Recent theoretical work suggests that means and asset-tested social insurance programs can explain the low savings of lower income households in the U.S. We assess the validity of this hypothesis by investigating the effect of Medicaid, the health insurance program for low income women and...

Advocates of living wage laws claim wage mandates will help families escape poverty by increasing family earnings beyond the poverty line. This article examines such programs and the effect a change in pay would have on taxes and benefits for low-income families in cities where living wage laws...

Health insurance reform in Massachusetts lowered the financial cost of both pregnancy (by increased coverage of pregnancy-related medical events) and pregnancy prevention (by increasing access to reliable contraception and family planning). We examine fertility responses for women of...

The anonymity of Bitcoin prevents analysis of its users. We collect Google Trends data to examine determinants of interest in Bitcoin. Based on anecdotal evidence regarding Bitcoin users, we construct proxies for four possible clientele: computer programming enthusiasts, speculative investors,...

In 2012, Connecticut became the first state to enact paid sick leave legislation. Using a difference-in-differences framework, we find the law had modest but negative effects on the labor market, particularly on the likelihood of working in the past week.

Evaluating Accountable Care Organizations is difficult because there is a great deal of heterogeneity in terms of their reimbursement incentives and other programmatic features. We examine how variation in reimbursement incentives and administration among two Medicaid managed care plans impacts...

This paper estimates the impact of the introduction of Medicaid managed care (MMC) on the formal Medicaid participation of children. We employ a quasi-experimental approach exploiting the location-specific timing of MMC implementation in Kentucky. Using data from the March Current Population...