We examine the effects of provider choice policies on workers' compensation medical and indemnity costs. We find no difference in average medical costs between states where policies give employers control over the choice of provider and states where policies instead give workers the most...

There have been over 80 field experiments on traditional dimensions of discrimination in labor and housing markets since 2000, in 23 countries. These studies nearly always find evidence of discrimination against minorities. However, the estimates of discrimination in these studies can be biased...

We design and implement a large-scale field experiment - a resume correspondence study - to address a number of potential limitations of existing field experiments testing for age discrimination, which may bias their results. One limitation that may bias these studies towards finding...

Reducing or eliminating Social Security's Retirement Earnings Test (RET) can encourage labor supply of older individuals receiving benefits. However, these reforms can encourage earlier claiming of Social Security benefits, permanently lowering future benefits. We explore the consequences, for...

We explore the effects of disability discrimination laws on hiring of older workers. A concern with anti-discrimination laws is that they may reduce hiring by raising the cost of terminations and - in the specific case of disability discrimination laws - raising the cost of employment because of...

We measure the impact of labor market referral networks defined by residential neighborhoods on re-employment following mass layoffs. Because networks can only be effective when hiring is occurring, we focus on a measure of the strength of the labor market network that includes not only the...

A central issue in estimating the employment effects of minimum wages is the appropriate comparison group for states (or other regions) that adopt or increase the minimum wage. In recent research, Dube et al. (2010) and Allegretto et al. (2011) argue that past U.S. research is flawed because it...

"Business climate indexes" characterize state economic policies, and are often used to try to influence economic policy debate. However, they are also useful in research as summaries of a large number of state policies that cannot be studied simultaneously. Prior research found that business...

Place-based policies commonly target underperforming areas, such as deteriorating downtown business districts and disadvantaged regions. Principal examples include enterprise zones, European Union Structural Funds, and industrial cluster policies. Place-based policies are rationalized by various...

We examine whether stronger age discrimination laws at the state level moderated the impact of the Great Recession on older workers. We use a difference-in-difference-in-differences strategy to compare older workers in states with stronger and weaker laws, to their younger counterparts, both...