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The Digest

Long-Term Effects of the US Medical Research Effort During World War II
Article
 While US biomedical research funding generally allows researchers considerable freedom in determining the most promising topics to study, there have been some programs, such as the War on Cancer in the 1970s and Operation Warp Speed during the COVID-19 pandemic, that target funding at particular technologies or health objectives.In The Therapeutic Consequences of the War: World War II and the 20th-Century Expansion of Biomedicine (NBER Working Paper 33457), Daniel P....

Long-Term Impacts of Residential Racial Desegregation Programs
Article
Growing up in racially and economically segregated neighborhoods can have long-lasting effects. In 1966, Black families in Chicago sued the public housing authority over housing policies that segregated Black families. In response, the Chicago Housing Authority created a voucher program that would assist these families in moving to middle-income neighborhoods. Initially, families were relocated to predominantly White neighborhoods. After experiencing difficulty finding...

The Reporter

Program Report: Corporate Finance
Article
Author(s): Antoinette Schoar & Amir Sufi
The NBER Corporate Finance Program has been a leading research forum in the field since it was established in 1991. Corporate finance questions intersect with many areas of finance and economics, including macrofinance, asset pricing, financial intermediation, and organizational economics. This breadth of topics is reflected in the work presented at the Corporate Finance program meetings. The importance of the field has been widely recognized in academia and is evidenced by...

A Long-Run Reevaluation of War on Poverty Programs
Article
Author(s): Martha J. Bailey
Over sixty years ago in 1964, the launch of the War on Poverty represented one of the largest and most comprehensive attempts to improve wellbeing in US history. President Lyndon Johnson’s administration invested billions of dollars in American education, health, employment, and community development.1 Many of these programs targeted the roots of poverty, seeking to provide a “hand up, not a handout.” Johnson aimed “not only to relieve the symptom of poverty, but to cure it...

The Bulletin on Retirement & Disability

Health Inequality and Economic Disparities by Race, Ethnicity, and Gender
Article
In Health Inequality and Economic Disparities by Race, Ethnicity, and Gender (NBER Working Paper 32971 an earlier version, NBER RDRC Paper NB23-11), Nicolò Russo, Rory McGee, Mariacristina De Nardi, Margherita Borella, and Ross Abram use data from the Health and Retirement Study over the period 1996–2018 to evaluate measures of health inequality in middle age and the consequences of such health disparities. At age 55, Black men and women...

Disability Benefits, Aggregate Economic Conditions, and Earnings
Article
In How Do Economic Conditions Affect Earnings and Return to Disability Programs for Beneficiaries Whose Benefits Were Terminated? (NBER RDRC Paper NB22-03), Jeffrey Hemmeter, Kathleen Mullen, and Stephanie Rennane find that individuals whose benefits end due to medical improvement during an economic downturn earn less in the short run and are more likely to reapply for benefits within five years than those whose benefits end during stronger economic...

The Bulletin on Health

Additional Educational Attainment Reduces Alzheimer’s Risk
Article
Alzheimer's Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) represent a growing global health crisis, with cases projected to reach 131.5 million by 2050. The economic burden is substantial: In 2020, ADRD cost the United States $305 billion, with forecasts suggesting a threefold increase over the next 35 years in the absence of effective interventions. While previous research has associated lower educational attainment with increased ADRD risk, establishing causality has proved...

Policy Changes and Pharmaceutical Innovation Combine to Increase Naloxone Access
Article
Naloxone, which reverses the effects of an opioid overdose, is a critical tool for responding to the opioid crisis. However, prior to the 2010s, two barriers hindered its widespread distribution and use in the United States. One was legal access: Naloxone required a prescription from a healthcare provider. Another was that naloxone was administered by injection and therefore required training for proper use. In 2010, Illinois became the first state to adopt a dispensing...

The Bulletin on Entrepreneurship

“Third Places” Boost Local Economic Activity
Article
 Sociologists have argued that “third places” like cafés, which provide opportunities for individuals to socialize and exchange ideas outside of home and work, improve neighborhood life. But what about the relationship between such places and economic activity? In Third Places and Neighborhood Entrepreneurship: Evidence from Starbucks Cafés (NBER Working Paper 32604), researchers Jinkyong Choi, Jorge Guzman, and Mario L. Small use data on US business...

Stock Market Wealth and Entrepreneurship
Article
 In Stock Market Wealth and Entrepreneurship (NBER Working Paper 32643), Gabriel Chodorow-Reich, Plamen T. Nenov, Vitor Santos, and Alp Simsek evaluate the relationship between the performance of a household’s stock market portfolio and the likelihood that someone in that household launches an entrepreneurial venture. They analyze administrative data from Norway’s shareholder register and compute the holdings of every Norwegian household in all...