Resources
From peer-reviewed research to accessible policy briefs, explore the scholarship that’s shaping debates and driving change.
303 Results
What Work Does Generative AI Do? (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers SEP 8, 2026
We measure how workers use genAI for their jobs in a nationally representative survey linking genAI adoption to detailed occupations and tasks. Our data provide the first task-level genAI adoption…
By: Alexander Bick (opens in a new tab), Adam Blandin (opens in a new tab), David Deming (opens in a new tab), Tyler Schumacher (opens in a new tab)
The Terms and Conditions of Generative AI (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers AUG 20, 2026
Generative AI raises pressing questions for myriad doctrinal areas. Policymakers and scholars have responded rapidly, devoting substantial attention to these difficult legal and policy questions. But, as a practical matter,…
By: John M. Newman, Andres Sawicki (opens in a new tab)
Housing Wealth Accumulation and Electoral Representation (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers AUG 14, 2026
We document that housing wealth accumulation systematically differs among homeowners by their political participation. Using a nationwide voter-property dataset, we find that realized housing appreciation increases monotonically the more a…
By: Carlos F. Avenancio-León, Yutao He (opens in a new tab), Michael Reher (opens in a new tab)
Multiple Program Participation in the Safety Net: Incidence, Impediments, and Implications (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUL 7, 2026
Multiple program participation is a defining feature of the U.S. safety net, with half of recipients enrolling in two or more programs. Yet most research examines programs in isolation, missing…
By: Neil A. Cholli, Derek Wu (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Costa Samaras (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation JUN 2, 2026
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Shayna Strom (opens in a new tab)
Navigating the research on the impacts of AI on work, workers, and the labor market (opens in a new tab)
Research Databases MAY 21, 2026
Artificial intelligence will have a largely unpredictable but potentially profound effect on the labor market. Individuals have speculated how AI will affect the workforce since its earliest developments. But public…
By: Chiara Chanoi (opens in a new tab)
Barriers to Benefits: Unemployment Insurance Take-Up and Labor Market Effects (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAY 19, 2026
Unemployment insurance (UI) take-up is relatively low in the United States. We implement a large-scale field experiment among 50,000 likely unemployed individuals to study the causes and labor supply implications…
By: Casey McQuillan (opens in a new tab), Brendan Moore (opens in a new tab)
The Macroeconomic Effects of Climate Policy Uncertainty (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAR 17, 2026
We develop a novel measure of climate policy uncertainty based on newspaper coverage. Our index spikes during key U.S. climate policy events—including presidential announcements on international agreements, congressional debates, and…
By: Konstantinos Gavriilidis (opens in a new tab), Diego R. Känzig, Ramya Raghavan (opens in a new tab), James H. Stock (opens in a new tab)
The Macroeconomic Effects of Tariffs: Evidence From U.S. Historical Data (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAR 4, 2026
We study the macroeconomic effects of tariff policy using U.S. historical data from 1840–2024. We construct a narrative series of plausibly exogenous tariff changes–based on major legislative actions, multilateral negotiations,…
By: Tamar den Besten (opens in a new tab), Diego Känzig (opens in a new tab)
Understanding the Congestion Child Penalty: Can Remote Work Attenuate It? (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers FEB 12, 2026
We study the impact of commuting time on the labor supply of women with children in the United States. We show that congestion and long commutes discourage the labor force…
By: Ilaria D’Angelis (opens in a new tab), Keren Horn (opens in a new tab)
Dissecting Racial Politicization: Long-Run Evidence from the Food Stamp Program (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers FEB 2, 2026
We explore long-run racial polarization induced by the original Food Stamps Program: a major policy choice to expand the social safety net in the United States in the 1960s and…
By: Carlos F. Avenancio-León, Troup Howard (opens in a new tab), William Mullins (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Sabeel Rahman (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation NOV 18, 2025
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Shayna Strom (opens in a new tab)
AI exposure by U.S. occupations and work tasks and the effect on wages (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers OCT 23, 2025
This analysis of labor market AI exposure builds on previous work from the Pew Research Center and the AI firm Anthropic as well as Equitable Growth’s own job quality series,…
By: Chiara Chanoi (opens in a new tab), Chris Bangert-Drowns
The Benefits of Unemployment Insurance For Marginally Attached Workers (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers OCT 21, 2025
Existing research consistently finds that UI benefits delay job finding with limited effects on job quality, but focuses on changes in unemployment insurance (UI) generosity while holding fixed access to…
By: Casey McQuillan (opens in a new tab), Brendan Moore (opens in a new tab)
Changing Opportunity: Sociological Mechanisms Underlying Growing Class Gaps and Shrinking Race Gaps in Economic Mobility (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers OCT 9, 2025
We show that intergenerational mobility changed rapidly by race and class in recent decades and use these trends to study the causal mechanisms underlying changes in economic mobility. For white…
By: Raj Chetty (opens in a new tab), Will Dobbie (opens in a new tab), Benjamin Goldman (opens in a new tab), Sonya R. Porter, Crystal S. Yang
Extracting O*NET Features from the NLx Corpus to Build Public Use Aggregate Labor Market Data (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers OCT 1, 2025
Data from online job postings are difficult to access and are not built in a standard or transparent manner. Data included in the standard taxonomy and occupational information database (O*NET)…
By: Stephen Meisenbacher (opens in a new tab), Svetlozar Nestorov (opens in a new tab), Peter Norlander (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Omari Swinton (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation SEP 24, 2025
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Sanjay Supan (opens in a new tab)
Fitting the Bill? The First Federal Paid Leave Mandate (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers SEP 23, 2025
We find that the first federal paid leave mandate in the US, enacted under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, increased paid leave taking by nearly 200% for eligible workers,…
By: Tanya Byker (opens in a new tab), Elena Patel (opens in a new tab), Kristin Smith (opens in a new tab)
In Her Hands: A Guaranteed Income Initiative (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers SEP 4, 2025
In Her Hands (IHH) is a guaranteed income (GI) initiative aimed at addressing persistent economic insecurity among women in neighborhoods with some of Georgia’s highest poverty rates. Co-designed with local…
By: Laura Brugger (opens in a new tab), Shadonna Davis (opens in a new tab), Desha Elliott (opens in a new tab), Leah Hamilton (opens in a new tab), Stephen Roll (opens in a new tab), Latrice Rollins (opens in a new tab), Simone Smith (opens in a new tab), Aaron Quick (opens in a new tab), Naomi Zewde (opens in a new tab)
Why Financial Crises Recur (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers AUG 5, 2025
Financial crises have occurred around the world for over two centuries. These crises have been so costly and frequent that one wonders why governments cannot prevent them from recurring despite…
By: Gary B. Gorton (opens in a new tab), Jeffery Y. Zhang (opens in a new tab)
How are Municipal-Level Fair Workweek Laws Playing Out on the Ground? Experiences of Food Service and Retail Workers in Three Cities (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUL 24, 2025
An updated version of this paper was posted on December 09, 2025. The first municipal-level law regulating employers’ scheduling practices was enacted in SanFrancisco in 2015. A decade later, ten…
By: Susan J. Lambert, Julia R. Henly, Hyojin Cho (opens in a new tab), Resha Swanson-Varner (opens in a new tab), Yuxi He (opens in a new tab)
Equity Prices, Market Power, and Optimal Corporate Tax Policy (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUL 22, 2025
We study the optimal design of corporate tax policy in a textbook life-cycle model featuring two key deviations: (i) firms are imperfectly competitive and (ii) households save by purchasing equity…
By: Ignacio González (opens in a new tab), Juan A. Montecino (opens in a new tab), Joseph E. Stiglitz
Optimal Monetary Policy Under Menu Costs (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUL 1, 2025
We analytically characterize optimal monetary policy in a multisector economy with menu costs and contrast it with the textbook New Keynesian model based on Calvo pricing. Following a sectoral productivity…
By: Daniele Caratelli (opens in a new tab), Basil Halperin (opens in a new tab)
