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Articles 151 - 180 of 336
Full-Text Articles in Economics
The Effect Of The Earned Income Tax Credit In The District Of Columbia On Poverty And Income Dynamics, Bradley L. Hardy, Daniel Muhammad, Rhucha Samudra
The Effect Of The Earned Income Tax Credit In The District Of Columbia On Poverty And Income Dynamics, Bradley L. Hardy, Daniel Muhammad, Rhucha Samudra
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Using unique longitudinal administrative tax panel data for the District of Columbia (DC), we assess the combined effect of the DC supplemental earned income tax credit (EITC) and the federal EITC on poverty and income dynamics within Washington, DC, from 2001 to 2011. The EITC in DC merits investigation, as the DC supplement to the federal credit is the largest in the nation. The supplemental DC EITC was enacted in 2000, and has been expanded from 10 percent of the federal credit in 2001 to 40 percent as of 2009. To implement the study, we estimate least squares models with …
Temporary Help Employment In Recession And Recovery, Susan N. Houseman, Carolyn J. Heinrich
Temporary Help Employment In Recession And Recovery, Susan N. Houseman, Carolyn J. Heinrich
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The temporary help industry, although small, plays a significant role in the macro economy, reflecting employers’ growing reliance on temporary help agencies to provide flexibility in meeting staffing needs. Drawing on detailed temporary-help order data between 2007 and 2011 from a large, nationally representative staffing company, we provide insights into the characteristics of temporary help work, employers’ use of temporary agencies to screen workers for permanent positions, and the industry’s role in labor market adjustment over the business cycle. We estimate that the temporary help industry accounted for a large share of gross job losses and job gains over this …
The Potential Effects Of Federal Health Insurance Reforms On Employment Arrangements And Compensation, Marcus O. Dillender, Carolyn J. Heinrich, Susan N. Houseman
The Potential Effects Of Federal Health Insurance Reforms On Employment Arrangements And Compensation, Marcus O. Dillender, Carolyn J. Heinrich, Susan N. Houseman
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) presents an opportunity to significantly improve compensation for American workers. A potential concern, though, is that employers will circumvent the employer mandate by increasing their use of workers in staffing arrangements that are not covered by the mandate: workers averaging less than 30 hours per week, working on a temporary basis, or working in organizations with fewer than 50 full-time employees. In this paper, we shed light on the likely effects that the ACA will have on employment arrangements. We first examine how part-time employment in Massachusetts changed after its health insurance reform, which is …
Military Retention Incentives: Evidence From The Air Force Selective Reenlistment Bonus, Justin Joffrion, Nathan Wozny
Military Retention Incentives: Evidence From The Air Force Selective Reenlistment Bonus, Justin Joffrion, Nathan Wozny
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The limited lateral entry and rigid pay structure for U.S. military personnel present challenges in retaining skilled individuals who have attractive options in the civilian labor market. One tool the services use to address this challenge is the Selective Reenlistment Bonus (SRB), which offers eligible personnel with particular skills a substantial cash bonus upon reenlistment. However, the sequential nature of the bonus offer and reenlistment process limits the ability to adjust manpower quickly, raising interest in research that estimates the effect of the SRB on retention. While this literature has acknowledged challenges including potential endogeneity of bonus levels, attrition, and …
Estimating Hispanic-White Wage Gaps Among Women: The Importance Of Controlling For Cost Of Living, Peter Mchenry, Melissa Mcinerney
Estimating Hispanic-White Wage Gaps Among Women: The Importance Of Controlling For Cost Of Living, Peter Mchenry, Melissa Mcinerney
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Despite concern regarding labor market discrimination against Hispanics, previously published estimates show that Hispanic women earn higher hourly wages than white women with similar observable characteristics. This estimated wage premium is likely biased upwards because of the omission of an important control variable: cost of living. We show that Hispanic women live in locations (e.g., cities) with higher costs of living than whites. After we account for cost of living, the estimated Hispanic-white wage differential for non-immigrant women falls by approximately two-thirds. As a result, we find no statistically significant difference in wages between Hispanic and white women in the …
Who Benefits From A Minimum Wage Increase?, John W. Lopresti, Kevin J. Mumford
Who Benefits From A Minimum Wage Increase?, John W. Lopresti, Kevin J. Mumford
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper addresses the question of how a minimum wage increase affects the wages of low-wage workers. Most studies assume that there is a simple mechanical increase in the wage for workers earning a wage between the old and the new minimum wage, with some studies allowing for spillovers to workers with wages just above this range. Rather than assume that the wages of these workers would have remained constant, this paper estimates how a minimum wage increase impacts a low-wage worker’s wage relative to the wage the worker would have if there had been no minimum wage increase. The …
