We argue in this paper that the focus on employment effects in recent studies of minimum wages ignores an important interaction between schooling, employment, and the minimum wage. To study these linkages, we estimate a conditional logit model of employment and enrollment outcomes for teenagers...

This paper evaluates the effects of the earned income tax credit (EITC) on poor families. Exploiting state-level variation in EITCs, we find that the EITC helps families rise above poverty-level earnings. This occurs by inducing labor market entry in families that initially do not have an adult...

The elderly are one of the exceptional groups in American society with access to a significant cash safety net, a means-tested program called Supplemental Security Income (SSI). Little attention has been paid to the pre-eligibility-age labor market disincentives created by such a program. In...

We ask whether women's decisions to be in the labor force may be affected by the decisions of other women in ways not captured by standard models. We develop a model that augments the simple neoclassical framework by introducing relative income concerns into women's (or families') utility...

In recent years, many states and some local governments implemented or expanded their own supplemental Earned Income Tax Credits (EITCs). The expansion of state EITCs may have stemmed in large part from wanting to provide a more generous program than the federal program, because state EITCs...

We examine the effects of employment-contingent health insurance on married women's labor supply following a health shock. First, we develop a theoretical model that examines the effects of employment-contingent health insurance on the labor supply response to a health shock, to clarify under...

Because the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program is means-tested, with both income limits and asset limits, those on the margin of eligibility for the elderly component of the program face incentives to reduce labor supply (or earnings) prior to becoming eligible. Our past research relying...

Employment-contingent health insurance creates incentives for ill workers to remain employed at a sufficient level (usually full-time) to maintain access to health insurance coverage. We study employed married women, newly diagnosed with breast cancer, comparing labor supply responses to breast...

We use a unique new data set that combines individual worker data with data on workers' employers to estimate plant-level production functions and wage equations, and thus to compare relative marginal products and relative wages for various groups of workers. The data and empirical framework...

In this paper we use micro-level data on employers and employees to investigate whether Affirmative Action procedures lead firms to hire minority or female employees who are less qualified than workers who might otherwise be hired. Our measures of qualifications include the educational...