Americans Informed About the Distributional Effects of Republicans’ Budget Bill Overwhelmingly Oppose It (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUN 25, 2025
Republicans in the Senate are currently considering the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which, if enacted, would be the most regressive U.S. tax and budget law in at least the…
By: Jacob S. Hacker, Patrick Sullivan (opens in a new tab)
Financial and Transfer Income as Components of the Regional Economic Base (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUN 24, 2025
Economists and geographers have long divided industries into “basic” and “nonbasic” sectors depending on whether they bring money into a region from outside or serve local demand. Traditionally, the regional…
By: Robert Manduca (opens in a new tab)
The Firm as Tax Shelter (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAY 22, 2025
I present evidence that firms serve as tax-free consumption vehicles. Drawing on a unique combination of data from an electronic invoicing program in Portugal (e-Fatura), I show that individuals who…
By: David Leite (opens in a new tab)
Request for Proposals: The economic effects of the Inflation Reduction Act (opens in a new tab)
RFPs APR 2, 2025
By: Equitable Growth (opens in a new tab)
The distribution of capital gains in the United States (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers FEB 26, 2025
Booming stock, housing, and private business markets have driven large capital gains in the United States, averaging 20% of national income over the past two decades. Using internal IRS tax…
By: Cole Campbell (opens in a new tab), Jacob A. Robbins, Sam Wylde (opens in a new tab)
The Spiderweb of Partnership Tax Structures (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers FEB 12, 2025
U.S. partnerships control more than $40 trillion in assets, vastly outnumber U.S. public firms, and contribute significantly to the U.S. tax non-compliance of pass-through entities, which is larger than the…
By: Ryan Hess (opens in a new tab), Emily Black (opens in a new tab), Zaynah Javed (opens in a new tab), Jonathan Hennessy (opens in a new tab), Rebecca Lester (opens in a new tab), Jacob Goldin (opens in a new tab), Daniel E. Ho, Annette Portz (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Fenaba Addo (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation DEC 12, 2024
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Shira Markoff (opens in a new tab)
Who Gains from Corporate Tax Cuts? (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers NOV 27, 2024
Goods producers increase their capital expenditure and employment in response to a cut in marginal corporate income tax rates or an increase in investment tax credits. In contrast, companies in…
By: James Cloyne (opens in a new tab), Ezgi Kurt (opens in a new tab), Paolo Surico (opens in a new tab)
Crypto Tax Evasion (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers NOV 21, 2024
We quantify the extent of crypto tax noncompliance and evasion, and assess the efficacy of alternative tax enforcement interventions. The context of the study is Norway. This context allows us…
By: Tom G. Meling, Magne Mogstad (opens in a new tab), Arnstein Vestre (opens in a new tab)
Request for Proposals: Promoting competition and supporting workers in an era of AI innovation (opens in a new tab)
RFPs NOV 20, 2024
By: Equitable Growth (opens in a new tab)
Request for proposals: Research grants for early career scholars (opens in a new tab)
RFPs OCT 30, 2024
By: Equitable Growth (opens in a new tab)
Asymmetric Effects of Monetary Policy on Firms (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers SEP 16, 2024
This paper documents firm-level evidence on the asymmetric effects of monetary policy in the US. Focusing on the 1980q3-2019q4 period, I find that monetary tightenings show larger effects on firms’…
By: Ezgi Kurt (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Mishaela Durán (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation SEP 12, 2024
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Shira Markoff (opens in a new tab)
Bonus Question: How Does Flexible Incentive Pay Affect Wage Rigidity? (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUL 17, 2024
We introduce dynamic incentive contracts into a model of inflation and unemployment dynamics. Our main result is that wage cyclicality from incentives neither affects the slope of the Phillips curve…
By: Meghana Gaur (opens in a new tab), John Grigsby (opens in a new tab), Jonathon Hazell (opens in a new tab), Abdoulaye Ndiaye (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Natalie Foster (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation JUL 2, 2024
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Michael Linden (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Miles Corak (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation JUN 6, 2024
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Austin Clemens (opens in a new tab)
Equitable Growth Insights: Synthesizing economic mobility research (opens in a new tab)
Research Databases MAY 15, 2024
Equitable Growth’s Insights newsletter on U.S. economic mobility is a quarterly newsletter that synthesizes research from academia, journalism, and the nonprofit sector. Each edition seeks to distill insights from research…
Behavioral Responses to Wealth Taxation: Evidence from Colombia (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAY 14, 2024
We study behavioral responses to personal wealth taxes in Colombia. We utilize tax microdata from 1993 to 2016 linked with the leaked Panama Papers to investigate offshoring to the country’s…
By: Juliana Londoño-Vélez (opens in a new tab), Javier Avila-Mahecha (opens in a new tab)
Is There Too Little Antitrust Enforcement in the US Hospital Sector? (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers APR 24, 2024
From 2002 to 2020, there were over 1,000 mergers of US hospitals. During this period, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) took enforcement actions against 13 transactions. However, using the FTC’s…
By: Zarek Brot-Goldberg (opens in a new tab), Zack Cooper (opens in a new tab), Stuart V. Craig, Lev Klarnet (opens in a new tab)
Spending Responses to the Child Tax Credit Expansions (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers APR 2, 2024
This article summarizes the literature that studied how people used the 2021 advance Child Tax Credit. Four primary findings emerged. Families more frequently reporting paying down debt during the first…
By: Jonathan Fisher (opens in a new tab), Jake Schild (opens in a new tab), David S. Johnson
In Conversation with Sasha Killewald (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation MAR 27, 2024
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Austin Clemens (opens in a new tab)
Request for Proposals: How effective was the fiscal response to the COVID-19 recession for workers? (opens in a new tab)
RFPs MAR 18, 2024
By: Equitable Growth (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Timothy Smeeding (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation JAN 16, 2024
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Jonathan Fisher (opens in a new tab)
Request for proposals: Research grants for early career scholars (opens in a new tab)
RFPs NOV 30, 2023
By: Equitable Growth (opens in a new tab)
HBCU Enrollment and Longer-Term Outcomes (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers NOV 20, 2023
Using data from nearly 1.2 million Black SAT takers, we estimate the impacts of initially enrolling in an Historically Black College and University (HBCU) on educational, economic, and financial outcomes.…
By: Ashley Edwards (opens in a new tab), Justin Ortagus (opens in a new tab), Jonathan Smith (opens in a new tab), Andria Smythe (opens in a new tab)
The Effect of Means-Tested Transfers on Work: Evidence from Quasi-Randomly Assigned SNAP Caseworkers (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers NOV 13, 2023
We provide a comprehensive evaluation of the dynamic labor supply effects of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for a representative population using novel administrative data and an examiner design.…
By: Jason Cook (opens in a new tab), Chloe N. East
Minimum wage effects and monopsony explanations (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers OCT 16, 2023
This working paper was updated on March 5, 2024 with a new version and an additional author. We present the first causal analysis of a seven-year run-up of minimum wages…
By: Justin Wiltshire (opens in a new tab), Carl McPherson (opens in a new tab), Michael Reich (opens in a new tab), Denis Sosinskiy (opens in a new tab)
How to Fund Unemployment Insurance with Informality and False Claims: Evidence from Senegal (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers OCT 5, 2023
This paper studies the welfare effects of unemployment insurance (UI) in low-income countries characterized by high levels of informality, weak enforcement of UI claims, and job search frictions. We assess…
By: Abdoulaye Ndiaye (opens in a new tab), Kyle Herkenhoff (opens in a new tab), Abdoulaye Cissé (opens in a new tab), Alessandro Dell’Acqua (opens in a new tab), Ahmadou A. Mbaye
Resilience in Collective Bargaining (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers SEP 27, 2023
A central finding of the theoretical literature on bargaining is that parties’ attitudes towards delay influence bargaining outcomes. However, the ability to endure delays, resilience, is often private information and…
By: Carlos F. Avenancio-León, Alessio Piccolo (opens in a new tab), Roberto Pinto (opens in a new tab)
