Research

Published Research

The Effects of Universal State Pre-Kindergarten on the Child Care Sector: The Case of Florida’s Voluntary Prekindergarten Program

Authors: Daphna Bassok, Luke Miller, Eva Galdo

Over the past two decades states have drastically increased their investments in pre-kindergarten programs. One major question about state investments in early childhood education programs is to what extent these initiatives create new child care options rather than crowd-out existing private child care options.

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Published Research

Intensive College Counseling and the Enrollment and Persistence of Low Income Students

Authors: Benjamin Castleman, Joshua Goodman

Though counseling is one commonly pursued intervention to improve college enrollment and completion for disadvantaged students, there is relatively little causal evidence on its efficacy. We use a regression discontinuity design to study the impact of intensive college counseling provided to college-seeking, low income students by a Massachusetts program that admits applicants partly on the basis of a minimum GPA requirement.

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Published Research

Safety in Numbers: Why the Mere Physical Presence of Others Affects Risk‐taking Behaviors

Authors: Eileen Chou, Loran F. Nordgren

As social mammals, being in a group signals a state of relative security. Risk‐taking behavior in other social mammals formed the basis for our prediction that the mere physical presence of others, absent any social interaction, would create a psychological state of security that, in turn, would promote greater risk‐taking behavior.

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Published Research

Racial bias in pain assessment and treatment recommendations, and false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites

Authors: Sophie Trawalter, Kelly M. Hoffman, Jordan R. Axt, M. Norman Oliver

Black Americans are systematically undertreated for pain relative to white Americans. We examine whether this racial bias is related to false beliefs about biological differences between blacks and whites (e.g., “black people’s skin is thicker than white people’s skin”).

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Published Research

Freshman year financial aid nudges: An experiment to increase FAFSA renewal and college persistence

Authors: Benjamin Castleman, Lindsay C. Page

In this paper we investigate, through a randomized controlled trial design, the impact of a personalized text messaging intervention designed to encourage college freshmen to refile their Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and maintain their financial aid for sophomore year. The intervention produced large and positive effects among freshmen at community colleges where text recipients were almost 14 percentage points more likely to remain continuously enrolled through the Spring of sophomore year.

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Published Research

Congress and Policymaking in the 21st Century

Authors: Eric M. Patashnik, Jeff Jenkins

Congress is frequently said to be ‘broken’, ‘dysfunctional’, and ‘weak’, but how does the contemporary Congress really work? Does Congress have the capacity to solve major policy problems? 

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