National Bureau of Economic Research

There is currently substantial interest in public policies that encourage firms to locate new manufacturing plants in regions with limited opportunities for the economic advancement of their residents. Yet whether such efforts improve economic opportunities for local workers, particularly in the longer term, remains an open question.

In The Long-Run Impacts of Public Industrial Investment on Local Development and Economic Mobility: Evidence from World War II (NBER Working Paper 32265), Andrew Garin and Jonathan L. Rothbaum study the government-led construction of manufacturing plants during World War II outside...

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...

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…

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…