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Jointly financed by the federal government and the states, Medicaid represents the second largest form of public-sector investment in children. Research documents direct positive effects of Medicaid on children’s well-being, but little is known about the effects of Medicaid expansions on the wealth of families with children. Using state variation in Medicaid access during the prenatal and infant period, linked to longitudinal data from the children of National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 79, we ask whether state-level Medicaid generosity is associated with family wealth among families with children and whether these effects vary by parental education and race-ethnicity. We find that greater state-level Medicaid access is associated with a larger total amount held in savings and retirement accounts, as well as in mortgages. These effects are largely driven by non-Hispanic white families, and those with more highly educated mothers.

We show there is a much stronger negative, dynamic relation between changes in economic uncertainty and Treasury yields over weaker economic times since at least 1990. We document this economic-state variation in uncertainty-yield dynamics for weekly and monthly change horizons, for nominal yields and real-yield proxies, for multiple economic-state identification methods, and for different economic uncertainty metrics. We present additional findings that suggest short-term fluctuations in precautionary-savings and consumption-smoothing forces are more impactful on interest rate dynamics during weaker economic times, especially relying on surveys of expected economic growth and inflation. Received February 8, 2019; editorial decision August 24, 2020 by Editor Nikolai Roussanov. Authors have furnished an Internet Appendix, which is available on the Oxford University Press Web site next to the link to the final published paper online.

Since the New Deal, labor has been a key member of the Democratic coalition. As unions decline, their centrality to the Democratic Party has also diminished. At the same time, state variation in party preferences, party strength, and the types of unions that remain has led some unions to become involved in Republican politics. In this manuscript we investigate how central unions are in party networks using state legislative donation data from 2000–2016. We find that union contributions are associated with increasing centrality to the Democratic Party, while business interest contributions are associated with unions being less central. Only union membership rates are related to labor’s position in the Republican network. This work has implications for how we consider which groups are under a party’s umbrella. While labor may spend more money, it cannot keep pace with business groups in the party coalition.

This paper investigates whether and to what extent the low unemployment insurance (UI) tax base in the United States creates disincentives to hire low-wage workers. Using data from the Current Population Survey and state variation in the UI tax base over 30 years, I estimate that a 10 percent nominal increase in the tax base raises the teenage employment rate by 1.4 percent, and indexing the tax base increases the teenage employment rate by 6 percent. These results offer evidence that the erosion of the UI tax base has reduced the employment of low-wage workers.

The Hispanic Paradox in birth outcomes is well documented for the US as a whole, but little work has considered geographic variation underlying the national pattern. This inquiry is important given the rapid growth of the Hispanic population and its geographic dispersion. Using birth records data from 2014 through 2016, we document state variation in birthweight differentials between US-born white women and the three Hispanic populations with the largest numbers of births: US-born Mexican women, foreign-born Mexican women, and foreign-born Central and South American women. Our analyses reveal substantial geographic variation in Hispanic immigrant-white low birthweight disparities. For example, Hispanic immigrants in Southeastern states and in some states from other regions have reduced risk of low birthweight relative to whites, consistent with a "Hispanic Paradox." A significant portion of Hispanic immigrants' birthweight advantage in these states is explained by lower rates of smoking relative to whites. However, Hispanic immigrants have higher rates of low birthweight in California and several other Western states. The different state patterns are largely driven by geographic variation in smoking among whites, rather than geographic differences in Hispanic immigrants' birthweights. In contrast, US-born Mexicans generally have similar or slightly higher odds of low birthweight than whites across the US. Overall, we show that the Hispanic Paradox in birthweight varies quite dramatically by state, driven by geographic variation in low birthweight among whites associated with white smoking disparities across states.

