In a series of major expansions starting in 1987, the earned income tax credit (EITC) has become a central part of the federal government's anti-poverty strategy. In this paper, we examine the impact of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 (TRA86), which included an expansion of the EITC, on labor force...

Approximately 1-in-7 people and 1-in-4 children received benefits from the US Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in July 2011, both all-time highs. We analyze changes in SNAP take-up over the past two decades. From 1994 to 2001, coincident with welfare reform, take-up fell from 75%...

Many organizations have budgets that expire at the end of the fiscal year. Faced with uncertainty over future spending demands, these organizations have an incentive to build up a rainy day fund over the first part of the year. If demand does not materialize, they must rush to spend these...

This paper examines the short-run impacts of a change in residential neighborhood on the well-being of low-income families, using evidence from the Moving To Opportunity (MTO) program in which eligibility for a housing voucher was determined by random lottery. Applicants in high poverty public...

This paper reviews the course of fiscal policy and Social Security policy during the 1990s. The 1990s witnessed two fundamental changes in U.S. fiscal policy: a dramatic improvement in the current and projected budget balance, and a shift to a new political consensus in favor of balancing the...

A common view of CEO compensation is that there is essentially no correlation between firm performance and CEO pay. This calls into question an important component of effective corporate governance. This zero correlation' belief is based on the widely cited result that CEO wealth rises by only...

Families, primarily female-headed minority households with children, living in high-poverty public housing projects in five U.S. cities were offered housing vouchers by lottery in the Moving to Opportunity program. Four to seven years after random assignment, families offered vouchers lived in...

The behavioral revolution in economics has demonstrated that human beings often have difficulty making wise choices. The most widely chronicled difficulties arise for decisions made under conditions of uncertainty, those whose consequences unfold over significant amounts of time, and decisions...

This paper analyzes the effects of a large randomized field experiment carried out with H&R Block, offering matching incentives for IRA contributions at the time of tax preparation. About 14,000 H&R Block clients, across 60 offices in predominantly low- and middle-income neighborhoods in St....

This paper, a forthcoming chapter in the Handbook of Public Economics, reviews the theoretical and empirical issues dealing with Social Security pensions. The first part of the paper discusses pure pay-as-you-go plans. It considers the effects of introducing such a plan on the present value of...