The proportion of adolescents in the United States who are obese has nearly tripled over the last two decades. At the same time, schools, often citing financial pressures, have given students greater access to "junk" foods, using proceeds from the sales to fund school programs. We examine...

Despite clear theoretical predictions of UI effects on takeup there is little work on the link between program generosity and the propensity to file for benefits. Administrative data allow us to assign the potential level and duration of benefits accurately for a sample of workers separating...

We examine the effects of unemployment insurance (UI) experience rating on layoffs using high quality firm and individual data. Our preferred estimates imply that incomplete experience rating is responsible for over twenty percent of temporary layoffs. The results are more mixed regarding the...

Obesity has been one of the fastest growing health concerns among children, particularly among disadvantaged children. For children overall, obesity rates have tripled from 5% in the early 1970s to about 15% by the early 2000s. For disadvantaged children, obesity rates are closer to 20%. In this...

The recent experience of Washington State provides a natural setting to examine the effects of the unemployment insurance payroll tax on wages, employment, claims and denials. During the 13 year period from 1972 through 1984, all employers in Washington paid the same unemployment insurance (UI)...

We examine the distributional consequences of the UI payroll tax using representative individual microdata. We calculate taxes paid by individual wage and individual and household income deciles, incorporating the effects of multiple job holding and turnover. This tax distribution is compared...

This paper will focus on the child care decisions of women who differ by their level of skill, as measured by their level of education, and the role that costs play in determining their labor force participation. Our analysis will include four separate components. First, we will review the...

Over the last two decades the proportion of adolescents in the United States who are obese has nearly tripled, and schools, citing financial pressures, have given students greater access to “junk” foods, using the proceeds to fund school programs. We examine whether schools under financial...