The Rise of Pass-Throughs: an Empirical Investigation (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers SEP 26, 2023
Pass-through entities have emerged as the leading U.S. business organization form in recent decades. Using comprehensive confidential administrative data, this paper highlights five core findings: (1) the rise in pass-throughs…
By: Sebastian Dyrda (opens in a new tab), Benjamin Pugsley (opens in a new tab)
The New Economics of Industrial Policy (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers SEP 19, 2023
We discuss the considerable literature that has developed in recent years providing rigorous evidence on how industrial policies work. This literature is a significant improvement over the earlier generation of…
By: Réka Juhász (opens in a new tab), Nathan Lane, Dani Rodrik (opens in a new tab)
Antitrust Enforcement Increases Economic Activity (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers SEP 13, 2023
We hand-collect and standardize information describing all 3,055 antitrust lawsuits brought by the Department of Justice (DOJ) between 1971 and 2018. Using restricted establishment-level microdata from the U.S. Census, we…
By: Tania Babina (opens in a new tab), Simcha Barkai (opens in a new tab), Jessica Jeffers (opens in a new tab), Ezra Karger (opens in a new tab), Ekaterina Volkova (opens in a new tab)
Local and National Concentration Trends in Jobs and Sales: The Role of Structural Transformation (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers SEP 6, 2023
National industrial concentration in the U.S. has risen sharply since the early 1980s, but there remains dispute over whether local geographic concentration has followed a similar trend. Using near population…
By: David Autor (opens in a new tab), Christina Patterson (opens in a new tab), John Van Reenen (opens in a new tab)
The Short-Term Labor Supply Response to the Expanded Child Tax Credit (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUL 26, 2023
We estimate the extensive and intensive margin labor supply response to the monthly Child Tax Credit disbursed in 2021 as a part of the American Rescue Plan Act. Using Current…
By: Brandon Enriquez (opens in a new tab), Damon Jones (opens in a new tab), Ernest V. Tedeschi
Disparities in Pollution Capitalization Rates: The Role of Direct and Systemic Discrimination (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUL 20, 2023
We examine how exogenous changes in exposure to air pollution over the past two decades have altered the disparities in home values between Black and White homeowners. We find that…
By: Joshua S. Graff Zivin, Gregor Singer (opens in a new tab)
Racial Inequality in the U.S. Unemployment Insurance System (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUL 19, 2023
The decentralized US unemployment insurance (UI) system lets states decide on key rules. Decentralization could help states efficiently adapt to local economic conditions, but it could also generate racial inequality.…
By: Daphné Skandalis (opens in a new tab), Ioana Marinescu (opens in a new tab), Maxim Massenkoff (opens in a new tab)
On Algorithmic Wage Discrimination (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUL 12, 2023
Recent technological developments related to the extraction and processing of data have given rise to widespread concerns about a reduction of privacy in the workplace. For a growing number of…
By: Veena Dubal (opens in a new tab)
Wealth and Property Taxation in the United States (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUL 5, 2023
We study the history and geography of wealth accumulation in the US, using newly collected historical property tax records since the early 1800s. The US General Property Tax was a…
By: Sacha Dray (opens in a new tab), Camille Landais (opens in a new tab), Stefanie Stantcheva (opens in a new tab)
The Impact of Austerity on Gender Inequality in Time Allocation in the United States (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUN 8, 2023
The Great Recession of 2007-2009 caused large declines in state revenues, prompting many states to implement austerity measures to meet their balanced budget requirements. Decreases in public spending can have…
By: Anamika Sen (opens in a new tab)
Intergenerational Mobility using Income, Consumption, and Wealth (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUN 7, 2023
We use fifty years of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to study the intergenerational correlation in income, consumption, and wealth to answer the question: is intergenerational mobility similar across…
By: Jonathan Fisher (opens in a new tab), David S. Johnson
The Effectiveness of the Food Stamp Program at Reducing Differences in the Intergenerational Persistence of Poverty (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAY 30, 2023
This paper investigates the effects of the Food Stamp Program (FSP) on racial disparities in the intergenerational persistence of poverty. We apply staggered difference-in-difference models that exploit variation in the…
By: Benjamin Glasner (opens in a new tab), Ronald B Mincy, Zachary Parolin (opens in a new tab), Christopher Wimer (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Daron Acemoglu (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation MAY 8, 2023
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Kathryn Zickuhr (opens in a new tab)
Fitting the Bill? The First Federal Paid Leave Mandate (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAY 4, 2023
We find that the first federal paid leave mandate in the US, enacted under the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, increased paid leave taking by nearly 200% for eligible workers,…
By: Tanya Byker (opens in a new tab), Elena Patel (opens in a new tab), Kristin Smith (opens in a new tab)
Who Cares? Paid Sick Leave Mandates, Care-Giving, and Gender (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAY 4, 2023
We use employment data from the Current Population Survey to assess the efficacy of state-mandated paid sick leave policies on leave-taking behavior with a focus on any variation by gender.…
By: Tanya Byker (opens in a new tab), Elena Patel (opens in a new tab), Shanthi Ramnath (opens in a new tab)
Money Demand and Income Inequality: International Evidence using a Century of Data (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAR 14, 2023
Transactions and precautionary theories of money demand imply that aggregate money demand declines as income becomes more unequally distributed. In this paper I test this prediction using money demand regressions…
By: Guillermo Gallacher (opens in a new tab)
Heterogeneous Spending, Heterogeneous Multipliers (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAR 9, 2023
Do local fiscal multipliers depend on what the government purchases? We find that government purchases of services have larger effects on employment than spending on goods. Industries producing services are…
By: Umberto Muratori (opens in a new tab), Pedro Juarros (opens in a new tab), Daniel Valderrama (opens in a new tab)
The Impact of Paid Family Leave on Families with Health Shocks (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAR 6, 2023
This paper analyzes the impact of paid family leave (PFL) policies in California, New Jersey, and New York on the labor market and mental health outcomes of individuals whose spouses…
By: Courtney Coile, Maya Rossin-Slater (opens in a new tab), Amanda Su (opens in a new tab)
New Evidence on Employee Noncompete, No Poach, and No Hire Agreements in the Franchise Sector (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers FEB 23, 2023
This paper presents new evidence about the prevalence, source, scope, content, and variety of anti-competitive behavior in the labor market. Drawing from a text corpus of 17,785 franchise disclosure filings,…
By: Peter Norlander (opens in a new tab)
Wealth as Control of the Future (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JAN 19, 2023
Wealth inequality has become a major focus of social research in recent years. This research has yielded breakthroughs in describing the present distribution of wealth holdings, the impacts that access…
By: Robert Manduca (opens in a new tab)
Political Power and Market Power (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JAN 12, 2023
We study the link between political influence and industrial concentration. A model of an oligopoly that engages in lobbying shows that a merger may lead to an increase or a…
By: Bo Cowgill (opens in a new tab), Andrea Prat (opens in a new tab), Tommaso Valletti
Power and Dignity in the Low-Wage Labor Market: Theory and Evidence from Wal-Mart Workers (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers DEC 14, 2022
We measure workers’ preferences for wages and non-wage amenities at America’s largest employer, Walmart, using targeted survey experiments. We find that workers have an economically significant willingness to pay for…
By: Arindrajit Dube (opens in a new tab), Suresh Naidu (opens in a new tab), Adam D. Reich
Monetary Policy, Labor Income Redistribution and the Credit Channel: Evidence from Matched Employer-Employee and Credit Registers (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers NOV 17, 2022
We document the redistributive effects of monetary policy on labor market outcomes via the credit channel. For identification, we exploit matched administrative datasets in Portugal – employee-employer and credit registers…
By: Martina Jasova (opens in a new tab), Caterina Mendicino (opens in a new tab), Ettore Panetti (opens in a new tab), José-Luis Peydró (opens in a new tab), Dominik Supera (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Lenore Palladino (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation NOV 16, 2022
