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Working Paper
Revisiting the Effect of Education on Later Life Health
We provide new evidence on the effect of education on later life health. Using variation in state compulsory schooling laws, we examine education's effect on a range of outcomes encompassing physical health, decision-making, and life expectancy. We employ under-utilized Health and Retirement Study data linked to restricted geographic identifiers, allowing us to match individuals more accurately to compulsory schooling laws. While positively related to educational attainment, compulsory schooling laws have no significant effect on later life health outcomes. Our results suggest that increased ...
Speech
An Economic Outlook - The Wharton School
I can?t formulate education policy, or allocate funds, or even make my own children study what I want them to ? although, of course, I?m immensely proud of them and they?ve made excellent choices without listening to me. But I can point to the research and what the data say. Changing our approach to how we invest in education and training won?t take care of the entire student debt issue, but it can help those who are disproportionately affected by it.
Working Paper
The Multiplier Effect of Education Expenditure
This paper examines the short-run effects of federal education expenditures on local income. We exploit city-level variation in exposure to national changes in the $30-billion Federal Pell Grant Program, which is the largest program to help low-income students attend college in the U.S., to calculate fiscal multipliers of education expenditures. An increase in Pell grants by 1 percent of a city's income raises local income by 2.4 percent over the next two years. This multiplier effect is larger than estimates for military spending (1.5 on average). Multipliers are higher when grants are ...
Discussion Paper
Following the Money: State and Local Funding for Community Colleges in the Fifth District
Public colleges and universities (including community colleges) represent the largest sector of undergraduate higher education in the United States. In the fall of 2023, community colleges and public four-year universities enrolled 73 percent of all undergraduate students. These institutions receive most of the public state and local funds designated for higher education, but the level and composition of funding varies across states and institution types.State funding formulas have historically directed significantly more money toward four-year institutions than to community colleges — a ...