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School districts use a variety of policies to close budget gaps and stave off teacher layoffs and furloughs. More schools are implementing four-day school weeks to reduce overhead and transportation costs. The four-day week requires substantial schedule changes as schools must increase the length of their school day to meet minimum instructional hour requirements. Although some schools have indicated this policy eases financial pressures, it is unknown whether there is an impact on student outcomes. We use school-level data from Colorado to investigate the relationship between the four-day week and academic performance among elementary school students. Our results generally indicate a positive relationship between the four-day week and performance in reading and mathematics. These findings suggest there is little evidence that moving to a four-day week compromises student academic achievement. This research has policy relevance to the current U.S. education system, where many school districts must cut costs.

We add to the small literature on private school supply by exploring exits of K-12 private schools. We find that the closure of private schools is not an infrequent event and use national survey data from the National Center for Education Statistics to study closures of private schools. We assume that the probability of an exit is a function of excess supply of private schools over demand as well as of the school's characteristics, such as age, size, and religious affiliation. Our empirical results generally support the implications of the model.

ABSTRACT This article highlights novelties and innovations that were successfully incorporated in the development and ongoing refinement of an accelerated nursing program for second-degree students. Using a reflective practice framework, [...]

I. INTRODUCTION An estimated 5.3 to 5.6 million South Africans are living with HIV/AIDS, more than in any other country. (1) The adult infection rate is approximately 21 percent. (2) [...]

Tastes for associations could influence the structure, conduct and performance of the system of local governments in the US. A model of jurisdiction formation, which considers racial discrimination, argues that prejudiced individuals in a racially mixed area may choose to limit the size of their jurisdiction to meet their taste for disassociation and avoid likely cost efficiencies from school district consolidations. Increasing racial heterogeneity therefore suggests added jurisdictions for these individuals. When the model was tested using state panel data on school districts and special-service districts, it was found that increasing racial heterogeneity of a state population raises the number of school districts. Also, no support was found for the assertion that increasing racial heterogeneity influences the development of special districts.

INTRODUCTION Much has been made over time of the existence of a marriage tax and subsidy. This literature has focused on the issue of the equity of a marriage tax [...], The effect of the differential tax treatment of married and unmarried couples, the so-called marriage tax, on the rate and timing of marriages is analyzed Using time-series data, we study the effect of the marriage tax on the fraction of unmarried women over the age of 15 years who marry in each year. We find no effect We also investigate whether couples shift the timing of their marriage from the end of one year to the beginning of the next year in response to an increase in the marriage tax. We find empirical support for this behavior.

We examine the implications of additive, homoskedastic errors for models of firm's cost-minimizing behavior. The premise is that some factors unobservable to the econometrician are known to the firm and must satisfy the theoretical restrictions imposed by cost minimization. We analyze additive homoskedastic errors for both the input demand model and the cost share model. We find that this simple error structure is inconsistent with rational behavior if some part of the stochastic component is known to the decision-maker. Input demand models violate nonnegativity and cannot represent homothetic technologies. For cost share systems, nonnegativity is also a potential problem but, surprisingly, concavity can be easily satisfied. An empirical application assesses the practical significance of these results.Key words: Cost minimization; Heteroskedasticity; Input share systems; Input demand systems; Random parameters; Random production models JEL classification: C50

This paper uses unique administrative data to expand the understanding of the role women's intermittency decisions play in the determination of their wages. We demonstrate that treating intermittency as exogenous significantly overstates its impact. The intermittency penalty also increases in the education level of the woman. The penalty for a woman with a high school degree with an average amount of intermittency during six years after giving birth to her first child is roughly half the penalty for a college graduate. We also demonstrate the value of using an index to capture multiple dimensions of the intermittency experience, and we illustrate the importance of firm dynamics in the determination of a woman's wage. JEL classification: J13, J31, J22 Key words: intermittency, administrative data, career interruptions, fertility, labor supply, wage differentials, I. Introduction A vast literature quantifies the labor market penalty associated with a worker who exhibits intermittent labor force attachment. The penalty is typically measured in terms of lower wages [...]

Working Paper 2011-2 March 2011 Abstract: Utilizing linked vital statistics, administrative employer, and state welfare records, the analysis in this paper investigates the determinants of a woman's intermittent labor force [...]

Working Paper 2011-1 March 2011 Abstract: Substantial racial disparities continue to persist in the prevalence of preterm births and low-birth-weight births. Health policy aimed at reducing these disparities could be [...]

This article makes use of unique administrative data to expand the understanding of the role women's intermittency decisions play in the determination of her wages. We demonstrate that treating intermittency as exogenous significantly overstates its impact. The intermittency penalty also increases in the education level of the woman. The penalty for women with a high school degree with an average amount of intermittency during 6 years after giving birth to her first child is roughly half the penalty for college graduates. We also demonstrate the value of making use of an index to capture multiple dimension of the intermittency experience, and illustrate the importance of firm dynamics in the determination of a woman's wage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]