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Kate Bahn (opens in a new tab)
Green Energy Jobs in the US: What Are They, and Where Are They? (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers NOV 8, 2022
Does the growth of renewable energy benefit US workers, and which workers stand to benefit the most? Until now, evidence on green energy jobs has been limited due to measurement…
By: E. Mark Curtis (opens in a new tab), Ioana Marinescu (opens in a new tab)
Global Trends in Income Inequality and Income Dynamics: New Insights from GRID (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers NOV 7, 2022
The Global Repository of Income Dynamics (GRID) is a new open-access, crosscountry database that contains a wide range of micro statistics on income inequality, dynamics, and mobility. It has four…
By: Fatih Guvenen (opens in a new tab), Luigi Pistaferri (opens in a new tab), Giovanni L. Violante
Families First Coronavirus Response Act: Effect on Paid Leave Taking During the Early Pandemic (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers NOV 3, 2022
We study the effect of access to Emergency Paid Sick and Family Leave on leave-taking behavior during the early months of the pandemic. We compare monthly paid absence from January…
By: Tanya Byker (opens in a new tab), Elena Patel (opens in a new tab), Kristin Smith (opens in a new tab)
Do Minorities Pay More for Congestion Taxes? Evidence from a Tax on Ride-sharing (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers OCT 18, 2022
I study the heterogeneous consequences across areas in which different racial groups are concentrated of a congestion tax on ride-sharing. I find that, on average, the price increase was the…
By: Mario Leccese (opens in a new tab)
Wealth of two nations: The U.S. racial wealth gap, 1860-2020 (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers OCT 5, 2022
The racial wealth gap is the largest of the economic disparities between Black and white Americans, with a white-to-Black per capita wealth ratio of 6 to 1. It is also…
By: Ellora Derenoncourt (opens in a new tab), Chi Hyun Kim (opens in a new tab), Moritz Kuhn (opens in a new tab), Moritz Schularick (opens in a new tab)
The effects of income on the economic wellbeing of families with low incomes: Evidence from the 2021 expanded Child Tax Credit (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers OCT 3, 2022
We examine the effects of an unconditional cash transfer on the economic wellbeing (material hardship, ability to meet needs, money on hand, use of friends and family for assistance, and…
By: Natasha Pilkauskas (opens in a new tab), Katherine Michelmore (opens in a new tab), Nicole Kovski (opens in a new tab), H. Luke Shaefer (opens in a new tab)
Marginal Propensity to Consume in Recessions: a Meta-analysis (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers SEP 12, 2022
This paper assembles a dataset of 1244 estimates of marginal propensities to consume (MPC) out of stimulus checks and other small transitory or predictable payments—as reported by 40 studies. I…
Taxing the Rich: How Incentives and Embeddedness Shape Millionaire Tax Flight (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUL 28, 2022
Taxing the rich is one of the central debates in this era of rising inequality. Elite taxation can alleviate income disparities and fund public investments. Yet, if top earners engage…
By: Cristobal Young (opens in a new tab), Ithai Lurie (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with R. Jisung Park (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation JUL 25, 2022
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Michael Garvey (opens in a new tab)
Understanding Disparities in Unemployment Insurance Recipiency (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUL 13, 2022
Using data from before and during the Covid-19 pandemic, we show that the expansion of benefits under the CARES Act only modestly increased self-reported UI recipiency among UI eligible workers,…
By: Eliza Forsythe (opens in a new tab), Hesong Yang (opens in a new tab)
A Goldilocks Theory of Fiscal Deficits (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUN 30, 2022
This paper proposes a tractable framework to analyze fiscal space and the dynamics of government debt, with a possibly binding zero lower bound (ZLB) constraint. Without the ZLB, a greater…
By: Atif Mian (opens in a new tab), Ludwig Straub (opens in a new tab), Amir Sufi
Socioeconomic Diversity of Economics PhDs (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUN 29, 2022
It is well documented that women and racial and ethnic minorities are underrepresented in the economics profession, relative to both the general population and many other academic disciplines. Less is…
By: Robert Schultz (opens in a new tab), Anna Stansbury (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Lee Badgett (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation JUN 23, 2022
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Kate Bahn (opens in a new tab)
A Tale of Two Networks: Common Ownership and Product Market Rivalry (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAY 25, 2022
We study the welfare implications of the rise of common ownership in the United States from 1994 to 2018. We build a general equilibrium model with a hedonic demand system…
By: Florian Ederer (opens in a new tab), Bruno Pellegrino (opens in a new tab)
Black Lives: The High Cost of Segregation (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAY 9, 2022
Exploiting the arrangement of railroad tracks in northern cities, we explore the extent to which segregation impacts homicide victimization by race. Our results reveal a robust positive relationship between segregation…
By: Robynn Cox (opens in a new tab), Jamein Cunningham (opens in a new tab), Alberto Ortega (opens in a new tab), Kenneth D. Whaley (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Cecilia Conrad (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation APR 26, 2022
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Kate Bahn (opens in a new tab)
Understanding Climate Damages: Consumption versus Investment (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers APR 22, 2022
Existing climate-economy models use aggregate damage functions to model the effects of climate change. This approach assumes climate change has equal impacts on the productivity of firms that produce consumption…
By: Gregory P. Casey (opens in a new tab), Stephie Fried (opens in a new tab), Matthew Gibson (opens in a new tab)
Compensation for Unstable and Unpredictable Work Schedules: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 Cohort (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers APR 15, 2022
Prior research shows unpredictable and unstable work schedules are associated with negative health, family, and economic outcomes. But little research has examined what, if anything, workers gain from such schedule…
By: Peter J. Fugiel (opens in a new tab)
Can you move to opportunity? Evidence from the Great Migration (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers FEB 14, 2022
This paper shows that racial composition shocks during the Great Migration (1940-1970) reduced the gains from growing up in the northern United States for Black families and can explain 27%…
By: Ellora Derenoncourt (opens in a new tab)
Why is Workplace Sexual Harassment Underreported? The Value of Outside Options Amid the Threat of Retaliation (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers FEB 10, 2022
Why is workplace sexual harassment chronically underreported? We hypothesize that employers coerce victims into silence through the threat of a retaliatory firing. To test this, we estimate how two external…
By: Gordon B. Dahl (opens in a new tab), Matthew Knepper (opens in a new tab)
Anticipation and Consumption (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers FEB 9, 2022
Cash transfer payments are an increasingly widespread policy tool in developed and developing countries, used for both short-term and long-term objectives. We study the design of these policies by examining…
By: Neil Thakral (opens in a new tab), Linh T. Tô
Money Matters: Consumption Volatility Across the Income Distribution (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers FEB 3, 2022
Using the Consumer Expenditure Survey, we document the level and volatility of quarterly consumption across the socioeconomic distribution. While the measurement of well-being is focused on income, the secular and…
By: Jonathan Fisher (opens in a new tab), Bradley L. Hardy
Walmart Supercenters and Monopsony Power: How a Large, Low-Wage Employer Impacts Local Labor Markets (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JAN 28, 2022
This paper considers the extent and impact of monopsony power exercised by Walmart Supercenters. I focus on Walmart as it has long been the largest private-sector employer in the U.S.,…
By: Justin Wiltshire (opens in a new tab)
Support for Paid Family Leave among Small Employers Increases during the COVID-19 Pandemic (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JAN 14, 2022
The United States is one of the few countries that does not guarantee paid family leave (PFL) to workers. Proposals for PFL legislation are often met with opposition from employer…
By: Ann P. Bartel, Maya Rossin-Slater (opens in a new tab), Christopher J. Ruhm, Meredith Slopen (opens in a new tab), Jane Waldfogel (opens in a new tab)
Mandated Sick Pay: Coverage, Utilization, and Welfare Effects (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JAN 12, 2022