According to the Supplemental Poverty Measure, state-level poverty rates range from a low of less than 10 percent in Iowa to a high of more than 20 percent in California. We seek to account for these differences using a theoretical framework proposed by Brady, Finnigan, and Hubgen (2017), which emphasizes the prevalence of poverty risk factors as well as poverty penalties associated with each risk factor. We estimate state-specific penalties and prevalences associated with single motherhood, low education, young households, and joblessness. We also consider state variation in the poverty risks associated with living in a black household and a Hispanic immigrant household. Brady et al. (2017) find that country-level differences in poverty rates are more closely tied to penalties than prevalences. Using data from the Current Population Survey, we find that the opposite is true for state-level differences in poverty rates. Although we find that state poverty differences are closely tied to the prevalence of high-risk populations, our results do not suggest that state-level antipoverty policy should be solely focused on changing "risky" behavior. Based on our findings, we conclude that state policies should take into account cost-of-living penalties as well as the state-specific relationship between poverty, prevalences, and penalties.

Services offered through Part C of the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act improve cognitive, behavioral, and physical skills for children less than 3 years old at risk for or with a disability. However, there are low enrollment rates into services. Various Lead Agencies oversee services through Part C, and states determine which agency is in charge of administering these services. The objective of this study was to describe odds of enrollment into early intervention services based on the department administering services (Lead Agency). Each state’s Lead Agency (Education, Health, or Other), state population size, narrowness of eligibility criteria, and state-level screening rates were fit into a negative binomial regression model to predict odds of enrollment into Part C services. Results show that state’s reporting from “Health” and “Other” as a Lead Agency had significantly higher odds for Part C services compared with the state Lead Agency of Education (Health adjusted odds ratio [AOR] = 1.56, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [1.557, 1.561]; Other AOR = 2.40, 95% CI = [2.401, 2.405]). Further research should describe unique components of a Lead Agency’s administrative practices that contribute to the variation in enrollment. This study was an important step toward the investigation of low enrollment rates into Part C services.

This chapter discusses the results from Phelps, using data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics to chart the expansion of mass probation and evaluate whether mass probation developed in the same states—driven by the same criminal justice trends—as mass imprisonment. The primary data are state-level counts of probation and prison populations collected by the Bureau of Justice Statistics and reported in the “Prisoners,” “Probation and Parole in the United States,” and “Correctional Populations in the United States” series. Yet the probation population—especially for misdemeanor offenses—is more difficult to enumerate than the number of people imprisoned. The variation in approaches to punishment—and, in particular, the unpredictable nature of low-imprisonment states’ probation rates—reveals that comparative research focused primarily on imprisonment rates fundamentally misconstrues state variation. The chapter examines state-level variation in incarceration and probation rates in 1980, 1990, 2000, and 2010, evaluating whether probation expanded most rapidly in states that embraced imprisonment or those that maintained more moderate rates.

The use of NCAs is currently regulated under state law. These laws embody diverse approaches to the regulation of NCAs which generally limit enforcement of NCAs to those with reasonable and narrowly tailored terms. State law also incorporates various approaches to mitigating the negative effects NCAs might have on workers, including requiring adequate disclosure, consideration, and banning their use in certain employment contracts. These diverse approaches can leave regulatory gaps in certain states and can result in overregulation in others. But this can also be a feature—diverse approaches to legal regulation of NCAs at the state level takes advantage of the laboratory of the states to generate information that will allow economic research to better evaluate the effects of these diverse legal approaches without exposing the entire nation to potential mistakes. There has also been a growing and robust literature that has examined state variation in the regulation of NCAs and the effect of these laws on worker welfare. However, current evidence does not yet suggest a reliable and predictable link between the use of NCAs and the effect on employee welfare. Moreover, changes in employee welfare can be negatively correlated to changes in consumer welfare. Any antitrust rule that broadly prohibits the use and enforcement of NCAs would be based on incomplete evidence, would interfere with the current operation of the balanced and nuanced state by state approach to regulating NCAs, and would potentially be at odds with the antitrust laws’ focus on consumer welfare.

Medicaid is vastly more important than Medicare or private insurance in funding long-term care (LTC). However, states vary tremendously in their commitment to Medicaid LTC. This article advances knowledge of the origins, nature, and implications of this variation. After examining the degree of variation in state spending on Medicaid LTC, we show how federal policy has over the past fifty years steadily increased state discretion to shape these services. This decentralization largely reflects the potency of the intergovernmental lobby—governors and other state officials—in influencing federal policy. While fueling state variation, the intergovernmental lobby has also provided valuable political support that has helped Medicaid grow and resist retrenchment. After considering policy options that could mitigate Medicaid LTC inequities rooted in state differences, we assess how the catalytic forces that have fueled growth in Medicaid LTC may be insufficient to protect the program from future erosion.

