Labor Studies.

• Position: Program and Working Group Meetings

NBER's Program on Labor Studies met in Cambridge on October 31. Program Director Richard B. Freeman and NBER Research Associate Lawrence F. Katz, both of Harvard University, organized the meeting and chose the following papers to discuss:

Jesse Rothstein, Princeton University and NBER; Stephanie Cellinis, George Washington University; and Fernando Ferreira, University of Pennsylvania and NBER, "The Value of School Facilities: Evidence from a Dynamic Regression Discontinuity Design."

Amalia Miller, University of Virginia, and Carmit Segal, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, "Does Temporary Affirmative Action Produce Persistent Effects? A Study of Black and Female Employment in Law Enforcement"

William Kerr, Harvard University, and William Lincoln, University of Michigan, "The Supply Side of Innovation: H-1B Visa Reforms and U.S. Ethnic Invention"

Morris M. Kleiner, University of Minnesota and NBER, and Alan B. Krueger, Princeton University and NBER, "The Prevalence and Effects of Occupational Licensing" (NBER Working Paper No. 14308)

Douglas Almond, Columbia University and NBER; Joseph J. Doyle, MIT and NBER; Amanda Kowalski, MIT; and Heidi Williams, Harvard University, "Estimating the Marginal Returns to Medical Care: Evidence from At-Risk Newborns"

Janet Currie, Columbia University and NBER; Mark Stabile, University of Toronto; and Phongsack Manivong and Leslie L. Roos, University of Manitoba: "Child Health and Young Adult Outcomes"

Rothstein, Cellinis, and Ferreira draw on the unique characteristics of California's system of school finance, comparing districts in which school bond referenda passed or failed by narrow margins, to estimate the impact of investments in school facilities. They find that passing a referendum causes immediate, sizable increases in home prices, implying a willingness on the part of marginal homebuyers to pay $1.50 or more for each dollar per pupil of facility spending. These effects do not appear to be driven by changes in the income or racial composition of homeowners. While the authors find suggestive evidence that bond passage leads to increases in student test scores, this effect cannot explain more than a small portion of the housing price effect, indicating that bond passage leads to improvements in other dimensions of school output (for example, safety) that may be not captured by test scores.

Miller and Segal exploit the rich variation in timing and outcomes of 140 employment discrimination lawsuits brought...