AN NBER PUBLICATION
ISSUE: No. 10, October 2010
The Digest
A free monthly publication featuring non-technical summaries of research on topics of broad public interest
Gaining prescription drug insurance through Medicare Part D was associated with [a] 63 percent increase in the number of annual prescriptions.
The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, which has come to be known as "Medicare Part D," provided a drug subsidy to all Medicare enrollees. In Medicare Part D and its Effect on the Use of Prescription Drugs, Use of Other Health Care Services and Health of the Elderly (NBER Working Paper No. 16011), Robert Kaestner and Nasreen...
Article
Teachers are 6.5 percent less likely to leave their schools when accountability grades unexpectedly move upward.
Since 1999, Florida schools have been graded "A" through "F" using a combination of aggregate test-score levels from statewide tests administered in grades 4, 5, 8, and 10. In 2002, the accountability grades began incorporating test-score data from grades 3 through 10, as well as measures of the year-to-year progress of individual students.
In School...
Article
The U. S. economy is as sensitive to increases in the cost of oil today as it was during the oil embargoes of the 1970s.
Contrary to popular opinion and previous studies, the U. S. economy is as sensitive to increases in the cost of oil today as it was during the oil embargoes of the 1970s, according to Valerie Ramey and Daniel Vine. Writing in Oil, Automobiles, and the U.S. Economy: How Much Have Things Really Changed? (NBER Working Paper No. 16067), they argue that...
Article
As income inequality has grown in local school districts, so too have the local dollars flowing into elementary and secondary education.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, inequality in household income rose more than 20 percent from 1969 to 2006, driven largely by income growth in the top half of the distribution. This development, along with the growing diversity of the U.S. population along racial and ethnic lines, raises the question of whether public support...
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The global economy has shown a steady increase in business cycle synchronization over [the past 125 years].
Michael Bordo and Thomas Helbling examine economic data spanning the past 125 years and find that the global economy has shown a steady increase in business cycle synchronization over this period. They further find that the chief cause of this phenomenon in the major industrial countries is the growing importance of global economic shocks.
In International...
Article
100,000 [bed] nets distributed will lead to a reduction of about 900 under-age-five malaria inpatients, and to a reduction of approximately 100 child deaths.
Since 2003, Zambia has been engaged in a large-scale, centrally coordinated national anti-malaria campaign which has become a model in sub-Saharan Africa. This program -- which involved mass distribution of insecticide-treated mosquito nets, intermittent preventive treatment for pregnant women, indoor residual...