We conduct a resume field experiment in all U.S. states to study how state laws protecting older workers from age discrimination affect age discrimination in hiring for retail sales jobs. We relate the difference in callback rates between old and young applicants to state variation in age and disability discrimination laws. These laws could boost hiring of older applicants, although they could have the unintended consequence of deterring hiring if they increase termination costs. In our preferred estimates that are weighted to be representative of the workforce, we find evidence that there is less discrimination against older men and women in states where age discrimination law allows larger damages, and more limited evidence that there is lower discrimination against older women in states where disability discrimination law allows larger damages. Our clearest result is that these laws do not have the unintended consequence of lowering callbacks for older workers.

The study's objective was to investigate whether attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) diagnoses from 2003 to 2011 were associated with either public school consequential accountability reforms initiated by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, particularly for low-income children, or with state psychotropic medication laws that prohibit public schools from recommending or requiring medication use.Logistic regression difference-in-differences models were estimated with repeated U.S. and state-representative cross-sections of responses to the 2003, 2007, and 2011 National Survey of Children's Health. Each wave included approximately 35,000 public school children between ages six and 13.From 2003 to 2007, the change in adjusted diagnostic prevalence was 2.8 percentage points higher for children ages six to 13 in households with incomes ≤185% of the federal poverty level residing in states first exposed to consequential accountability through NCLB (from 8.5% to 13.2%), compared with demographically similar children residing in other states (from 10.2% to 12.1%). From 2003 to 2011, the change in adjusted diagnostic prevalence was 2.2 percentage points lower for children ages six to 13 residing in states with a psychotropic medication law (from 8.1% to 7.8%), compared with children residing in other states (from 8.1% to 10.1%).NCLB-initiated consequential accountability reforms were associated with more ADHD diagnoses among low-income children, consistent with increased academic pressures from NCLB for this subgroup. In contrast, psychotropic medication laws were associated with fewer ADHD diagnoses, because they may indirectly reduce diagnoses via restrictions on recommending or requiring medication use. Future research should investigate whether children most affected by these policies are receiving appropriate diagnoses.

This paper examines the outcomes and characteristics of corporate acquisitions from the perspective of stakeholder-shareholder agency conflicts. Using state variation in labor protections, we find that acquirers with strong labor rights experience lower announcement returns. Combined acquirer and target announcement returns are also lower in the presence of strong labor rights. Our findings remain statistically and economically significant after we control for a range of deal, firm, industry and state characteristics and explore various channels for the labor rights effect. Overall, the evidence indicates that employee-shareholder conflicts of interest reduce shareholder gains from acquisitions.

Prior studies have reported that community health centers perform as well as other sites of care, despite serving more vulnerable patient populations. However, there is little prior study of geographic variation in quality outcomes and disparities in outcomes in this setting. Quantifying geographic variation is important so as to target quality improvement efforts and funding and to learn from states where total quality is highest and racial/ethnic disparities are lowest.To estimate between-state variation in hypertension, diabetes, and pregnancy outcomes and racial/ethnic disparities in these outcomes for health center patients.Using data on all US health centers from 2010 to 2014 (N=1047 health centers/year, or 21.2 million patients in 2014), we used linear regression models to estimate adjusted quality outcomes and racial/ethnic disparities in quality outcomes by state for hypertension control, diabetes control, and normal birthweight.We found wide variation in both outcomes and racial/ethnic disparities in outcomes between states for patients seen at health centers. For instance, between states, the mean proportion of patients with hypertension control ranged from 58% to 70% for white patients, from 49% to 64% for black patients, and from 53% to 74% for Hispanic patients (P0.001). Racial/ethnic disparities in outcomes ranged from negative or nonsignificant in some states to positive in others.Wide variation in health center patient outcomes and disparities in outcomes is observed between states. This variation suggests that policymakers should target funding and interventions to underperforming states, and identify determinants of high quality in higher performing states.