Inference On Causal Effects In A Generalized Regression Kink Design, David Card, David S. Lee, Zhuan Pei, Andrea Weber
Inference On Causal Effects In A Generalized Regression Kink Design, David Card, David S. Lee, Zhuan Pei, Andrea Weber
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We consider nonparametric identification and estimation in a nonseparable model where a continuous regressor of interest is a known, deterministic, but kinked function of an observed assignment variable. This design arises in many institutional settings where a policy variable (such as weekly unemployment benefits) is determined by an observed but potentially endogenous assignment variable (like previous earnings). We provide new results on identification and estimation for these settings, and apply our results to obtain estimates of the elasticity of joblessness with respect to UI benefit rates. We characterize a broad class of models in which a sharp “Regression Kink Design” …
The Impact Of Affirmative Action On The Employment Of Minorities And Women Over Three Decades: 1973-2003, Fidan Ana Kurtulus
The Impact Of Affirmative Action On The Employment Of Minorities And Women Over Three Decades: 1973-2003, Fidan Ana Kurtulus
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
What role has affirmative action played in the growth of minority and female employment in U.S. firms? This paper analyzes this issue by comparing the employment of minorities and women at firms holding federal contracts and therefore mandated to implement affirmative action, and at noncontracting firms, over the course of three decades spanning 1973–2003. It constitutes the first study to comprehensively document the long-term impact of affirmative action in federal contracting on the U.S. employment landscape. The study uses a new panel data set of over 100,000 large private-sector firms across all industries and regions, obtained from the U.S. Equal …
The Effect Of Medicare Eligibility On Spousal Insurance Coverage, Marcus O. Dillender, Karen Mulligan
The Effect Of Medicare Eligibility On Spousal Insurance Coverage, Marcus O. Dillender, Karen Mulligan
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
A majority of married couples in the United States take advantage of the fact that employers often provide health insurance coverage to spouses. When the older spouses become eligible for Medicare, however, many of them can no longer provide their younger spouses with coverage. In this paper, we study how spousal eligibility for Medicare affects the health insurance and health care access of the younger spouse. We find spousal eligibility for Medicare results in the younger spouse having worse insurance coverage and reduced access to health care services.
Trade Reform And Regional Dynamics: Evidence From 25 Years Of Brazilian Matched Employer-Employee Data, Rafael Dix-Carneiro, Brian K. Kovak
Trade Reform And Regional Dynamics: Evidence From 25 Years Of Brazilian Matched Employer-Employee Data, Rafael Dix-Carneiro, Brian K. Kovak
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We empirically study the dynamics of labor market adjustment following the Brazilian trade reform of the 1990s. We use variation in industry-specific tariff cuts interacted with initial regional industry mix to measure trade-induced local labor demand shocks, and then examine regional and individual labor market responses to those one-time shocks over two decades. Contrary to conventional wisdom, we do not find that the impact of local shocks is dissipated over time through wage-equalizing migration. Instead, we find steadily growing effects of local shocks on regional formal sector wages and employment for 20 years. This finding can be rationalized in a …
Mothers' Long-Term Employment Patterns, Alexandra Killewald, Xiaolin Zhuo
Mothers' Long-Term Employment Patterns, Alexandra Killewald, Xiaolin Zhuo
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Previous research on maternal employment has disproportionately focused on married, college-educated mothers and examined either current employment status or postpartum return to employment. Following the life course perspective, we instead conceptualize maternal careers as long-term life course patterns. Using data from the NLSY79 and optimal matching, we document four common employment patterns of American mothers over the first 18 years of maternity. About two-thirds follow steady patterns, either full-time employment (38 percent) or steady nonemployment (24 percent). The rest experience “mixed” patterns: long-term part-time employment (20 percent), or a multiyear period of nonemployment following maternity, then a return to employment …
Effects Of The Minimum Wage On Employment Dynamics, Jonathan Meer, Jeremy West
Effects Of The Minimum Wage On Employment Dynamics, Jonathan Meer, Jeremy West
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The voluminous literature on minimum wages offers little consensus on the extent to which a wage floor impacts employment. We argue that the minimum wage will impact employment over time, through changes in growth rather than an immediate drop in relative employment levels. We conduct simulations showing that commonly-used specifications in this literature, especially those that include state-specific time trends, will not accurately capture these effects. Using three separate state panels of administrative employment data, we find that the minimum wage reduces job growth over a period of several years. These effects are most pronounced for younger workers and in …
