Charles R. Link

The merits of a longer school day

Abstract This paper presents results of an empirical study of the effects of increasing the amount of math and reading instruction offered to third through sixth grade students. The data come from a nationwide random sample for the 1976–1977 school year. While blacks and Hispanics received significantly greater hours of instruction than whites, all groups experienced diminishing returns at the observed amounts of instruction. In nearly all cases there appeared to be little benefit expected from a further increase in the amount of math and reading instruction offered per day.

Labor Supply Responses of Married Professional Nurses: New Evidence

This paper considers how the decision to enter advanced practice nursing (e.g., the occupations of nurse practitioner, certified nurse-midwife, nurse anesthetist, and clinical nurse specialist) is affected by State laws on the scope of practice of APNs. ...

The Influence of the Quantity and Quality of Education on Black-White Earnings Differentials: Some New Evidence

Numerous studies have been done concerning the impact of education on black-white earnings differentials. This paper discusses the influence of the quantity and quality of education on the earnings of young black and white males in 1967. Early research which utilized 1960 Census data indicated low returns to blacks from investments in education.1 In a more recent study, Finis Welch reported that returns to education for young blacks have risen relative to whites between 1959 and 1966. This fact combined with evidence of a rise in the quality of black versus white education led Welch to attribute a large portion of the relative black earnings gain to changes in the quality of education.2 Welchs hypothesis, however, is based on indirect evidence since he did not include in his regression model a variable for the quality of elementary and secondary education. The present paper includes such a variable and investigates the differential influence of school quality on the earnings of blacks and whites. This paper uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of the Labor Force conducted by the Bureau of the Census.3 The particular sample examined consists of 861 males age 15-25 in 1967 of whom 707 are white and 154 are black. All of these individuals were out of school at least one year and had positive earnings. The first section discusses the basic earnings models and variables. The next section presents results which suggest that the impact on earnings of educational quality is much larger for blacks than whites. Also, findings are shown which indicate that the extent of labor market discrimination has diminished since 1960. Methodology

Access to medical care under Medicaid: differentials by race.

The Medicaid program was designed to help correct for the unequal access to medical care by income and race in pre-1965 America. Previous evaluations of the program have claimed that on average the eligible poor have enjoyed considerable gains in access, but that the benefits of Medicaid have not been shared equally by blacks and whites. We reexamined the evidence on differential access by race early in the program (1969) and evaluate that claim for the mature program (1976). Our evaluation is conducted within the context of multivariate models of physician and hospital utilization designed to control for a variety of socioeconomic, health status, and resource supply characteristics. While earlier evaluations overstated the extent of racial differentials in 1969, blacks who were not chronically ill had significantly lower levels of ambulatory care--both within and outside of the South. Between 1969 and 1976 all race, region, and health status groups of nonelderly Medicaid recipients experienced increases in physician visits that far outpaced those of the entire nonelderly U.S. population. By 1976 blacks clearly achieved equality with whites in Medicaid ambulatory care use. The only statistically significant shortfall we find is in hospital utilization among Southern blacks in good health.

New Evidence on the Achievement of Wealth Neutrality in School Finance

Martin Feldstein provides a simple framework for analyzing one concept of equality of opportunity in school finance-wealth neutrality. When his approach is applied to Delaware, it is found that wealth neutrality can be achieved only with drastic changes in the states school finance mechanism. One of the unique features of the study is that we allow for and find significant interdistrict differences in wealth elasticities. Such interdistrict variations are likely to make the achievement of wealth neutrality, in the Feldstein sense, very difficult.