In this article, the author studies the effects of the minimum wage on immigration. He develops an analytical framework in which immigration is a function of the expected wage in the region of destination. In the analysis, the author exploits the state variation in expected wages stemming from the changes in the U.S. federal minimum wage during 1996–1997 and 2007–2009. The author addresses endogeneity between immigration and the expected wage using an instrumental variable approach. His results provide consistent evidence that the policy induced a sizeable flow of low-skilled immigrants to the United States in both periods. This pull is attributable to the minimum wage increasing immigrants' wages without harming their potential employment outcomes. The author corroborates these findings by showing that the policy did not have any impact on the flow of high-skilled immigrants. The effect on low-skilled immigration is also found when the interstate mobility of immigrants is considered. Finally, changes in the minimum wage only attracted legal immigrants, while undocumented immigrants were not affected.

States vary in their overall rates of nursing home deficiency citations as well as deficiencies for actual harm or jeopardy (Harrington et al., 2018). Civil Money Penalty (CMP) fines collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) are one enforcement action imposed to promote nursing home compliance with regulations. Collected CMP funds are redistributed to states for the sole purpose of improving nursing home resident care and quality of life through reinvestment in quality improvement projects. Using CASPER data available for US skilled nursing homes in 2015 and 2016 through the CMS QCOR database we examined the distribution of quality of care (QOC) and quality of life (QOL) deficiencies and CMP enforcement action across states. Guided by the systems framework for evaluating nursing home quality (Unruh & Wan, 2004) we further explored how contextual factors such as state spending for nursing home care, structural characteristics of facilities in states, and inadequate care processes indicated by deficiencies contribute to CMP enforcement actions and fines. Findings indicate that 27% of enforcement actions resulting in a CMP between 2015 and 2016 were imposed for a QOL deficiency while 61.7% represented QOC deficiencies. QOL deficiencies represented only 8% of the highest severity deficiency category but 81.7% of enforcement actions for QOC were for those causing immediate harm or jeopardy. QOC deficiencies are a focus of enforcement actions as they represent critical care processes influencing resident basic needs for hydration, ambulation, skin integrity and care for other special physical and behavioral needs.

Little is known about why some states enact more laws addressing obesity than others. This study examines what factors influence the enactment of laws using a data set of the 90 laws enacted over 2001–2010 in 30 states. Odds of enacting laws are mostly unrelated to state variation in education, population density, income, political party structure and obesity prevalence. Factors that significantly influence number of laws include education, black and Hispanic percentages of population and age. Examination of categories of laws indicates cases where political party structure and obesity prevalence influence cumulative numbers of laws, but often in conflicting directions. The negative but weak (p = 0.054) effect of obesity prevalence on the cumulative number of all laws also suggests that state governments that enact most laws are those with relatively low obesity prevalence. This study indicates opportunities for future research to examine which laws addressing obesity are most effective among the diverse ...

Federal waivers to state governments from conditions attached to grants-in-aid and other programs have become a critical factor in U.S. intergovernmental relations, yet no systematic empirical analysis has considered which factors make some states more likely to receive waivers. This article presents results of model estimations of time-series panel data that use as dependent variables measures of waivers to federal Medicaid and education policy from 1991 to 2008. Different factors influence the waivers states receive to different federal programs, suggesting that the waiver process varies greatly from policy to policy. These results do suggest that scholars of future waiver processes look to the capacity of each state's government and the relative size of populations the federal program most affects. Copyright 2013, Oxford University Press.

Adolescents face daily trade-offs between human capital investment, labor, and leisure. This paper exploits state variation in the repeal of Sunday closing laws to examine the impact of a distinct and plausibly exogenous rise in the quantity of competing diversions available to youth on their educational attainment. The results suggest that the repeals led to a significant decline in both years of education and the probability of high school completion. I explore increased employment opportunities and risky behaviors as potential mechanisms. Further, I find a corresponding decline of the repeals on adult wages.