To enable more employees to take paid sick leave, a dozen states have passed sick leave mandates over the past decade in the United States. This paper evaluates empirically and…
By: Catherine Maclean (opens in a new tab), Stefan Pichler (opens in a new tab), Nicolas R. Ziebarth (opens in a new tab)
Capital Investment and Labor Demand (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JAN 11, 2022
We study how tax policies that lower the cost of capital impact investment and labor demand. Difference-in-differences estimates using confidential US Census Data on manufacturing establishments show that tax policies…
By: E. Mark Curtis (opens in a new tab), Daniel G. Garrett (opens in a new tab), Eric C. Ohrn, Kevin A. Roberts (opens in a new tab), Juan Carlos Suárez Serrato (opens in a new tab)
Cyclical Demand Shifts and Cost of Living Inequality (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JAN 11, 2022
This paper examines the cyclical behavior of low-income versus high-income household price indices and documents two new facts: (1) during recessions prices rise more for products purchased relatively more by…
By: Jacob Orchard (opens in a new tab)
Closing the Innovation Gap in Pink and Black (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JAN 10, 2022
Recent research shows the negative impact of discrimination not only on the targets of discrimination but also on the economy as a whole. Racial and gender inequality can limit the…
By: Lisa D. Cook, Janet Gerson (opens in a new tab), Jennifer Kuan (opens in a new tab)
Falling Rates and Rising Superstars (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JAN 7, 2022
Do low interest rates contribute to the rise in market concentration? Using data on firm financials and high frequency monetary policy shocks, we find that falling interest rates disproportionately benefit…
By: Thomas Kroen (opens in a new tab), Ernest Liu (opens in a new tab), Atif Mian (opens in a new tab), Amir Sufi (opens in a new tab)
What explains the decline in r*? Rising income inequality versus demographic shifts (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JAN 7, 2022
Downward pressure on the natural rate of interest (r*) is often attributed to an increase in saving. This study uses microeconomic data from the SCF+ to explore the relative importance…
By: Atif Mian (opens in a new tab), Ludwig Straub (opens in a new tab), Amir Sufi (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Jonathan Fisher (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation DEC 16, 2021
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Kate Bahn (opens in a new tab), Jonathan Fisher (opens in a new tab)
The impact of affirmative action litigation on police killings of civilians (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers DEC 2, 2021
Although research has shown that court-ordered hiring quotas increase the number of minority police officers in litigated cities, there has been little insight into how workforce diversity, or lack thereof,…
By: Robynn Cox (opens in a new tab), Jamein Cunningham (opens in a new tab), Alberto Ortega (opens in a new tab)
Beyond Health: Non-Health Risk and the Value of Disability Insurance (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers NOV 22, 2021
The public debate over disability insurance has centered on concerns about individuals without severe health conditions receiving benefits. We go beyond health risk alone to quantify the overall insurance value…
By: Manasi Deshpande (opens in a new tab), Lee M. Lockwood (opens in a new tab)
Wage Posting or Wage Bargaining? A Test Using Dual Jobholders (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers NOV 16, 2021
This paper examines the behavior of dual jobholders to test a simple model of wage bargaining and wage posting. We estimate the sensitivity of wages and separation rates to wage…
By: Marta Lachowska (opens in a new tab), Alexandre Mas (opens in a new tab), Raffaele Saggio (opens in a new tab), Stephen Woodbury (opens in a new tab)
2022 Request for Proposals (opens in a new tab)
RFPs NOV 10, 2021
In Conversation with Erica Groshen (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation OCT 25, 2021
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Austin Clemens (opens in a new tab)
Do US Firms Have an Incentive to Comply with the FLSA and the NLRA? (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers SEP 23, 2021
To what extent do US firms have an incentive to comply with the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)? I examine this question through…
By: Anna Stansbury (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Carlos Fernando Avenancio-León (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation SEP 20, 2021
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: David S. Mitchell (opens in a new tab)
Diverse Policy Committees Can Reach Underrepresented Groups (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers SEP 16, 2021
In a randomized control trial that varies the salience of female and minority representation on the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy committee, the FOMC, we test whether diversity affects how Fed…
By: Francesco D’Acunto (opens in a new tab), Andreas Fuster (opens in a new tab), Michael Weber (opens in a new tab)
How Exceptional is American Job Quality? Decent- and Poverty-Pay Rates by Age, Gender, and Education in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, and France* (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers SEP 3, 2021
Social protection for working-age American adults is almost entirely conditional on employment, which makes earnings a particularly important dimension of job quality for workers. This paper employs new indicators (Howell,…
By: David R. Howell
Low Pay in Rich Countries: Institutions, Bargaining Power, and Earnings Inequality in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and France (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers SEP 3, 2021
This paper was revised December 2021. The canonical explanation for four decades of American wage stagnation and rising inequality has been that competitive market forces, driven by new computer-driven production…
By: David R. Howell
Does Paid Sick Leave Affect Job Turnover? (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers AUG 31, 2021
An updated version of this paper was uploaded on May 17, 2022. This paper examines the impact of Seattle’s 2012 paid sick leave law on job turnover using unique administrative…
By: Hilary Wething (opens in a new tab)
Bring the Households Back In: The Effect of Poverty on the Mobility of Low-Wage Workers to Better Wages (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers AUG 26, 2021
Although eighty percent of low-wage workers are not in poverty, low-wage work and poverty are often conflated. I distinguish the two and investigate how household conditions affect workers’ mobility out…
By: Michael A. Schultz (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Michelle Meagher (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation AUG 11, 2021
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Michael Kades (opens in a new tab)
Temperature, workplace safety, and labor market inequality (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUL 19, 2021
Using data covering the universe of injury claims from the nation’s largest worker’s compensation system (2001-2018), we explore the relationship between temperature and workplace safety and its implications for labor…
By: R. Jisung Park (opens in a new tab), Nora Pankratz (opens in a new tab), A. Patrick Behrer (opens in a new tab)
The Contribution of Enslaved Workers to Output and Growth in the Antebellum United States (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUN 24, 2021
This working paper and its accompanying column are now undergoing revisions by the author, with the intention of reposting the updated version of the working paper and a new column…
By: Mark Stelzner (opens in a new tab), Sven Beckert (opens in a new tab)
Covid-19 Businesses Reopenings and Consumer Spending (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAY 27, 2021
This paper studies if Covid-19 retail and restaurant shutdowns and reopenings were responsible for tin the United States. We find reopening policies substantially increased he dramatic ‘V’ shaped pattern of…
By: Raissa Dantas (opens in a new tab), Jacob A. Robbins
Equitable Growth’s second annual academic research report (opens in a new tab)
RFPs APR 29, 2021
By: Equitable Growth (opens in a new tab)
Trends in Absolute Income Mobility in North America and Europe (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers APR 28, 2021
We compute rates of absolute upward income mobility for the 1960-1987 birth cohorts in eight countries in North America and Europe. Rates and trends in absolute mobility varied dramatically across…
By: Robert Manduca (opens in a new tab), Maximilian Hell (opens in a new tab), Adrian Adermon, Jo Blanden, Espen Bratberg, Anne C. Gielen, Hans van Kippersluis, Keun Bok Lee, Stephen Machin (opens in a new tab), Martin D. Munk, Martin Nybom, Yuri Ostrovsky, Sumaiya Rahman, Outi Sirniö
In Conversation with Mark Rank (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation APR 14, 2021
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Alix Gould-Werth (opens in a new tab)
Tax Refund Uncertainty: Evidence and Welfare Implications (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers APR 8, 2021
Transfers paid through annual tax refunds are a large but uncertain source of income for poor households. We document that low-income tax-filers have substantial subjective uncertainty about these refunds. We…
