Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Using Examiner Assignment To Estimate Causal Effects Of Ssdi Receipt, Nicole Maestas, Kathleen Mullen, Alexander Strand

Nicole Maestas

We present the first estimates of the causal effect of SSDI receipt on the labor supply generalizable to the entire population of program entrants in the present day system. We take advantage of a unique workload management database to match Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) applicants to disability examiners, and use natural variation in examiners’ allowance rates to estimate the labor supply effects of SSDI. Because applicants are randomly assigned to examiners (conditional on observable characteristics), examiner-specific allowance rates can be used to instrument for the allowance decision in a labor supply equation contrasting denied vs. allowed applicants. We find …