The income elasticity of labor supply is a central parameter of many economic models. We test how labor supply and effort in northern Ghana respond to exogenous changes in income and wages using a randomized evaluation of a multi-faceted grant program combined with a bag-making operation. We...

We evaluate the labor market and distributional effects of an increase in the early retirement age (ERA) from 60 to 63 for women. We use a regression discontinuity design which exploits the immediate increase in the ERA between women born in 1951 and 1952. The analysis is based on the German...

This paper studies a transmission mechanism through which pro-vulnerable income transfers may affect individual decision-making of non-beneficiaries in an extreme poverty context, leading to labor supply contraction and the so-called dependency syndrome. The argument is based on the...

In 1993, in response to persistent unemployment, and rising poverty and social unrest, the government of Albania introduced an anti-poverty program, namely Ndihma Ekonomike; in 1995 it was extended to all poor households. This paper estimates the separate effects of participation in this income...

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs aim to alleviate poverty through monetary and in-kind benefits, as well as reduce future levels of poverty by encouraging investments in education, health, and nutrition. The success of CCT programs at reducing poverty depends on whether, and the extent...

In view of rising wage inequality and increasing poverty, the introduction of a legal minimum wage has recently become an important policy issue in Germany. We analyze the distributional effects of the introduction of a nationwide legal minimum wage of ¬ 7.5 per hour on the basis of a...

We study the effects of public pension systems on the retirement timing of older workers and, in turn, the health consequences of delaying retirement by those workers. Causal inference relies on a social security reform in Israel that shifted payments from husbands to their (non-working) wives,...

Retired parents might invest time into their adult children by providing childcare. Such intergenerational time transfers can have important implications for family decisions. This paper estimates the effects of parental retirement on adult children's fertility. We use representative panel data...

This paper studies the presence of hours constraints on the UK labor market and its effect on older workers labor supply, both at the extensive and the intensive margin. Using panel data for the period 1991-2004, the results from a competing risks model show that over-employed male workers can...

Retirement ages among older Americans have only recently begun to increase after a precipitous fifty-year decline. Early retirement may result from incentives provided by retirement systems; but it may also result from the rigidities imposed by market work schedules. Using the American Time Use...