A common finding of the optimal unemployment insurance literature is that the optimal UI replacement rate is around 50%, implying that current levels in the US are close to optimal. However, a key assumption in the existing literature is that unemployment benefits are the only government...

A growing literature on substitution between social programs provides consistent evidence that changes in the generosity of one program can lead to changes in enrollment on other programs. However, this evidence has been ignored in welfare analyses of social insurance programs. I demonstrate...

The standard economic view of the personal income tax is that it is a distortionary way of raising revenue which nonetheless has value because it tends to increase equality. However, when wages deviate from marginal product, the laissez-faire equilibrium is inefficient, and there can be an...

A growing literature documents links between early-life health and human capital, and between human capital and adult wages. Although most of this literature has focused on developed countries, economists have hypothesized that effects of early-life health on adult economic outcomes could be...

In recent decades, there has been a lengthy debate about the fiscal costs or benefits of immigration, and much of the literature has found fiscal impacts that are close to zero. However, these studies have ignored the possibility that immigrants may be victims of wage discrimination in the...