Living wage ordinances typically mandate that businesses under contract with a city or, in some cases, receiving assistance from a city, must pay their workers a wage sufficient to support a family financially. We estimate the effects of these ordinances on wages, hours, and employment in cities...

Nearly 100 cities and local governments in the United States have passed living wage laws since the mid-1990s. Although the central goal of living wages is to reduce poverty, they may fail to do so because of disemployment effects. We summarize and critique the existing research on the effects...

Many features of living wage laws may influence the strength of their effects on wages and employment of low-skill individuals. Echoing past research, business assistance living wage laws generate stronger wage increases and employment reductions than contractor-only laws. But broader...

This paper provides evidence of an education-health relationship among older adults, even after controlling for individual and family background characteristics. It also explores to what extent this relationship represents an independent effect of education on health. An identification strategy...

This paper explores the effects of living wages on low-wage workers and low-income families. First, we update our earlier analyses, using data for 1996-2002, and address a number of criticisms of those analyses. We confirm our earlier findings that business assistance living wage laws boost...

Living wage campaigns have succeeded in about 100 jurisdictions in the United States, but they have also failed in numerous cities. Some were derailed by state legislative or judicial decisions, and others were voted down or vetoed at the city level. This paper exploits the information provided...

Many features of living wage laws may influence the strength of their effects on the wages and employment of low-skill workers. Echoing past research, we find that business assistance living wage laws generate stronger wage increases and employment reductions than do contractor-only laws....

Using geographic variation in local and state smoke-free bar laws in the US, we observe an increase in fatal accidents involving alcohol following bans on smoking in bars that is not observed in places without bans. Although an increased accident risk might seem surprising at first, two strands...