A key contention in economics is the discrepancy between micro and macro elasticities of labor supply with respect to marginal tax rates. We revisit this question, focusing on the role of dynamic returns to effort among top earners. We develop a new model of earnings responses to taxes in the...

This paper constructs high-frequency and timely income distributions for the United States. We develop a methodology to combine the information contained in high-frequency public data sources--including monthly household and employment surveys, quarterly censuses of employment and wages, and...

We estimate the longer-run effects of minimum wages, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and welfare on key economic indicators of economic self-sufficiency in disadvantaged neighborhoods. Our strongest findings are twofold. First, the longer-run effects of the EITC are to increase employment and to...

This paper reconsiders the impact of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) on labor supply at the extensive margin. I investigate every EITC reform at the state and federal level since the inception of the policy in 1975. Based on event studies comparing single women with and without children, or...

What is the impact of the minimum wage on the college wage premium? I show that job-ladder models imply that the effect should be small on impact---raising only the wages of workers bound by the minimum wage---and grow over time as workers slowly move up the job ladder. Guided by my theory, I...

The nonprofit sector's ability to absorb increases in labor costs differs from the private sector in a number of ways. We analyze how nonprofits are affected by changes in the minimum wage utilizing data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Internal Revenue Service, linked to state...

Midlife mortality has risen steadily in the U.S. since the 1990s for non-Hispanic whites without a bachelor's degree, and since 2013 for Hispanics and African-Americans who lack a bachelor's degree. These increases largely reflect increased mortality from alcohol poisoning, drug overdose and...

This paper provides a theoretical analysis of optimal minimum wage policy in a perfectly competitive labor market. We show that a binding minimum wage -- while leading to unemployment -- is nevertheless desirable if the government values redistribution toward low wage workers and if unemployment...

The mental health of the elderly in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is a largely neglected subject, both by policy and research. We combine data from the health and retirement family of surveys in seven LMICs (plus the US) to document that depressive symptoms among those aged 55 and...

This paper uses administrative data to analyze a large and 8-year long employer payroll tax rate cut in Sweden for young workers aged 26 or less. First, we document that while active, the reform raised youth employment among the treated workers. The long-run effects are twice as large as the...