National Bureau of Economic Research

Digital health technologies, such as remote monitoring devices and telemedicine services, have attracted considerable interest due to their potential to reduce healthcare costs and improve patient outcomes. These innovations could, however, exacerbate health disparities if adoption rates are lower among underserved communities.

In Equity and Efficiency in Technology Adoption: Evidence from Digital Health (NBER Working Paper 32992), researchers Itzik Fadlon, Parag Agnihotri, Christopher Longhurst, and Ming Tai-Seale analyze a remote...

Affirmative action policies, which give preference in college admissions to students from underrepresented minority (URM) groups, have been a subject of debate and legal scrutiny in the US. The recent Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v. President and Fellows of Harvard College barred explicit racial and ethnic preferences in college admissions as unconstitutional. Prior to this ruling, nine states had banned affirmative action in public university admissions.

In The Long-Run Impacts of Banning Affirmative Action in US Higher Education (NBER Working Paper 32778), Francisca M. Antman, Brian Duncan, and Michael F. Lovenheim examine the effects...

The US safety net provides a wide variety of supports for low-income families from food assistance like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) to wage subsidies like the Earned Income Tax Credit. However, receipt of these benefits among eligible households is not automatic — households must actively apply to each program from which they seek benefits. Enrollment processes often include lengthy procedures associated with demonstrating need or complying with other eligibility criteria during both the initial application and recertification periods.

The benefits of completing these administrative requirements are substantial — for example, the average SNAP participant receives roughly $2,500 per year in benefits. However, recent research on administrative burdens in government programs suggests that…

Social Security Disability (SSD) program beneficiaries, like other consumers, have been negatively affected by inflation over the past several years. In a survey from June of 2023, more than half (59 percent) of SSD program beneficiaries reported higher prices for the disability-related goods and services they need to purchase, and more than one-quarter reported reducing food spending to cover disability-related costs, Zachary Morris and Stephanie Rennane found in Examining the Impact of Inflation on the Economic Security of Disability Program Beneficiaries (NBER RDRC Paper NB23-08).

Using new survey data, the researchers found that 82 percent of beneficiaries reported out-of-pocket expenses related to their disability, with average annual spending of $4,412 and median spending...

Sociologists have argued that “third places” like cafés, which provide opportunities for individuals to socialize and exchange ideas outside of home and work, improve neighborhood life. But what about the relationship between such places and economic activity? In Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés (NBER Working Paper 32604), researchers Jinkyong Choi, Jorge Guzman, and Mario L. Small use data on US business registrations between 1990 and 2022 from the Startup Cartography Project to examine whether the opening of a Starbucks in a neighborhood with no previous cafés affects local entrepreneurship...