Disability benefits provide social insurance against the risk of losing working capacity, as well as an important source of income for individuals with disabilities. They are also costly and tend to reduce labor supply. Although spending can be contained by careful targeting, correcting past...

This paper uses a life cycle model to study the welfare implications of reforms to U.S. Disability Insurance (DI) while accounting for household self-insurance. In addition to crowding out the insurance value of DI, household self-insurance may drive negative selection into DI by reducing...

Along with health, Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) evaluates work-limiting disability by considering vocational factors including age, education, and past work experience. As the number of SSDI applicants and awards has increased, these vocational criteria are increasingly important...

This paper studies the link between severe weather shocks in Colombia and municipality-level incidence of dengue and malaria. The unexpectedly high variability of the 2010 rainfalls relative to previous periods and their regional heterogeneity are exploited as an identification strategy. A...