| The first two essays of this dissertation study the effect of suburban education on urban students. Many inner-city students already attend suburban schools; they either pay to attend or they participate in integration programs and other pilot programs. A thorough evaluation of the effects of suburban education has obvious policy implications for the design of programs to provide better educational opportunities to isolated minorities.;The second essay is based on my own survey. I evaluate Boston's scMETCO busing program by comparing the long run outcomes of program graduates against a group of applicants who were never enrolled due to lack of space. This procedure, I argue, mitigates the problem of self-selection. The survey also includes background measures, neighborhood and school characteristics. I use these to evaluate the survey design and to study differences in school quality. I find that scMETCO has a positive effect on the educational attainment of participants. This is due partly to differences in school quality. I also find that the program effect increases with participation.;Despite the competitive structure of the credit card market, rates remain high and sticky compared to the cost of funds. The third essay discusses some of the main issues surrounding the behavior of credit card users. I make use of data containing individual level credit card interest rates to show that "mistakes" of carrying over balances by "convenience" users lead to only small interest payments. Furthermore, I show that balances that are carried beyond the grace period have an elastic response to interest rates.;The first essay uses existing data on disadvantaged urban youth. The data includes both white and minority respondents, who reported attending public high schools outside of Boston. The data allows me to measure differences in outcomes controlling for background. I find that schooling in the suburbs has a positive effect on short-run socioeconomic outcome measures. I also find that controlling for background, the benefits are much less for minorities than for whites. |