The Job Search Intensity Supply Curve: How Labor Market Conditions Affect Job Search Effort, Jeremy Schwartz
The Job Search Intensity Supply Curve: How Labor Market Conditions Affect Job Search Effort, Jeremy Schwartz
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
During the Great Recession of 2007, unemployment reached nearly 10 percent and the ratio of unemployment to open positions (as measured by the Help Wanted OnLine Index) more than tripled. The weak labor market prompted an unprecedented extension in the length of time in which a claimant can collect unemployment insurance (UI) to 99 weeks, at an expense to date of $226.4 billion. While many claim that extending UI during a recession will reduce search intensity, the effect of weak labor market conditions on search remains a mystery. As a result, policymakers are in the dark as to whether UI …
Mandate-Based Health Reform And The Labor Market: Evidence From The Massachusetts Reform, Jonathan T. Kolstad, Amanda E. Kowalski
Mandate-Based Health Reform And The Labor Market: Evidence From The Massachusetts Reform, Jonathan T. Kolstad, Amanda E. Kowalski
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We model the labor market impact of the key provisions of the national and Massachusetts "mandate-based" health reforms: individual mandates, employer mandates, and subsidies. We characterize the compensating differential for employer-sponsored health insurance (ESHI) and the welfare impact of reform in terms of "sufficient statistics." We compare welfare under mandate-based reform to welfare in a counterfactual world where individuals do not value ESHI. Relying on the Massachusetts reform, we find that jobs with ESHI pay $2,812 less annually, somewhat less than the cost of ESHI to employers. Accordingly, the deadweight loss of mandate-based health reform was approximately 8 percent of …
Aggregate Demand, Idle Time, And Unemployment, Pascal Michaillat, Emmanuel Saez
Aggregate Demand, Idle Time, And Unemployment, Pascal Michaillat, Emmanuel Saez
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper develops a model of unemployment fluctuations. The model keeps the architecture of the Barro and Grossman (1971) general disequilibrium model but replaces the disequilibrium framework on the labor and product markets by a matching framework. On the product and labor markets, both price and tightness adjust to equalize supply and demand. There is one more variable than equilibrium condition on each market, so we consider various price mechanisms to close the model, from completely flexible to completely rigid. With some price rigidity, aggregate demand influences unemployment through a simple mechanism: higher aggregate demand raises the probability that firms …
Medicaid And The Labor Supply Of Single Mothers: Implications For Health Care Reform, Vincent Pohl
Medicaid And The Labor Supply Of Single Mothers: Implications For Health Care Reform, Vincent Pohl
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act expands Medicaid and introduces health insurance subsidies, thereby changing work incentives for single mothers. To undertake an ex ante policy evaluation of the employment effects of the PPACA, I structurally estimate a model of labor supply and health insurance choice exploiting existing variation in Medicaid policies. Simulations show that single mothers increase their labor supply at the extensive and the intensive margin by six and five percent, respectively. The PPACA leads to crowding-out of employer-sponsored health insurance of about 40 percent and increases single mothers' welfare by about $190 per month.
The Ups And Downs In Women's Employment — Shifting Composition Or Behavior From 1970 To 2010?, Kristin E. Smith
The Ups And Downs In Women's Employment — Shifting Composition Or Behavior From 1970 To 2010?, Kristin E. Smith
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper tracks factors contributing to the ups and downs in women’s employment from 1970 to 2010 using regression decompositions focusing on whether changes are due to shifts in the means (composition of women) or due to shifts in coefficients (inclinations of women to work for pay). Compositional shifts in education exerted a positive effect on women’s employment across all decades, while shifts in the composition of other family income, particularly at the highest deciles, depressed married women’s employment over the 1990s contributing to the slowdown in this decade. A positive coefficient effect of education was found in all decades, …
The Effect Of Public Insurance Coverage For Childless Adults On Labor Supply, Laura Dague, Thomas C. Deleire, Lindsey Leininger
The Effect Of Public Insurance Coverage For Childless Adults On Labor Supply, Laura Dague, Thomas C. Deleire, Lindsey Leininger
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This study provides plausibly causal estimates of the effect of public insurance coverage on the employment of nonelderly, nondisabled adults without dependent children (“childless adults”). We use regression discontinuity and propensity score matching difference-in-differences methods to take advantage of the sudden imposition of an enrollment cap, comparing the labor supply of enrollees to eligible applicants on a waitlist. We find that enrollment into public insurance leads to sizable and statistically meaningful reductions in employment up to at least nine quarters later, with an estimated size of 2–10 percentage points, depending on the model used.
