National Bureau of Economic Research

On July 1, the Program on Children was renamed the Program on Children and Families. This change, which better captures the range of research carried out by its 171 affiliates, in part marks a return to the program’s roots. In 1993, the late Alan Krueger launched an NBER project on the Economics of Families and Children. It subsequently became a program and has been known as the Program on Children since 1997. Broadening the program name recognizes the complex web of interactions, economic and otherwise, that involve children. Economic and other forces that affect families can have important effects on children, and developments involving children in turn have significant influence on the wellbeing of adult family members.

In the eight years since our last program report, scholars affiliated with the program have authored 919 working papers on a wide array of topics. We begin this report with a sampling of their continuing research in core areas, such as the long-term consequences of early-life conditions and the effects of public programs affecting children. We then summarize studies...

As the workforce in Europe and the US has grown older, the average wages of older workers have risen more rapidly than those of their younger colleagues. This seems inconsistent with a simple supply-and-demand analysis, which would suggest that as the supply of older workers grows, their wages should fall; it raises the question of what other factors could be responsible for the growing age-pay gap.

In Countries for Old Men: An Analysis of the Age-Pay Gap (NBER Working Paper 32340), Nicola Bianchi and Matteo Paradisi analyze administrative data covering 38 million workers at 3.7 million firms in Italy and Germany,…

As the population ages, the need for surrogate decision-makers for patients near the end of their lives is rising. When hospitalized older adults are unable to actively participate in decisions about their care, surrogates must make choices, often with limited information. Advance care planning with written directives may improve surrogate decision-making, but directives have limitations: preferences may change after completion, directions may not apply to the ultimate situation, and there can be communication challenges between the surrogates and care teams.

In How Do Surrogates Make Treatment Decisions for Patients with Dementia? An Experimental Survey Study (NBER Working Paper 32116), researchers Lauren Hersch Nicholas, Kenneth M. Langa, Scott D. Halpern, and Mario Macis examined...

In a new study of Racial and Ethnic Disparities in SSDI Entry and Health (NBER RDRC Center Paper NB23-04), Colleen Carey, Nolan H. Miller, and David Molitor document significant racial and ethnic differences in the use of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). Non-Hispanic Blacks and Native Americans enter the SSDI program at the highest rates relative to their share of the population while non-Hispanic Asians enter at the lowest rates. Average health status, measured by medical expenditure…

Immigrants play a significant role in the entrepreneurial landscape. In the United States, immigrants are 80 percent more likely to start businesses than native-born Americans. More than half of America's billion-dollar startup companies trace their roots to immigrant founders. There is limited research, however, on the factors that influence immigrants' decisions about where to locate their startup businesses. 

In The Effect of Immigration Policy on Founding Location Choice: Evidence from Canada's Start-up Visa Program (NBER Working Paper 31634), Saerom Lee and Britta Glennon investigate the impact of Canada's Start-up Visa Program on US-based…