By: Sydnee Caldwell (opens in a new tab), Scott Nelson (opens in a new tab), Daniel Waldinger (opens in a new tab)
Caregiving in a Pandemic: COVID-19 and the Well-being of Family Caregivers 55+ in the U.S. (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers APR 7, 2021
Little is known about the effects of COVID-19 on family caregivers in the US. Using data from a national sample of 2,485 US adults aged ≥55, we aimed to describe…
By: Yulya Truskinovsky (opens in a new tab), Jessica Finlay (opens in a new tab), Lindsay Kobayashi (opens in a new tab)
Tax Evasion at the Top of the Income Distribution: Theory and Evidence (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAR 22, 2021
This paper studies tax evasion at the top of the U.S. income distribution using IRS micro-data from (i) random audits, (ii) targeted enforcement activities, and (iii) operational audits. Drawing on…
By: John Guyton (opens in a new tab), Patrick Langetieg (opens in a new tab), Daniel Reck (opens in a new tab), Max Risch (opens in a new tab), Gabriel Zucman (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Jake Rosenfeld (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation MAR 22, 2021
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Kate Bahn (opens in a new tab)
Dual-Earner Migration Decisions, Earnings, and Unemployment Insurance (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAR 16, 2021
Dual-earner couples’ decisions of where to live and work often result in one spouse-—the trailing spouse—-experiencing earnings losses at the time of a move. This paper examines how married couples’…
By: Joanna Venator (opens in a new tab)
Consolidated Advantage: New Organizational Dynamics of Wage Inequality (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAR 9, 2021
The two main sources of inequality in the US labor market—occupation and workplace—have increasingly consolidated. Workers benefiting from employment at a high-paying workplace are increasingly those who already benefit from…
By: Nathan Wilmers (opens in a new tab), Clem Aeppli (opens in a new tab)
The Grandkids Aren’t Alright: The Intergenerational Effects of Prenatal Pollution Exposure (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers FEB 11, 2021
Evidence increasingly shows that environmental quality shapes human capital at birth with long-run effects on health and welfare. Do these effects, in turn, affect the economic opportunities of future generations?…
By: Jonathan Colmer (opens in a new tab), John Voorheis (opens in a new tab)
Labor Non-Compete Agreements: Tool for Economic Efficiency, or Means to Extract Value from Workers? (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JAN 28, 2021
A number of theoretical arguments have been offered in favor of non-compete provisions in labor agreements. While there has been considerable empirical research on the effects of those provisions, there…
By: David J. Balan
Employer Concentration and Outside Options (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JAN 26, 2021
An updated version of this working paper was uploaded on March 8, 2022. We study the effect of within-occupation employer concentration and outside-occupation job options on wages in the US,…
By: Gregor Schubert (opens in a new tab), Anna Stansbury (opens in a new tab), Bledi Taska (opens in a new tab)
A Price-Based Approach to Distributing Taxes on Business Income (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers DEC 21, 2020
This paper proposes a new approach to distributing taxes on business income based on modeling prices. Current approaches to distributing these taxes rely on explicit incidence assumptions, which amount to…
By: Greg Leiserson (opens in a new tab)
Impact of the COVID-19 Crisis on Family Dynamics in Economically Vulnerable Households (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers DEC 14, 2020
The COVID-19 crisis and its reverberations resulted in levels of economic distress unprecedented since the 1930s. But COVID was a seismic social shock even for families that lost no income,…
By: Ariel Kalil (opens in a new tab), Susan Mayer (opens in a new tab), Rohen Shah (opens in a new tab)
The Intergenerational Transmission of Employers and the Earnings of Young Workers (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers NOV 5, 2020
This paper investigates how the earnings of young workers are affected by the intergenerational transmission of employers, which refers to individuals working for the same employer as a parent. My…
By: Matthew Staiger (opens in a new tab)
The Effect of Political Power on Labor Market Inequality: Evidence from the 1965 Voting Rights Act (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers OCT 16, 2020
A central concern for racial and ethnic minorities is having an equal opportunity to advance group interests via the political process. There remains limited empirical evidence, however, whether democratic policies…
By: Abhay Aneja (opens in a new tab), Carlos Fernando Avenancio-León (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Alexander Hertel-Fernandez (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation OCT 6, 2020
Equitable Growth in Conversation is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Alix Gould-Werth (opens in a new tab)
Do Unemployment Insurance Benefits Improve Match Quality? Evidence from Recent U.S. Recessions (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers SEP 29, 2020
Unemployment insurance benefit extensions lengthened the duration of unemployment spells during the Great Recession and previous recessions. In this paper, we present new evidence for the U.S. on the impact…
By: Ammar Farooq (opens in a new tab), Adriana Kugler (opens in a new tab), Umberto Muratori (opens in a new tab)
Interoperability as a competition remedy for digital networks (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers SEP 23, 2020
Addressing entry barriers created by network effects is critical to remedying a monopolization violation in a social network market (e.g. Facebook). For a social network, interoperability is likely a necessary,…
By: Michael Kades (opens in a new tab), Fiona Scott Morton
The Impact of COVID-19 on the U.S. Child Care Market: Evidence from Stay-at-Home Orders (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUL 16, 2020
Stay-at-home orders (SAHOs) have been implemented in most U.S. states to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. This paper quantifies the short-run impact of these containment policies on search behavior and…
By: Umair Ali (opens in a new tab), Chris M. Herbst (opens in a new tab), Christos A. Makridis
Discrimination and Monopsony Power (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUL 13, 2020
Wage inequalities between identical workers of different race, ethnicity, and gender are a persistent feature of labor markets. However, most labor market models either ignore important empirical evidence or focus…
By: Mark Stelzner (opens in a new tab), Kate Bahn (opens in a new tab)
The Assessment Gap: Racial Inequalities in Property Taxation (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUN 10, 2020
We use panel data covering 118 million homes in the United States, merged with geolocation detail for 75,000 taxing entities, to document a nationwide “assessment gap” which leads local governments…
By: Carlos Avenancio-León, Troup Howard (opens in a new tab)
Distribution Analysis as Welfare Analysis (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUN 9, 2020
This paper formalizes fixed-quantities distribution analysis as the primary ingredient in the welfare analysis of tax changes. The fixed-quantities change in tax, meaning the change in household resources resulting from…
By: Greg Leiserson (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Mehrsa Baradaran (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation JUN 9, 2020
“Equitable Growth in Conversation” is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Amanda Fischer (opens in a new tab)
Worker earnings, service quality, and firm profitability: Evidence from nursing homes and minimum wage reforms (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUN 4, 2020
This paper examines whether higher wages paid to low-income workers affects the quality of services they provide to consumers. To answer this question, I combine wage variation for direct care…
By: Krista Ruffini (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Trevon Logan (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation MAY 14, 2020
“Equitable Growth in Conversation” is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Liz Hipple (opens in a new tab)
Is the social safety net a long-term investment? Large-scale evidence from the food stamps program (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAY 11, 2020
We use novel, large-scale data on 43 million Americans from the 2000 Census and the 2001 to 2013 American Communities Survey linked to the Social Security Administration’s NUMIDENT to study…
By: Martha J. Bailey, Hilary W. Hoynes, Maya Rossin-Slater (opens in a new tab), Reed Walker (opens in a new tab)
Redistribution with Performance Pay (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAY 6, 2020
This working paper was updated from the April 2020 version to the May 2020 version on May 27. Half of the jobs in the U.S. feature pay-for-performance. We study nonlinear…
By: Pawel Doligalski (opens in a new tab), Abdoulaye Ndiaye (opens in a new tab), Nicolas Werquin (opens in a new tab)
The Matching Multiplier and the Amplification of Recessions (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers APR 8, 2020
