National Bureau of Economic Research

In 1993, Tennessee launched TennCare, a program that expanded traditional Medicaid coverage to include low-income adults who were childless and not disabled or elderly. The program offered low-cost preventative and diagnostic services, prescriptions, and, importantly, behavioral and alcohol and drug use rehabilitation services. By late 2004, TennCare covered a quarter of the state’s residents, and its adult Medicaid participation rate was the highest in the nation. The program consumed 30 percent of the state budget, and it was deemed unsustainable and discontinued in 2005. Over the remainder of that year, 10 percent of the state’s Medicaid enrollees — 3 percent of the state’s population — were cut from the rolls.

In Losing Medicaid and Crime (NBER Working Paper 32227), Monica Deza, Thanh Lu, Johanna Catherine Maclean, and Alberto Ortega study the consequences of this policy change for criminal activity. They note...

In the early decades of the twentieth century, many American cities installed municipal water systems. A wide range of materials were used for pipes, but lead was a common choice due to its durability, ease of installation, and relatively low incidence of leaks. In Toxified to the Bone: Early-Life and Childhood Exposure to Lead and Men’s Old-Age Mortality (NBER Working Paper 31957), Jason Fletcher and Hamid Noghanibehambari show that the use of lead pipes in these systems had detrimental effects on long-term health among residents of affected cities. 

The study examines the impact of early-life exposure to these lead pipes on longevity at older ages…

Developing countries typically exhibit low rates of rural wage employment. For example, in India, male workers whose primary source of earnings is wage labor report working on only 46 percent of days per year. Bangladesh has a similarly low 55 percent rate of employment among landless males, and the rates are even lower in sub-Saharan Africa.

What do these low employment rates mean? One possibility is that they reflect extremely high involuntary unemployment. Alternatively, the rates could be an outcome of reasonably well functioning labor markets in which workers are simply choosing self-employment, which tends to be high in poor countries. These two possibilities have drastically different implications for understanding how well labor markets work and what role, if…

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…

Over the past 25 years, labor force participation at older ages has increased dramatically. In the 12 countries that are part of the NBER’s International Social Security (ISS) project, participation among those aged 60 to 64 has risen by an average of over 20 percentage points for men and over 25 percentage points for women.

In The Effects of Reforms on Retirement Behavior: Introduction and Summary (NBER Working Paper 31979), authors Axel Börsch-Supan and Courtney Coile report on the most recent work of the ISS project. The current analysis builds on previous project phases which showed that changes in health and education could…