National Bureau of Economic Research

Research Associates Lisa Kahn and Isaac Sorkin will become the co-directors of the Labor Studies Program on September 1, 2026. Kahn is the Helen F. and Fred H. Gowen Professor in the Social Sciences, and a professor of economics at the University of Rochester. Her research focuses on the effect of technological change, organizational structure, and education on labor market outcomes. Sorkin is an associate professor and Trione Faculty Scholar at Stanford University. He has studied labor market search, the effects of social insurance programs and minimum wages, and earnings…

The NBER has awarded four Robert Summers fellowships that enable economic statisticians to attend the Conference on Research in Income and Wealth (CRIW) meeting on July 20–21, 2026, in Cambridge, MA. Founded in 1936 by Simon Kuznets, the CRIW provides a forum for academics, government representatives, and business economists to present and discuss the latest research in this area. The fellows will participate in the meeting, which is part of the NBER Summer Institute, and have an opportunity to interact with leading scholars and practitioners in the field of economic measurement.

Over the past half-century, the gender composition of American college campuses has shifted from predominantly male to predominantly female. Today, 1.6 million more women than men attend four-year colleges in the US. Over the same time period, the economic status of men without college degrees has deteriorated.

In Bachelors Without Bachelor’s: Gender Gaps in Education and Declining Marriage Rates (NBER Working Paper 35179), Clara Chambers, Benjamin Goldman, and Joseph Winkelmann investigate how these shifts in educational attainment and…

The NBER Economics of Education Program covers topics related to education in a manner that is deeply informed by economic logic and empirical methods. The program draws upon theory from several fields including public, labor, development, and urban economics, as well as industrial organization. The program has 179 members and meets three times a year in Cambridge, Chicago, Stanford, and Washington. The average meeting attracts about 100 submissions for a program of about 10 papers. The program has a culture that combines rigor, constructive advice, and noteworthy collegiality.

Top North American universities are very well represented, but the Economics of Education draws participants from many states, countries, universities, and organizations. While the papers often analyze high-income countries’ policies, most of the…

Nursing homes certified by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to provide care and receive public reimbursement through Medicare and Medicaid are subject to mandatory annual inspections. While inspections are unannounced, they typically occur on an approximately yearly basis, as 74 percent of inspections take place between 40 and 60 weeks after the previous one. The average gap is around 53 weeks. Due to the cyclical nature of inspections, nursing home operators are able to anticipate when an inspection is likely and adjust their behavior accordingly. They appear to devote more effort to patient care when inspections are approaching.

In Predictably Unpredictable Inspections (NBER Working Paper 34491), Ashvin Gandhi, Andrew Olenski, and Maggie Shi study how the predictability of nursing home inspections shapes facility effort and patient...

Roughly one-quarter of new employer businesses in the United States are started by immigrants. Immigrant inventors have been responsible for approximately 23 percent of US patents produced since 1976 despite making up only 16 percent of the total US-based inventor population. Yet immigrant entrepreneurs usually do not build companies in isolation—many cofound startups alongside US-born entrepreneurs. In Native-Immigrant Entrepreneurial Synergies (NBER Working Paper 33804), Zhao Jin, Amir Kermani, and Timothy McQuade examine whether startups cofounded by immigrant and native entrepreneurs outperform those with founders from exclusively one...