Abstract. While state incarceration policies have received much attention in research on the causes of mass incarceration in the United States, their roles

Obstetricians and gynecologists (OB-GYNs) provide essential health care to women across their lifespan. Yet nearly half of US counties have no OB-GYNs, with nonmetropolitan communities disproportionately affected. Targeted Regulation of Abortion Providers (TRAP) laws, spurred by the 1992 US Supreme Court decision in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, impose regulatory burdens on abortion providers and may have influenced whether and where OB-GYNs choose to practice, which has not yet been comprehensively studied. Using a staggered difference-in-differences design and county-level data, we found that TRAP laws were associated with an average reduction of 4.67 percent in the density of OB-GYNs per 100,000 women ages 15–44 during the period 1993–2021, between Casey and the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision in 2022. TRAP laws affected both general and fellowship-trained OB-GYNs, as well as counties without abortion facilities. Concerningly, TRAP laws led to lower physician density in nonmetropolitan counties—a difference that persisted for a decade. As OB-GYN shortages are projected to worsen and TRAP laws are still in effect in twenty-four states, policy makers should consider the long-run effects of TRAP laws on women’s access to health care and their potential to exacerbate geographic disparities in access to care.

Abstract. This paper assesses the growth and spatial distribution of federal place-based policies in the United States. Using a novel dataset of federal pl

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent gave Mr. Musk’s representatives at the so-called Department of Government Efficiency a powerful tool to monitor and potentially limit government spending.

President-elect Donald Trump has picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, a choice that would add to Trump’s list of provocative picks whos...

The choice will roil many public health experts after his years of touting debunked claims that vaccines cause autism.

Abstract. In the United States, exclusionary public policies generate inequalities within and across labor, financial, and legal status hierarchies, which