Spring 2007 (Revised from May 2006). In this paper we ask, how do individual and community factors influence the average length of poverty spells? We measure local economic conditions by the county unemployment rate and neighborhood spillover effects by the racial makeup and poverty rate of the...

Our research fleshes out econometric details of examining possible social interactions in labor supply. We look for a response of a person's hours worked to hours worked in the labor market reference group, which includes those with similar age, family structure, and location. We identify...

We examine theoretically and empirically social interactions in labor markets and how policy prescriptions can change dramatically when there are social interactions present. Spillover effects increase labor supply and conformity effects make labor supply perfectly inelastic at a reference group...

Our research examines individual differences in the effects of medical malpractice tort reforms on pre-trial settlement speed and settlement amounts by age and most likely settlement size. Findings of note include that, unlike previously assumed, both absolute and percentage losses from tort...

Fall 2001 (Revised from March 2001). Abstract: Our research provides new econometric evidence concerning partial economic risk sharing between a frail elderly parent and an adult child. We estimate a jointly determined limited dependent variables system explaining the parent’s entry into a...

October 2005 (Revised from March 2003/February 2004). Our research examines the effect of interdependence on estimation and interpretation of earnings/labor supply equations. We consider the cases of (1) a positive spillover from others’ labor supplied and (2) a need for conformity with...

March 2003 (Revised from January 2003). We examine the incidence, form, and research consequences of measurement error in measure of fatal injury risk in U.S. workplaces using both BLS and NIOSH data. We find evidence of substantial measurement errors in the fatality risk researchers attach to...

March 2001 (Revised from May 2000). During the 1980s and 1990s there were great increases of health insurance coverage for poor children through the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and extended Medicaid eligibility. Problems remain for the small number of children with serious...

November 2004 (Revised from April 2003). We estimate the incentive effects of income taxation in a life-cycle model of consumption and labor supply that relaxes the standard assumption of strong separability within periods. Our model permits identification of both within-period preference...

October 2001 (Revised from July 2001). Abstract: By supplementing income explicitly through payments or implicitly through taxes collected, income-based taxes and transfers make disposable income less variable. Because disposable income determines consumption, policies that smooth disposable...