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The Digest

Rights to Carry Concealed Handguns and Urban Crime
Article
When states enact Right-to-Carry (RTC) concealed handgun laws, incidents of violent crimes, robberies, and aggravated assaults involving firearms increase by around a third in major cities as a result of the altered behavior of gun permit holders, career criminals, and the police. These adverse crime effects from RTC laws are in part generated by a substantial increase in gun thefts as well as reduced police effectiveness, John J. Donohue, Samuel V. Cai, Matthew V....

The Changing Composition of Sovereign Debt Holdings
Article
National governments that finance their activities by issuing debt must find someone to buy it. The interest rate they must pay to borrow depends on the cost of attracting new buyers, a cost that generally rises along with the outstanding stock of debt. Due in part to government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, the aggregate government debt-to-GDP ratio is now at its highest level since 2003. Outstanding government debt now exceeds GDP in advanced economies, and is...

The Reporter

Program Report: The Economics of Aging
Article
Author(s): Jonathan Skinner
When the NBER’s Program on the Economics of Aging began in 1986 under the direction of David Wise, the baby-boom generation was between the ages of 22 and 40. Long-run projections at the time forecast that the United States would transition to an older population distribution. Today, with baby boomers ranging in age from 58 to 76, that projected future is the ongoing reality of our nation. One-fifth of the population will be age 65 or older in the next decade. Since its...

The Promise of Linked Historical Census Data
Article
Author(s): Katherine Eriksson
Individual records from the 1950 US Census were publicly released on April 1, 2022. Economic historians had been waiting for this day for 10 years. This data source, like the individual-level data from earlier censuses, makes it possible to locate the information reported by a specific person. I found the records for my grandparents along with those for my mother, who was born in December 1949. They lived in rural Lincoln County, Kentucky. My grandfather, Bernard...

The Bulletin on Retirement & Disability

How Short-Term Private Disability Insurance Affects Public Disability Benefits
Article
Forty percent of US workers have access to employer-provided short-term disability insurance (STDI). This insurance generally pays benefits to disabled workers during the five-month waiting period between disability onset and when Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits can commence. By providing income during the waiting period, STDI may encourage more disabled workers to apply for SSDI, leading to more SSDI awards. However, employers who offer STDI have a...

Measuring the Undocumented and Legal Immigrant Populations in the US
Article
Basic facts about the size of the immigrant population, the fraction undocumented, and future trends in these measures are crucial for analysis of Social Security and other public policies. However, there is a lack of quality data on the number of undocumented immigrants that reside in the US at a given point in time, as standard government surveys do not indicate a person’s legal status. In Projecting Trends in Undocumented and Legal Immigrant Populations in the...

The Bulletin on Health

VA Hospital Care Improves Health and Lowers Cost
Article
Millions of elderly veterans are “dually eligible” to receive hospital care in two distinct settings: at public facilities funded by the US Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) or at private hospitals that accept Medicare reimbursement. The choice of setting is consequential for both the costs of their care and health outcomes, as demonstrated in Is There a VA Advantage? Evidence from Dually Eligible Veterans (NBER Working Paper 29765) by David C. Chan, Jr., David Card,...

Heterogeneous Mental Health Effects of Shocks to Housing Prices
Article
US house prices fell by 34 percent between 2006 and 2012. But the downturn was more severe in some parts of the country than in others. For example, home values in Phoenix and Las Vegas dropped by 46 and 60 percent, respectively. In contrast, house prices in Pittsburgh and Buffalo didn’t fall at all, instead increasing by 5 and 6 percent over this time period.   How did the overall housing downturn, and the associated Great Recession, affect mental health among...

The Bulletin on Entrepreneurship

The Rise of Private Financing for Entrepreneurs
Article
In Private or Public Equity? The Evolving Entrepreneurial Finance Landscape (NBER Working Paper 29532), Michael Ewens and Joan Farre-Mensa survey the changes in the US entrepreneurial finance market over the last two decades. Their study begins by describing the differences between publicly listed and private firms, and then explores how several regulatory, technological, and competitive changes affecting both startups and investors have affected the costs and...

Inventors and Innovation Respond to Tax Incentives
Article
Income taxes raise government revenue, finance government spending programs, and redistribute income from high to low earners. These taxes can also induce taxpayers to work less, evade taxes, or move to lower-tax locations. The economic theory of optimal tax design tries to set tax rates to balance these trade-offs. In The Effects of Taxes on Innovation: Theory and Empirical Evidence (NBER Working Paper 29359), Stefanie Stantcheva investigates whether income...