Search Results
Working Paper
Incarceration, Earnings, and Race
Working Paper
Who Values Access to College?
A first glance at US data suggests that college -- given its mean returns and sharply subsidized cost for all enrollees -- could be of great value to most. Using an empirically-disciplined human capital model that allows for variation in college readiness, we show otherwise. While the top decile of valuations is indeed large (40 percent of consumption), nearly half of high school completers place zero value on access to college. Subsidies to college currently flow to those already best positioned to succeed and least sensitive to them. Even modestly targeted alternatives may therefore improve ...
Briefing
Home Health Care and Aging in Place
Over time, older households have become more likely to age in place and more likely to receive long-term care at home.One possible reason these trends might be related is that increased access to home health care has facilitated aging in place. Factors making home health care more accessible include an increased proportion of married seniors — which provides more opportunities for informal spousal caregiving — and increased public funding for formal home health care through Medicare and Medicaid.An alternative hypothesis is that other forces have encouraged aging in place, which has in ...
Briefing
Why Is Geographic Mobility Declining?
Key TakeawaysIn the U.S., people of all ages are moving less than they did 30 years ago. In this article, we describe some of the leading economic explanations for this decline in geographic mobility.One set of explanations focuses on long-term trends such as population aging and expanding earnings opportunities for women.Another set of explanations focuses on changes in the geographic distribution of earnings, urban amenities and housing prices.
Discussion Paper
College or the Stock Market, or College and the Stock Market?
In this note, we document facts about the relationship between stock market participation and a predominant form of human capital investment -- formal higher education. We examine, using the Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF), the relationship between stock market participation and college enrollment and completion, with attention to the presence or absence of student loan debt.
Briefing
How Big Is the Inheritance Gap Between Black and White Families?
One of the most striking differences between Black and White households is a large disparity in wealth. A potential source of this gap is differences in transfers of wealth within families through bequests or gifts. In this article, we document who receives such transfers and the distribution of transfers among those who receive them. Black individuals are much less likely to receive any inheritances or gifts. Black recipients receive smaller amounts and have a much lower probability of extremely large transfers.
Briefing
How Couples Approach Portfolio Allocation
The classical theory of household portfolio allocation finds that the share of household wealth invested in risky assets is independent of the level of household wealth. However, this prediction is at odds with empirical observations. This Economic Brief presents findings that reconcile the two. A model in which a household's portfolio allocation reflects the preferences of both spouses, adjusted for the bargaining power of each spouse, predicts that the wealthier a household becomes, the greater the share of its wealth will be invested in risky assets.
Working Paper
Who Values Access to College?
At first glance, college appears to be of great value to most, given its mean returns and sharply subsidized tuition. An empirically-disciplined human capital model that allows for variation in college readiness suggests otherwise: Nearly half of high school completers place zero value on access to college. This renders blanket subsidies potentially inefficient. As proof of principle, we show that redirecting subsidies away from those who would nonetheless enroll--towards a stock index retirement fund for those who do not even when college is subsidized--increases ex-ante welfare by 1 percent ...
Journal Article
The cost of unanticipated household finance shocks : two examples
This article presents two simple calculations aimed at providing a first step in quantifying the costs of unanticipated financial shocks to a household. The two types of shocks considered are (1) an unanticipated drop in net worth and (2) an unexpected increase in the interest rate on borrowing. The shocks are faced by households in a life-cycle consumption-savings model and the costs are measured in terms of annual consumption. In general, for empirically plausible shocks, the results show that net worth shocks are substantially costlier than interest rate shocks. The costs of the shocks ...
Working Paper
Stock Market Investment: The Role of Human Capital
Participation in the stock market is limited, especially early in life. By contrast, human capital investment is widespread, especially early in life. Returns to equity are constant across households, while returns to human capital vary. The contribution of this paper is to demonstrate that once human capital investment is allowed for and, critically, disciplined to match observed dispersion in earnings, an entirely standard model of portfolio choice delivers stock market participation rates consistent with the data over the entire life cycle. Moreover, we show that endogenizing human capital ...