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Essays on Homelessness
Get PDFDespite widespread concern about people experiencing homelessness, fundamental questions about this vulnerable and difficult-to-study population are unresolved. This dissertation draws on new data and innovative methods to fill critical gaps in our understanding of homelessness in the United States. The introduction discusses the general problem of homelessness, the state of existing literature, and the contributions and limitations of these essays. The first chapter examines the completeness and reliability of available data sources and develops a new estimate of the U.S. homeless population size. The second chapter examines the level and longitudinal patterns of income and safety net participation for people experiencing homelessness by linking the Census and other datasets to administrative tax and program data. The third chapter provides the first national calculation of mortality for this population, shedding new light on the health disparities associated with homelessness. Taken together, these essays provide researchers, policymakers, and the public with a the first national, close to representative, and rigorously quantitative description of the persistent hardships associated with homelessness while also informing future efforts to aid this population
Taxing the Gender Gap: Labor Market Effects of A Payroll Tax Cut for Women in Italy
Get PDFThis paper studies the labor market effects of a large payroll tax cut for female hires in Italy. Starting in January 2013, the payroll tax rate paid by the employer for female hires was reduced by 50 percent for a period of 12 months for temporary jobs and 18 months for permanent jobs. Eligibility for the tax cut depends on the time elapsed in nonemployment status and varies discontinuously by the worker’s municipality of residence, age, and occupation. Combining social security data on the universe of Italian private-sector workers with several empirical approaches, I find that the tax cut increases female employment and spurs business performance, especially where gender biases are more severe. By contrast, the tax cut does not raise workers’ net wages. A cost-benefit analysis implies that the net cost of the policy is around one-fourth of the budgetary cost. These findings provide the first empirical evidence that differentiating payroll taxes by gender helps to reduce the gender employment gap, but not the gender pay gap
“Workhorses of Opportunity:” Regional Universities Increase Social Mobility
No full textRegional public universities educate approximately 70 percent of college students at four-year public universities and an even larger share of students from disadvantaged backgrounds. They aim to provide opportunity for education and social mobility, in part by locating near potential students. In this paper, we use the historical assignment of normal schools and insane asylums (normal schools grew into regional universities while asylums remain small) and data from Opportunity Insights to identify the effects of regional universities on the social mobility of nearby children. Children in counties given a normal school get more education and have better economic and social outcomes, especially lower-income children. For several key outcomes, we show this effect is a causal effect on children, and not only selection on which children live near universities
Work Hours Mismatch
No full textThis paper uses a revealed preference approach applied to administrative data from Washington to document and characterize work-hour constraints. Workers have limited discretion over hours at a given employer, and there is substantial mismatch between workers who prefer long hours and employers that provide short hours. Voluntary job transitions suggest that the ratio of the marginal rate of substitution of earnings for hours (MRS) to the wage rate is on the order of 0.5-0.6 for prime-age workers. The average absolute deviation between observed hours and optimal hours is about 15%, and constraints on hours are particularly acute among low-wage workers. On average, observed hours tend to be less than preferred levels, and workers would require a 12% higher wage with their current employer to be as well off as they would be after moving to an employer offering ideal hours. These findings suggest that hours constraints are an equilibrium feature of the labor market because long-hour jobs are costly to employers, and that employers offer high-wage/long-hour packages to increase their overall value of employment
Bartik Benefit-Cost Model of Business Incentives: A User’s Guide
Get PDFThis “user’s guide” explains a model for evaluating state or local business incentives. These incentives include tax breaks provided by state and local governments to business, to encourage local job growth. The model is intended to be used by state legislative audit bureaus, state and local economic development agencies, university centers for business research, economic development consulting firms, or any group that wants to evaluate an overall economic development program, or individual economic development projects. Users provide information on the incentives provided, and the incented jobs, and the model then produces estimates of the effects of the program on jobs, on different types of income, and the incomes of different income groups. Estimates are customized to a particular state and program/project start year. The model is currently implemented as an Excel workbook, and also as software that uses Python software, but does not require the user to know Python. This user’s guide explains the model’s structure, how the user should enter inputs, and how to interpret model outputs