Use Of Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program Benefits By Unemployment Insurance Applicants In Michigan During The Great Recession, Christopher J. O'Leary, Kenneth J. Kline
Use Of Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program Benefits By Unemployment Insurance Applicants In Michigan During The Great Recession, Christopher J. O'Leary, Kenneth J. Kline
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
During the Great Recession, both the Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the federal-state unemployment insurance (UI) program experienced dramatic increases in participation. Using Michigan program administrative data on all SNAP (2006–2011) recipients and all UI (2001–2010) applicants, we examine SNAP use before and after UI application. Both past and future receipts of SNAP are highly negatively correlated with meeting UI income and job separation eligibility requirements. Unemployment insurance applicants with insufficient wage credits or job separations because of quitting or employer discharge are much more likely to have received SNAP in the past. Furthermore, such UI applicants are also …
Financing Unemployment Insurance, Wayne Vroman, Stephen A. Woodbury
Financing Unemployment Insurance, Wayne Vroman, Stephen A. Woodbury
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Following the Great Recession, most states’ unemployment insurance (UI) trust funds became insolvent, requiring the states to borrow from the U.S. Treasury to finance benefit payments. This article describes the basics of UI financing and reviews the origins of the financial crisis facing the federal-state UI system. It then examines the main components of the UI payroll tax—the taxable wage base and the experience-rated payroll tax—and considers how these might be modified to avoid future widespread insolvency. We conclude with some speculative remarks on the future of UI financing.
How Effects Of Local Labor Demand Shocks Vary With Local Labor Market Conditions, Timothy J. Bartik
How Effects Of Local Labor Demand Shocks Vary With Local Labor Market Conditions, Timothy J. Bartik
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper estimates how effects of shocks to local labor demand on local labor market outcomes vary with initial local economic conditions. The data are on U.S. metro areas from 1979 to 2011. The paper finds that demand shocks to local job growth have greater effects in reducing local unemployment rates if the local economy is initially depressed than if the local economy is booming. Demand shocks have greater effects on local wage rates if the local unemployment rate is initially low, but lesser effects if local job growth is initially high. These different effects of local demand shocks imply …
Unemployment Insurance, Stephen A. Woodbury
Unemployment Insurance, Stephen A. Woodbury
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Unemployment insurance (UI) provides temporary income support to workers who have lost their jobs and are seeking reemployment. This paper reviews the origins of the federal-state UI system in the United States and outlines its principles and goals. It also describes the conditions for benefit eligibility, the benefits themselves, and their financing through the UI payroll tax. The UI system is complex and includes many interested parties, including employers, worker advocates, state UI administrators, and the federal government. These parties’ differing views have led to controversies over benefit eligibility, adequacy, and whether the states or federal government should bear primary …
Short-Time Compensation As A Tool To Mitigate Job Loss? Evidence On The U.S. Experience During The Recent Recession, Katharine G. Abraham, Susan N. Houseman
Short-Time Compensation As A Tool To Mitigate Job Loss? Evidence On The U.S. Experience During The Recent Recession, Katharine G. Abraham, Susan N. Houseman
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
During the recent recession only 17 states offered short-time compensation (STC)—pro-rated unemployment benefits for workers whose hours are reduced for economic reasons. New federal legislation will encourage the expansion of STC. Exploiting cross-state variation in STC, we present new evidence indicating that jobs saved during the recession as a consequence of STC could have been significant in manufacturing, but that the overall scale of the STC program was generally too small to have substantially mitigated aggregate job losses in the 17 states. Expansion of the program is necessary for STC to be an effective counter-cyclical tool in the future.
