Minimum wage increases are not a very effective mechanism for reducing poverty. They are not related to decreases in poverty rates. They can cost some low-income workers their jobs. And most minimum wage earners who gain from a higher minimum wage do not live in poor (or near-poor) families. A...

To measure income inequality with right censored (topcoded) data, we propose multiple imputation for censored observations using draws from Generalized Beta of the Second Kind distributions to provide partially synthetic datasets analyzed using complete data methods. Estimation and inference...

This paper analyzes the importance of policy variables in the context of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) application timing decision. Previously, we explicitly modeled the optimal timing of SSDI application using dynamic structural models. We estimated these models using data from...

The March Current Population Survey (CPS) is the primary data source for estimation of levels and trends in labor earnings and income inequality in the USA. Time-inconsistency problems related to top coding in theses data have led many researchers to use the ratio of the 90th and 10th...

Although the majority of research on US income inequality trends is based on public-use March CPS data, a new wave of research using IRS tax return data reports substantially higher levels of inequality and faster growing trends. We show that these apparently inconsistent estimates are largely...

This paper develops dynamic structural models - an option value model and a dynamic programming model - of the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) application timing decision. We estimate the time to application from the point at which a health condition first begins to affect the kind...

Using internal and public use March Current Population Survey data, we analyze trends in US income inequality (1975–2004). Using a multiple imputation approach where values for censored observations are imputed using draws from a Generalized Beta distribution of the Second Kind, we find that...