Marriage for same-sex couples was only permitted in a limited number of states prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges. We exploit panel variation across states prior to the Supreme Court decision to investigate the effect of marriage laws on demand for mortgage credit. Identification relies on the fact that states permitted same-sex marriage at different points in time, often through court order whereby the outcome and timing of ruling was unknown. We estimate that states permitting same-sex marriage experienced a 6–16% increase in same-sex mortgage applications after the policy was implemented. Federal recognition of marriage is associated with a stronger effect than state same-sex marriage prior to the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act, but the effect of state-recognized marriage is also stronger than anti-discrimination policies in housing. Our findings provide important insight not only to the housing choices of same-sex households but the impact of marriage on all households.

Minnesota Population Center Working Paper Series, 2014-4, Scholarship on the expansion of the U.S. carceral state has primarily focused on imprisonment rates. Yet the majority of adults under formal criminal justice control are on probation, an ‘‘alternative’’ form of supervision. This article develops the concept of mass probation and builds a typology of state control regimes that theorizes both the scale and type of punishment states employ. Drawing on Bureau of Justice Statistics data from 1980 and 2010, I analyze whether mass probation developed in the same places, affecting the same demographic groups and driven by the same criminal justice trends, as mass imprisonment. The results show that mass probation was a unique state development, expanding in unusual places like Minnesota and Washington. The conclusions argue for a reimagining of the causes and consequences of the carceral state to incorporate the expansion of probation., Minnesota Population Center Working Paper Series

A disturbing feature of demographic trends in India is the sharp decline in the proportion of girls to boys. Most existing analyses of the Indian child sex ratio present a country wide picture and focus on trends across states. Such state level analyses may hide intra state variation. This paper uses district and village data on sex ratio at birth and infant mortality to examine the extent, geographical spread and nature (before or after birth) of daughter deficit within the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. Our analysis shows that (i) daughter deficit in Tamil Nadu occurs in nearly half the state's districts; (ii) a large proportion of daughter deficit occurs before birth; (iii) daughter deficit rises with birth order and (iv) daughter elimination is not confined to particular socio-economic groups.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 expanded eligibility for public health insurance, Medicaid, to nearly all adults ages 18-64 with household incomes below 138% of the federal poverty line and living in states that opted to participate in the Medicaid expansion. The ACA Medicaid expansion can potentially decrease reliance of disabled adults on the Supplemental Security Income program which provides Medicaid coverage as well as cash assistance to low-income individuals with disabilities. In the paper we estimate the effects of Medicaid expansion on the entry into the Supplemental Security Income in the first two years following the expansion launch in January 2014. We use data from the Social Security Administration and identify causal effects by exploiting cross state variation in Medicaid eligibility resulting from states’ decisions about whether to participate in the Medicaid expansion.

We provide evidence from a field experiment — a correspondence study — on age discrimination in hiring for retail sales jobs. We collect experimental data in all 50 states and then relate measured age discrimination — the difference in callback rates between old and young applicants — to variation across states in antidiscrimination laws offering protections to older workers that are stronger than the federal age and disability discrimination laws. We do a similar analysis for nonexperimental data on differences across states in hiring rates of older versus younger workers. The experimental evidence points consistently to evidence of hiring discrimination against older men and more so against older women. However, the evidence on the relationship between hiring discrimination against older workers and state variation in age and disability discrimination laws is not so clear; at a minimum, there is not a compelling case that stronger state protections reduce hiring discrimination against older workers. In contrast, the non-experimental evidence suggests that stronger disability discrimination protections increase the relative hiring of older workers.

This paper studies the impact of unilateral divorce laws on child weight gain. I use difference-in-differences approach exploiting time and state variation in the adoption of the unilateral divorce law. I analyze a comprehensive nationwide health examination survey (NHANES I) during 1971-1974. The results show that exposure to unilateral divorce law leads to bigger Body Mass Index (BMI) for children between 2 and 18 years.However, according to the Center of Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), this weight gain is still under the normality patterns. I also investigate the possibles transmission mechanisms for the increase in BMI. Results indicate that for the specic age group of children between 7 and 18 years the exposure to unilateral divorce law leads to bigger BMI and bigger probability to be overweight.

