This paper measures the 2007-13 evolution of employment tax rates in the U.K. and the U.S. The U.S. changes are greater, in the direction of taxing a greater fraction of the value created by employment, and primarily achieved with new implicit tax rates. Even though both countries implemented a...

Using the 2006 and 2010 Health and Retirement Study, we explore how the recent recession impacted the wealth holding and retirement plans of older households in the United States. Of particular interest to us is whether the impact on household asset ownership, asset wealth and household...

Skills are a central source of high productivity and economic well-being. But what do we mean by productive skills? Both with regard to measurement and policy, the primary focus in the U.S. has been on academic skills, as measured by tests of reading, writing and math abilities and by...

We provide updated evidence on the effects of living wage laws in U.S. cities, relative to the earlier research covering only the first six or seven years of existence of these laws. There are some challenges to updating the evidence, as the CPS data on which it relies changed geographic coding...

In this paper we implement a non-dynamic panel threshold model for fifty U.S. states to better understand the factors determining changes in Okun’s Law. We test for asymmetries in Okun’s Law controlling for changes in industry employment. We find changes in output on unemployment are least...

Unsustainable growth in program costs and beneficiaries, together with a growing recognition that even people with severe impairments can work, led to fundamental disability policy reforms in the Netherlands, Sweden, and Great Britain. In Australia, rapid growth in disability recipiency led to...

In response to the 2007 - 09 "Great Recession," the maximum duration of U.S. unemployment benefits was increased from the normal level of 26 weeks to an unprecedented 99 weeks. I estimate the impact of these extensions on job search, comparing them with the more limited extensions associated...

Workers who become work-incapacitated may try to change employer or stay with their current employer in an accommodated job. We study the effect of these strategies on sick-listed workers' employment durations. We use survey and register data of 809 workers. We simultaneously estimate the...

Stagnant earnings and growing inequality in the US labor market reflect both a slowdown in the growth of worker skills and the growing matching of good-paying jobs to skilled workers. Improving the ties between colleges, workforce institutions, and employers would help more workers gain the...