This paper shows that the unequal incidence of recessions in the labor market amplifies aggregate shocks. I define the Matching Multiplier as the increase in the output multiplier stemming from…
By: Christina Patterson (opens in a new tab)
An SEIR Infectious Disease Model with Testing and Conditional Quarantine (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers APR 7, 2020
We extend the baseline Susceptible-Exposed-Infectious-Recovered (SEIR) infectious disease epidemiology model to understand the role of testing and case-dependent quarantine. Our model nests the SEIR model. During a period of asymptomatic…
By: David Berger (opens in a new tab), Kyle Herkenhoff (opens in a new tab), Simon Mongey (opens in a new tab)
Reducing maternal labor market detachment: A role for paid family leave (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAR 12, 2020
Nearly 30% of working women leave the labor force when they have a child. Ac-cess to paid family leave may allow some women to take temporary leave rather than quitting,…
By: Kelly Jones (opens in a new tab), Britni Wilcher (opens in a new tab)
Baltimore Study: Credit Scores (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAR 4, 2020
The Baltimore Project Phase II This report builds upon the original Baltimore study by including credit score questions to the survey instrument conducted on the Phase I sample. In Phase…
By: Mónica García-Pérez (opens in a new tab), Sarah Gaither, William Darity Jr. (opens in a new tab)
Whose News? Class-Biased Economic Reporting in the United States (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAR 3, 2020
There is substantial evidence that voters’ choices are shaped by assessments of the state of the economy and that these assessments, in turn, are influenced by the news. But how…
By: Alan M. Jacobs (opens in a new tab), J. Scott Matthews (opens in a new tab), Timothy Hicks (opens in a new tab), Eric Merkley (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Adia Harvey Wingfield (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation FEB 25, 2020
“Equitable Growth in Conversation” is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Kate Bahn (opens in a new tab)
Unequally Insecure: Rising Black/White Disparities in Job Displacement, 1981-2017 (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers FEB 13, 2020
Social scientists have documented vast racial disparities in labor market outcomes such as hiring and firing decisions, compensation, and opportunities for occupational advancement. Yet little is known about the racial…
By: Elizabeth Wrigley-Field (opens in a new tab), Nathan Seltzer (opens in a new tab)
Monopsony in Labor Markets: A Meta-Analysis (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers FEB 5, 2020
When jobs offered by different employers are not perfect substitutes, employers gain wage-setting power; the extent of this power can be captured by the elasticity of labor supply to the…
By: Anna Sokolova (opens in a new tab), Todd Sorensen (opens in a new tab)
Minimum Wages and Racial Inequality (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JAN 14, 2020
The earnings difference between white and black workers fell dramatically in the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s. This paper shows that the extension of the minimum…
By: Ellora Derenoncourt (opens in a new tab), Claire Montialoux (opens in a new tab)
Inequality and economic growth (opens in a new tab)
RFPs DEC 30, 2019
By: Equitable Growth (opens in a new tab)
Targeted Debt Relief and the Origins of Financial Distress: Experimental Evidence from Distressed Credit Card Borrowers (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers DEC 4, 2019
We study the drivers of financial distress using a large-scale field experiment that offered randomly selected borrowers a combination of (i) immediate payment reductions to target short-run liquidity constraints and…
By: Will Dobbie (opens in a new tab), Jae Song (opens in a new tab)
Did Timing Matter? Life Cycle Differences in Effects of Exposure to the Great Recession (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers NOV 19, 2019
Exposure to a recession can have persistent, negative consequences, but does the severity of those consequences depend on when in the life cycle a person is exposed? I estimate the…
By: Kevin Rinz (opens in a new tab)
Heterogeneity and Persistence in Returns to Wealth (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers NOV 19, 2019
We provide a systematic analysis of the properties of individual returns to wealth using twelve years of population data from Norway’s administrative tax records. We document a number of novel…
By: Andreas Fagereng (opens in a new tab), Luigi Guiso (opens in a new tab), Davide Malacrino (opens in a new tab), Luigi Pistaferri (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Fabian Pfeffer (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation NOV 13, 2019
“Equitable Growth in Conversation” is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Liz Hipple (opens in a new tab)
The Long-Term Effects of California’s 2004 Paid Family Leave Act on Women’s Careers: Evidence from U.S. Tax Data (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers NOV 6, 2019
This paper uses IRS tax data to evaluate the short- and long-term effects of California’s 2004 Paid Family Leave Act (PFLA) on women’s careers. Our research design exploits the increased…
By: Martha Bailey (opens in a new tab), Tanya Byker (opens in a new tab), Elena Patel (opens in a new tab), Shanthi Ramnath (opens in a new tab)
Request for Proposals on Paid Family and Medical Leave (opens in a new tab)
RFPs NOV 4, 2019
Do Teacher Strikes Make Parents Pro- or Anti-Labor? The Effects of Labor Unrest on Mass Attitudes (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers OCT 29, 2019
Strikes are a central tool of organized labor, yet existing research has focused on the economic consequences of strikes, rather than their political effects. We examine how labor actions by…
By: Alexander Hertel-Fernandez (opens in a new tab), Suresh Naidu (opens in a new tab), Adam Reich (opens in a new tab)
Who Cares if Parents have Unpredictable Work Schedules?: The Association between Just-in-Time Work Schedules and Child Care Arrangements (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers OCT 16, 2019
Working parents must arrange some type of care for their young children when they are away at work. For parents with unstable and unpredictable work schedules, the logistics of arranging…
By: Kristen Harknett (opens in a new tab), Daniel Schneider (opens in a new tab), Sigrid Luhr (opens in a new tab)
Hard Times: Routine Schedule Unpredictability and Material Hardship among Service Sector Workers (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers OCT 16, 2019
American policy-makers have long focused on work as a key means to reduce poverty. And yet work has become increasingly precarious and polarized. This precarity is manifest in low wages,…
By: Daniel Schneider (opens in a new tab), Kristen Harknett (opens in a new tab)
Uncertain Time: Precarious Schedules and Job Turnover in the U.S. Service Sector (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers OCT 16, 2019
Existing research on the service sector in the United States documents the macro-level fundamental causes of precarious work, often with a focus on economic outcomes such as wages and fringe…
By: Joshua Choper (opens in a new tab), Daniel Schneider (opens in a new tab), Kristen Harknett (opens in a new tab)
What Explains Race/Ethnic Inequality in Job Quality in the Service Sector? (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers OCT 16, 2019
White workers experience significant advantages in the labor market both in hiring and in compensation compared to their non-white peers. Human capital differences and occupational segregation are commonly offered as…
By: Adam Storer (opens in a new tab), Daniel Schneider (opens in a new tab), Kristen Harknett (opens in a new tab)
Parental Exposure to Routine Work Schedule Uncertainty and Child Behavior (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers OCT 16, 2019
Parents working in the service sector often face unpredictable work schedules and children exposed to such parental schedules could suffer negative consequences. This paper takes advantage of novel survey data…
By: Daniel Schneider (opens in a new tab), Kristen Harknett (opens in a new tab)
Use It or Lose It: Efficiency Gains from Wealth Taxation (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers OCT 10, 2019
How does wealth taxation differ from capital income taxation? When the return on investment is equal across individuals, a well-known result is that the two tax systems are equivalent. Motivated…
By: Fatih Guvenen (opens in a new tab), Gueorgui Kambourov (opens in a new tab), Burhan Kuruscu (opens in a new tab), Sergio Ocampo (opens in a new tab), Daphne Chen (opens in a new tab)
From Decent to Lousy Jobs: New Evidence on the Decline in American Job Quality, 1979-2017 (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers AUG 30, 2019
A defining feature of the post-1970s American economy has been unshared growth, strikingly illustrated by the absolute decline in average incomes for the bottom 50 percent of working-age adults. This…
By: David R. Howell
How U.S. Workers Think About Workplace Democracy: The Structure of Individual Worker Preferences for Labor Representation (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers AUG 28, 2019
Although never as powerful as in other advanced democracies, unions remain incredibly important economic and political organizations in the United States. Yet we know little about the structure of workers’…
