In viewing the U.S. as a land of equal opportunity, increased education—and especially college—is seen as the primary mechanism for achieving upward social and economic mobility. In contrast, researchers have recently raised the possibility that postsecondary education may be contributing to increased economic stratification. Professor John Friedman of Brown University and his colleagues will examine the role of college in the intergenerational transmission of income inequality.

Over the last decade, student loan debt, delinquencies and defaults have increased considerably. According to Federal Reserve data, total student loan debt climbed from $364 billion in 2004 to almost $1.2 trillion in 2014. During this decade, the percentage of borrowers in repayment and over 90 days delinquent rose from 20% to nearly a third.

Professors Jesse Shapiro and Justine Hastings will complete a project with two components that provide new tests of "mental accounting," or how households represent money in their financial decision-making. Psychological evidence suggests that households accommodate financial windfalls or additional expenses differently depending on which "mental accounts" they impact.

There are 47 million people in poverty in the United States. Although many public and private programs aim to address the needs of the poor, we have only limited information on the effectiveness of many of these programs. A key obstacle to designing evidence-based anti-poverty initiatives is that the groups that innovate (local service providers), evaluate (researchers), and replicate (policy actors) tend to act in isolation. This makes it difficult to identify successful programs and replicate them nationally.

The recent displacement of workers by computers has sparked interest in the future of work and occupations. Research on technological changes and increasing wage inequality are receiving growing attention. However, despite its relevance, there is little empirical evidence on the trajectories of workers displaced by a new technology.

Economists Miguel Morin and Rowena Gray will analyze the changing structure of American jobs between 1900 and 1940 in response to the spread of electrification.