Studies estimating the consequences of immigration on wages paid to native-born workers often reveal small-to-nonexistent effects when using cross city or state variation (the “spatial approach”) but large deleterious effects when using variation across education-by-experience cells (the “national approach”). One mechanism of labor market adjustment emphasized in the spatial approach is that native-born workers respond to immigration by specializing in occupations demanding skills in which they have a comparative advantage, thereby helping to protect themselves from labor market competition and wage losses. This paper examines whether the national approach also identifies this skill response. We find evidence that such a response does occur among workers without college experience. However, regressions using traditional education-by-experience cells do not find skill reallocation consistent with comparative advantage for college-educated natives. This result points to limitations of the education-by-experience cell model.

States are given considerable discretion in designing their Medicaid programs and, as a result, Medicaid is made up of 51 different programs. Using data from the 1997 National Survey of America's Families, the authors examine variation in health care access and use by adults in 13 states and then compare those differences with national estimates of access and use. The authors find significant differences in access and use among the 13 study states. This variation persisted after differences in state Medicaid caseload characteristics, including demographic, socioeconomic, and health status, were controlled for. State variation in beneficiaries' access and use also persisted after differences in health care market characteristics, such as supply of health care providers, level of employer-sponsored coverage, and level of HMO penetration, and characteristics of the state Medicaid programs were controlled for.

There are significant disparities in homeownership rates across the regions and states of the United States. The causes of these disparities are determined within a standard probit model of the individual homeownership decision where the micro-level observations are aggregated to the regional level. Factors which play a significant role at the individual level are evaluated for their ability to explain regional differentiation. The relative price of owning and renting plays a major role as do other market level determinants. Individual demographic characteristics are not as important with the exception of those related to the immigration and citizenship status of the household head.

State Medicaid programs have expanded home and community-based services (HCBS). This article compares trends and variations in state policies for Medicaid HCBS programs in 2005 and 2010. State limitations on financial eligibility criteria and service benefits have remained stable. Although the use of consumer direction, independent providers, and family care providers has increased, some states do not have these options. The increased adoption of state cost control policies have led to large increases in persons on waiver wait lists. Access could be improved by standardizing and liberalizing state HCBS policies, but state fiscal concerns are barriers to rebalancing between HCBS and institutional services.

Long-term care screening and assessment programs were designed by states to controllong-term care costs and to prevent unnecessary institutionalization of Medicaid participants. This study reports data collected by telephone survey of state officials in all 50 states and Washington, D.C. on state variation in LTC screening and assessment programs. The majority of the state screening and assessment programs cover an array of LTC services but this has resulted in multiple separate screening programs for different long-term care services and eligibility groups. Only three states coordinated screening and assessment across long-term care programs by operating a single state administrative agency, using uniform need criteria and standard tools, and having automated databases (Arizona, Colorado, and Maine). The design and implementation of multiple and separate screening and assessment programs in most states may create potential barriers to clientaccess, information about services and choice of services.

Many large employers prefer to self-insure health plans offered to employees rather than purchase them from insurance companies to save costs and to avoid the burden of complying with varying state mandates. This concerns state governments because they cannot directly regulate self-insured plans. This article describes the prevalence of employer self-insurance for the nation and by state in 1993 and examines what factors, especially state policies, contribute to the national and state variation in the prevalence of self-insurance. Data from the National Employer Health Insurance Survey on 34,604 private sector establishments are analyzed. Variation in the prevalence of self-insurance was largely explained by the firm size of the establishments. After all other factors were examined, very little was added to predict the rate of self-insurance for each state. While state premium taxation and benefits mandates were not associated with self-insurance, small-group reforms were significantly and positively associated with the probability of self-insurance.

