luigi Bocola, Alessandro Dovis, Kasper Jørgensen, and Rishabh Kirpalani.
An increase in health care prices in a local market lowers payroll and employment at firms outside the health sector, reducing per capita labor income and federal income tax receipts and raising unemployment insurance payments,  Zarek Brot-Goldberg, Zack Cooper, Stuart V. Craig, Lev R. Klarnet, Ithai Lurie, and Corbin L. Miller find.
Firms with higher perceived cost of capital earn higher returns on invested capital and invest less, suggesting that the perceived cost of capital shapes long-run capital allocation, a study by Niels Joachim Gormsen and Kilian Huber finds.Â
Elimination of the section of US trade law that allows up to $800 in imports per person per day to enter the country duty-free, with minimal customs requirements, would reduce aggregate welfare by about $12 billion per year and disproportionately hurt lower-income and minority consumers, Pablo D. Fajgelbaum and Amit Khandelwal find.
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Compared to census tracts that were scheduled to receive a Starbucks but did not, tracts with no other coffee shops that received a Starbucks saw more than a five percent increase in startups per year over the subsequent seven years, Jinkyong Choi, Jorge Guzman, and Mario L. Small find. There was no effect of opening a Starbucks in census tracts with prior cafés.Â
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NBER researchers discuss their work on subjects of wide interest to economists, policymakers, and the general public. Recordings of more-detailed presentations, keynote addresses, and panel discussions at NBER conferences are available on the Lectures page.