The labor market prospects of young, unskilled men fell dramatically in the 1980s and improved in the 1990s. Crime rates show a reverse pattern: increasing during the 1980s and falling in the 1990s. Because young, unskilled men commit most crime, this paper seeks to establish a causal relationship between the two trends. Previous work on the relationship between labor markets and crime focused mainly on the relationship between the unemployment rate and crime, and found inconclusive results. In contrast, this paper examines the impact of both wages and unemployment on crime, and uses instrumental variables to establish causality. We conclude that both wages and unemployment are significantly related to crime, but that wages played a larger role in the crime trends over the last few decades. These results are robust to the inclusion of deterrence variables, controls for simultaneity, and controlling for individual and family characteristics.

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Introduced in 1993, Georgia's HOPE Program sponsors a meritbased scholarship for students attending in-state colleges and a grant for those entering technical schools. There are no income restrictions. Comparing Georgia with other southeastern states over the 1988-97 period, HOPE increased freshmen enrollment by 5.9%, or 2,889 students per year, which amounts to only 15% of freshmen scholarship recipients. Four-year colleges account for most of the gain; a reduction in students leaving the state explains two-thirds of the 4-year-school effect attributable to freshmen who have recently graduated from high school. White and black enrollments increased because of HOPE.

Non-cognitive Skills and the Gender Disparities in Test Scores and Teacher Assessments: Evidence from Primary School We extend the analysis of early-emerging gender differences in academic achievement to include both (objective) test scores and (subjective) teacher assessments. Using data from the 1998-99 ECLS-K cohort, we show that the grades awarded by teachers are not aligned with test scores, with the disparities in grading exceeding those in testing outcomes and uniformly favoring girls, and that the misalignment of grades and test scores can be linked to gender differences in non-cognitive development. Girls in every racial category outperform boys on reading tests and the differences are statistically significant in every case except for black fifth-graders. Boys score at least as well on math and science tests as girls, with the strongest evidence of a gender gap appearing among whites. However, boys in all racial categories across all subject areas are not represented in grade distributions where their test scores would predict. Even those boys who perform equally as well as girls on reading, math and science tests are nevertheless graded less favorably by their teachers, but this less favorable treatment essentially vanishes when non-cognitive skills are taken into account. White boys who perform on par with white girls on these subject-area tests and exhibit the same non-cognitive skill level are graded similarly. For some specifications there is evidence of a grade "bonus" for white boys with test scores and behavior like their girl counterparts. While the evidence is a little weaker for blacks and Hispanics, the message is essentially the same.

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