There is great variation among states in Medicaid spending per low-income person. This variation has many determinants, including state discretion and differences in prices and amounts of services used. Incentives in Medicaid to have low-income states spend more have generally not worked. The decentralized approach to Medicaid and the variations in spending created thereby have consequences in access and health outcomes that seem to belie a presumed national interest in equity. The current trend toward state-based solutions to health care coverage would likely exacerbate existing variations. A federal solution, though not likely, would be necessary to eliminate state variations.

This article uses two measures of state party ideology—a 1994 survey of state party committee members and a content analysis of state party platforms between 1990 and 1996—to determine variation between states in interparty ideological differences. These interparty ideological differ ences are compared to David Mayhew's scale measuring the historical presence of traditional party organizations in the American states. As hy pothesized, there is a strong tendency for states with histories of tradi tional party organization to have less ideologically polarized parties than those states without such traditions. This association holds up when we control for state-level measures of education, income, mass polarization, electoral competition, and party control. State environments that histori cally encouraged or discouraged the formation of traditional party orga nizations help explain variation in patterns of party activism in the contemporary era.

While there is a well-documented link between violence and mental health, there is substantially less known about the relationship between mental health laws and violence. One policy in particular that may have an effect on crime is based on the mental health professional’s ability to involuntarily detain a patient who is deemed dangerous. It is unclear, a priori, if involuntarily detaining mental health patients will deter violent crime by removing the threat of violence, or actually encourage violence by altering the doctor-patient relationship. To address this question empirically, I exploit the state to state variation in timing of passage and length of stay laws that dictate both the minimum and maximum mental health facility stays for those who are involuntarily detained. Using a state panel, I find that while laws dictating the maximum length of time an individual can stay in a mental health facility have no effect on violence, laws dictating the required minimum stay do. That is, we would expect to see the general homicide rate decrease by 0.12%, or about 1 murder every two years, for each state that adopts a 3 day minimum stay law.

Despite the growing literature on the punitive turn, knowledge of how the experience of American imprisonment varied across time and place remains limited. This article begins to fill that gap, providing a nuanced portrayal of variation in the practices of rehabilitation. Purpose To examine how one aspect of the rehabilitative ideal in practice—the provision of staff dedicated to inmate services—varied across time and place over the past 30 years. Methods The article presents statistics on the inmate-to-staff ratios for inmate services staff (including teachers, counselors, doctors, etc.) between the years 1979 and 2005 for all 50 U.S. states. Results The analyses reveal that while there was a substantial decline in the services staff ratio during the 1990s and 2000s, this shift across time paled in comparison to variation across place. Northeastern prison systems, for example, on average maintained higher inmate services staff ratios in 2005 than Southern states in any year. In addition, results suggest state variation is related to differences in prison crowding, inmates’ racial composition, and political cultures. Conclusions The findings suggest the punitive turn was more variegated and partial than is often assumed and highlight the importance of exploring state variation in penal practices.

This paper examines the outcomes and characteristics of corporate acquisitions from the perspective of stakeholder-shareholder agency conflicts. Using state variation in labor protections, we find that acquirers with strong labor rights experience lower announcement returns. Combined acquirer and target announcement returns are also lower in the presence of strong labor rights. Our findings remain statistically and economically significant after we control for a range of deal, firm, industry and state characteristics and explore various channels for the labor rights effect. Overall, the evidence indicates that employee-shareholder conflicts of interest reduce shareholder gains from acquisitions.

Adolescents face daily trade-offs between human capital investment, labor, and leisure. This paper exploits state variation in the repeal of Sunday closing laws to examine the impact of a distinct and plausibly exogenous rise in the quantity of competing diversions available to youth on their educational attainment. The results suggest that the repeals led to a significant decline in both years of education and the probability of high school completion. I explore increased employment opportunities and risky behaviors as potential mechanisms. Further, I find a corresponding decline of the repeals on adult wages.