State Incentives For Innovation, Star Scientists, And Jobs: Evidence From Biotech, Enrico Moretti, Daniel J. Wilson
State Incentives For Innovation, Star Scientists, And Jobs: Evidence From Biotech, Enrico Moretti, Daniel J. Wilson
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
We evaluate the effects of state-provided financial incentives for biotech companies, which are part of a growing trend of placed-based policies designed to spur innovation clusters. We estimate that the adoption of subsidies for biotech employers by a state raises the number of star biotech scientists in that state by about 15 percent over a three-year period. A 10 percent decline in the user cost of capital induced by an increase in R&D tax incentives raises the number of stars by 22 percent. Most of the gains are due to the relocation of star scientists to adopting states, with limited …
Partial Disability System And Labor Market Adjustment: The Case Of Spain, Jose I. Silva, Judit Vall-Castello
Partial Disability System And Labor Market Adjustment: The Case Of Spain, Jose I. Silva, Judit Vall-Castello
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
Although partially disabled individuals in Spain are allowed to combine the receipt of disability benefits with a job, the empirical evidence shows that employment rates for this group of individuals are very low. Therefore, in this paper we construct labor market model with search intensity and matching frictions in order to identify the incentives and disincentives to work provided by the partial disability system in Spain from the point of view of both disabled individuals and employers. According to the model, the high employment rate gap observed between nondisabled and disabled workers can be partially explained by the presence of …
Expenditure, Confidence, And Uncertainty: Identifying Shocks To Consumer Confidence Using Daily Data, Marta Lachowska
Expenditure, Confidence, And Uncertainty: Identifying Shocks To Consumer Confidence Using Daily Data, Marta Lachowska
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
The importance of consumer confidence in stimulating economic activity is a disputed issue in macroeconomics. Do changes in confidence represent autonomous fluctuations in optimism, independent of information on economic fundamentals, or are they a reflection of economic news? I study this question by using high-frequency microdata on spending and consumer confidence, and I find that consumer confidence contains information relevant to predicting spending, independent from other indicators. The exogenous movements in consumer confidence lead to very short fluctuations in consumer spending, consistent with the hypothesis that more consumer confidence reflects less uncertainty about the future.
Predictors Of Employment Growth And Unemployment In U.S. Central Cities, 1990-2010, Laura Wolf-Powers
Predictors Of Employment Growth And Unemployment In U.S. Central Cities, 1990-2010, Laura Wolf-Powers
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper considers employment growth and unemployment from 1990-2010 in a cross-section of cities in light of practical tools that city governments have at their disposal to provide relief. In particular, I test educational attainment (both initial levels and growth over time) and public capital investment as influences on job growth and changes in unemployment rates in 83 central cities in the United States. Change in educational attainment over time is suggestive of causing higher job growth and lower unemployment. The implication is that initiatives to attract and retain college-educated professionals and investments in increasing college attainment among incumbent residents …
Employment Relations And Wages: What Can We Learn From Subjective Assessments?, Marta Lachowska
Employment Relations And Wages: What Can We Learn From Subjective Assessments?, Marta Lachowska
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper studies the link between hourly wages and workers’ subjective assessments of how easy it would be to find another job as good as the present one, and how easy it would be for an employer to replace an employee. First, using high-quality data, I study the correlates of these two assessments. Second, I study whether respondents who report better outside opportunities and respondents who think they are difficult to replace receive higher wages. The results appear to be consistent with predictions of at least three theoretical frameworks: human capital theory, search theory, and a “locus of control” model.
Do Minimum Wage Laws Affect People Who Are Not Covered? Evidence From Documented And Undocumented, Hourly And Piece Rate Workers In U.S. Agriculture, Anita Alves Pena
Do Minimum Wage Laws Affect People Who Are Not Covered? Evidence From Documented And Undocumented, Hourly And Piece Rate Workers In U.S. Agriculture, Anita Alves Pena
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
While a stated goal of minimum wage increases is to benefit low-income workers, some employers are not obligated to provide at least minimum wages to all employees. U.S. farm employers comprise one of these groups. Employees of large farms and H2-A workers (temporary nonimmigrant workers lawfully admitted to perform temporary or seasonal agricultural services) are protected by minimum wage legislation, while other migrant workers (especially those who are paid piece rate) are exempt. Furthermore, U.S. agriculture is characterized by a large percentage of illegal migrants, and workers who are illegal may or may not receive wages above minimum levels. This …
Social Costs Of Jobs Lost Due To Environmental Regulations, Timothy J. Bartik
Social Costs Of Jobs Lost Due To Environmental Regulations, Timothy J. Bartik
Upjohn Institute Working Papers
This paper estimates the social costs of job loss due to environmental regulation. Per job lost, potential social costs of job loss are high, plausibly over $100,000 in present value costs (2012 dollars) per permanently lost job. However, these social costs will typically be far less than the earnings associated with lost jobs, because labor markets and workers adjust, increased leisure has some value, and employers benefit from wage reductions. A plausible range for social costs is 8–32 percent of the associated earnings of the lost jobs. Social costs will be higher for older workers, high-wage jobs, and in high …