Patrick Coate

The two biggest investments of many Americans’ lives are buying a home and sending their kids to college. For middle-class homeowners with kids approaching college, housing wealth is often their primary or only financial asset, and it not surprising that many of them look to their home values to help finance their children’s education.

Many U.S. jurisdictions are enacting “ban the box” laws prohibiting employers from asking about criminal histories on job applications. One common goal of these laws is to keep ex-offenders from being automatically screened out before even having the chance to interview. But some recent research found that in New Jersey and New York City, these…

The most commonly discussed higher education decision is whether to attend four-year college. This is important, but even today only a third of Americans over age 25 have a bachelor’s degree.

If you’ve ever applied for a job, you’ve probably seen one particular question on your form: do you have a criminal record? But it’s becoming increasingly likely that you won’t be asked the next time you apply.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, previously known as food stamps) has about 45 million participants, near historical highs. But unemployment rates have dropped sharply since recession highs in 2009 and 2010.

Internal migration – Americans moving from one area to another – has fallen significantly over the last three decades, according to my new research brief, released today by the American Institute for Economic Research.

It has been an uncharacteristically warm fall and early winter here in the Northeast, and I for one was very happy to forego a White Christmas in order to have a warm one. But how much does the weather matter to average Americans, and how does it affect the cost of living?

I noted an interesting exercise in how new information, even in small doses, can change peoples’ behavior, during my recent visit to the Southern Economic Association annual meeting.

The Pew Research Center recently released a report on self-employment in the United States, which appears to contradict the storyline about the rise of the “gig economy.” But there’s a lot the underlying survey doesn’t tell us.

Earlier this month, the Department of Education released a new College Scorecard which contains a variety of information about almost all U.S. colleges, including costs, graduation rates, test scores and students’ future earnings. While it is a great source of data, the Scorecard has important limitations and users should be careful when using student outcomes…