We empirically study the dynamics of labor market adjustment following the Brazilian trade reform of the 1990s. We use variation in industry-specific tariff cuts interacted with initial regional industry mix to measure trade-induced local labor demand shocks, and then examine regional and...

During the Great Recession of 2007, unemployment reached nearly 10 percent and the ratio of unemployment to open positions (as measured by the Help Wanted OnLine Index) more than tripled. The weak labor market prompted an unprecedented extension in the length of time in which a claimant can...

I document a new empirical pattern of internal mobility in the United States. Namely, county-tocounty migration and commuting drop off discretely at state borders. People are three times as likely to move to a county 15 miles away, but in the same state, than to move to an equally distant county...

This paper studies the effect of changes in economic conditions on crime. We exploit the 1990s trade liberalization in Brazil as a natural experiment generating exogenous shocks to local economies. We document that regions exposed to larger tariff reductions experienced a temporary increase in...

This paper examines the determinants of the decision of low-income renters to move out of their current dwelling. Maximum score estimation is shown t be superior to ordinary discrete choice estimation techniques (probit, logit) for this problem, ad for similar discrete choices that require...

Previous studies have estimated the "human capital depreciation" of women re-entering the work force after voluntary, lengthy interruptions. Those studies have found reduced real wages and furthermore the decrease is positively related to the length of the interruption. Upon re-entry, however,...

Traditionally studies of unemployment insurance benefit adequacy have relied on an expenditure survey. This is expensive, yields small samples, and presumes that the analyst knows which categories of expenditure are necessary. This paper uses an existing large data set, and an agnostic approach....

The Targeted Jobs Tax Credit (TJTC) is intended to stimulate the employment of individuals who are members of certain groups of the labor force by providing a wage subsidy (in the form of a tax credit) to employers of recently-hired eligible workers. This intervention into the labor market has...

This testimony describes the results of a study of the Employment Service (ES) conducted by Dr. Jacobson and Prof. Arnold Katz of the University of Pittsburgh using data on over 100,000 individuals who registered with the Pennsylvania ES between 1978 and 1987, and an even larger sample of...