By: Alexander Hertel-Fernandez (opens in a new tab), William Kimball (opens in a new tab), Thomas Kochan (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Gabriel Zucman (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation AUG 7, 2019
“Equitable Growth in Conversation” is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Heather Boushey (opens in a new tab)
Imperfect competition, compensating differentials and rent sharing in the U.S. labor market (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUL 18, 2019
The primary goal of our paper is to quantify the importance of imperfect competition in the U.S. labor market by estimating the size of rents earned by American firms and…
By: Thibaut Lamadon (opens in a new tab), Magne Mogstad (opens in a new tab), Bradley Setzler (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Leemore Dafny (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation JUL 10, 2019
“Equitable Growth in Conversation” is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Heather Boushey (opens in a new tab)
When Dad Can Stay Home: Fathers’ Workplace Flexibility and Maternal Health (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUN 14, 2019
While workplace flexibility is perceived to be a key determinant of maternal labor supply, less is known about fathers’ demand for flexibility or about intra-household spillover effects of flexibility initiatives.…
By: Petra Persson (opens in a new tab), Maya Rossin-Slater (opens in a new tab)
Demographic Origins of the Startup Deficit (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JUN 4, 2019
We propose a simple explanation for the long-run decline in the startup rate. It was caused by a slowdown in labor supply growth since the late 1970s, largely pre-determined by…
By: Fatih Karahan (opens in a new tab), Benjamin Pugsley (opens in a new tab), Aysegül Sahin (opens in a new tab)
Modern U.S. antitrust theory and evidence amid rising concerns of market power and its effects (opens in a new tab)
Research Databases MAY 29, 2019
The decline in antitrust enforcement in the United States has been a project of conservatives for decades. Since the 1970s, the range of conduct that would be condemned by courts…
By: Fiona M. Scott Morton (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Janet Currie (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation MAY 21, 2019
“Equitable Growth in Conversation” is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Heather Boushey (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Raj Chetty (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation APR 24, 2019
“Equitable Growth in Conversation” is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Heather Boushey (opens in a new tab)
Killer Acquisitions (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers APR 16, 2019
This paper argues incumbent firms may acquire innovative targets solely to discontinue the target’s innovation projects and preempt future competition. We call such acquisitions “killer acquisitions.” We develop a parsimonious…
By: Colleen Cunningham (opens in a new tab), Florian Ederer (opens in a new tab), Song Ma (opens in a new tab)
Disability and distress: The effect of disability programs on financial outcomes (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAR 26, 2019
We provide the first evidence on the relationship between disability programs and markers of financial distress: bankruptcy, foreclosure, eviction, and home sale. Rates of these adverse financial events peak around…
By: Manasi Deshpande (opens in a new tab), Tal Gross (opens in a new tab), Yalun Su (opens in a new tab)
Production and learning in teams (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers MAR 5, 2019
The e ffect of coworkers on the learning and the productivity of an individual is measured combining theory and data. The theory is a frictional equilibrium model of the labor…
By: Kyle Herkenhoff (opens in a new tab), Jeremy Lise (opens in a new tab), Guido Menzio (opens in a new tab), Gordon Phillips (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Bhash Mazumder (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation MAR 4, 2019
“Equitable Growth in Conversation” is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Liz Hipple (opens in a new tab)
Monopsony power and guest worker programs (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers FEB 28, 2019
Guest workers on visas in the United States may be unable to quit bad employers due to barriers to mobility and a lack of labor market competition. Using H-1B, H-2A,…
By: Eric M. Gibbons (opens in a new tab), Allie Greenman (opens in a new tab), Peter Norlander (opens in a new tab), Todd Sørensen (opens in a new tab)
Employer consolidation and wages: Evidence from hospitals (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers FEB 26, 2019
We test whether wage growth slows following employer consolidation by examining a decade of hospital mergers. To isolate the effects of changes in concentration due to mergers, we estimate difference-in-differences…
By: Elena Prager (opens in a new tab), Matt Schmitt (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Emmanuel Saez (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation FEB 25, 2019
“Equitable Growth in Conversation” is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Heather Boushey (opens in a new tab)
Who’s afraid of sunlight? Explaining opposition to transparency in economic development (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers FEB 4, 2019
Why do some firms oppose transparency of government programs? In this paper we explore legal challenges to public records requests for deal-specific, company-specific participation in a state economic development incentive…
By: Nathan M. Jensen, Calvin Thrall (opens in a new tab)
Economic change and the social safety net: Are rural Americans still behind? (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers FEB 1, 2019
This aim of this paper is to assess the economic status of rural people five decades after The People Left Behind, with a particular focus on how changes in employment,…
By: James P. Ziliak
Simplified distributional national accounts (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers JAN 28, 2019
This paper develops a simplified methodology that starts from the fiscal income top income share series and makes very basic assumptions on how each income component from national income that…
By: Thomas Piketty (opens in a new tab), Emmanuel Saez (opens in a new tab), Gabriel Zucman (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Atif Mian (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation JAN 14, 2019
“Equitable Growth in Conversation” is a recurring series where we talk with economists and other academics to help us better understand whether and how economic inequality affects economic growth and…
By: Heather Boushey (opens in a new tab)
How does market power affect wages? Monopsony and collective action in an institutional context (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers DEC 20, 2018
To better understand the theoretical implications of new empirical findings which show that firms have monopsony power, we construct a monopsony-wage-model that integrates strategic interaction between workers and employers in…
By: Mark Stelzner (opens in a new tab), Mark Paul (opens in a new tab)
Patent publication and technology spillovers (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers DEC 18, 2018
How does publication of new ideas through patents affect technology spillovers? To answer this, we develop a model which predicts that invention disclosure through patents (i) increases technology spillovers at…
By: Deepak Hegde (opens in a new tab), Kyle Herkenhoff (opens in a new tab), Chenqi Zhu (opens in a new tab)
Who profits from patents? Rent-sharing at innovative firms (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers DEC 18, 2018
This paper analyzes how patent-induced shocks to labor productivity propagate into worker compensation using a new linkage of US patent applications to US business and worker tax records. We infer…
By: Patrick Kline (opens in a new tab), Neviana Petkova (opens in a new tab), Heidi Williams (opens in a new tab), Owen Zidar (opens in a new tab)
Control without responsibility: The legal creation of franchising 1960-1980 (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers DEC 13, 2018
While the first business organizations to reach large size in the late nineteenth-century did so through the route of vertical integration—formal ownership of assets and direct employment of workers—mid-twentieth-century franchising…
By: Brian Callaci (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation with Karen Dynan (opens in a new tab)
In Conversation DEC 12, 2018
Equitable Growth Executive Director and Chief Economist Heather Boushey talks with Equitable Growth Steering Committee member Karen Dynan, a professor of the practice of economics at Harvard University.
By: Heather Boushey (opens in a new tab)
Short and medium run impacts of preschool education: Evidence from state pre-k programs (opens in a new tab)
Working Papers DEC 4, 2018
I study the effects of state preschool programs on child development, health, and academic progress from ages 5 to 12. I leverage variation in the timing of implementation of pre-K…
By: Mariana Zerpa (opens in a new tab)
Your Direct Line to Cutting Edge Research
Be the first to know about our latest events, research releases, and expert insights. Get exclusive updates delivered right to your inbox and never miss an opportunity to engage with our community.