We use data from the American Time Use Survey (ATUS), covering both the recent recession and the pre-recessionary period, to explore how foregone market work hours are allocated to other activities over the business cycle. Given the short time series, it is hard to distinguish business cycle effects from low frequency trends by simply comparing time spent on a given category prior to the recession with time spent on that category during the recession. Instead, we identify the business cycle effects on time use using cross state variation with respect to the severity of the recessions. We find that roughly 30% to 40% of the foregone market work hours are allocated to increased home production. Additionally, 30% of the foregone hours are allocated to increased sleep time and increased television watching. Other leisure activities absorb 20% of the foregone market work hours. We use our evidence from the ATUS to calibrate and test the predictions of workhorse macroeconomic models with home production. We show that the quantitative implications of these models regarding the allocation of time over the business cycle matches reasonably well the actual behavior of households.

In this paper we compare health insurance coverage for U.S. citizen children in all-citizen and mixed families in the fifteen states with the largest share of children in mixed families. Insurance coverage is lower and state variation in coverage is higher for children in mixed families vis-a-vis children in all-citizen families. The main challenges for states are tackling uninsurance among all low-income children and addressing the very low rates of employer-sponsored insurance for all low-income children and for children in all mixed families, regardless of income. We discuss state policy options to address the needs of children in mixed families.

This paper studies the labor market experiences of white male college graduates as a function of economic conditions at time of college graduation. I use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth whose respondents graduated college between 1979 and 1988 and are followed for 14 to 23 years after college graduation. I employ both national and state variation in economic conditions at time of college graduation to identify the effect. Because timing and location of college graduation could potentially be affected by economic conditions, I also instrument for the national unemployment rate usinf year of birth and for the state unemployment rate using year of birth and state of residence at age 14. I find large, negative wage effects to graduating in a worse economy which persist for the entire period studied. I find that cohorts who graduate in worse economies are in lower level occupations and have slightly higher educational attainment. Labor supply is unaffected.

Objective:The authors explore state variation in expenditures for Medicaid communitybased care services for the period 1990 to 1997. Method:A random effects panel model is used to explore the relationship between state demographic, supply, economic, programmatic, and political factors and states’ Medicaid community-based care expenditures. Results:Although states increased provision of services over the study period, significant state-level variation was evident. Expenditures were positively associated with state per capita income, regulation of nursing home bed supply, and the number of Medicare home health users but were negatively related to nursing home bed supply. Conclusions:Recent legal rulings, combined with the demonstrated preferences of most individuals to receive care in the community, require policies to foster the expansion of Medicaid community-based care. The most consistent relationships that are amenable to policy intervention relate to state fiscal resources and long-term care supply regulation.

Welfare reform has made receipt of cash benefits more difficult and less attractive for single mothers. We examine whether reforms of AFDC affected caseloads of another program - Supplemental Security Income (SSI). We exploit state variation in welfare reform over time, and find that female-headed households in states aggressively pursuing welfare reform were 21.6 percent more likely to receive SSI. This implies that a decrease in caseloads in one program cannot be interpreted as an equal-sized decrease in the number of families receiving public assistance. In addition, our results have policy implications for the well-being of families affected by welfare reform time limits.

The issues of how effective schools are in promoting educational quality and the extent to which schools can be held accountable in this regard have prompted efforts to ferret out the different factors tied to test performance at the aggregate level. Our research (Powell & Steelman, 1984) represented the first major analysis of the factors linked to state differences in Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) performance. Using recently released and previously unexploited data on SAT scores provided by the College Board, we examined state and regional variations in average SAT score as a function of several compositional and structural characteristics. Wainer (1986) raises a number of concerns about existing research on state variation in SAT performance. Indeed, he comes perilously close to dismissing such studies as worthless unless several stringent, perhaps unrealistic, conditions are satisfied. We respond here to his criticisms.' The first alleged pitfall that disturbs Wainer about our work is that the model we tested is neither explicit nor specified. It is possible that Wainer arrives at this mistaken impression because of the differences between the jargon of his field (educational statistics) and that of ours (sociology). He recommends that we distinguish between background and treatment variables. We do so, calling them instead compositional and structural variables, respectively. Consequently, Wainer's comments about our research attest more to the need for a common

Data provided by states over the past 10 years demonstrate little change in the use of separate facilities for students with handicaps. However, state-to-state variation in reliance on the various educational placements is quite high, indicating far less stability in service patterns than the national data would suggest.