We design a new survey to elicit quantifiable, interpersonally comparable beliefs about pecuniary and non-pecuniary benefits and costs to maternal labor supply decisions, to study how beliefs vary across and within different groups in the population and to analyze how those beliefs relate to...

Why are average hours worked per adult lower in rich countries than in poor countries? We consider two natural explanations: income effects in preferences, in which leisure becomes more valuable when income rises, and distortionary tax systems, which are more prevalent in richer countries. To...

Why are average hours worked per adult lower in rich countries than in poor countries? We consider two natural explanations: income effects in preferences, in which leisure becomes more valuable when income rises, and distortionary tax systems, which are more prevalent in richer countries. To...

Many Americans claim Social Security benefits early, though this leaves them with lower benefits throughout retirement. We build a lifecycle model that closely tracks claiming patterns under current rules, and we use it to predict claiming delays if, by delaying benefits, people received a lump...

Can greater control over earned income incentivize women to work and infuence gender norms? In collaboration with Indian government partners, we provided rural women with individual bank accounts and randomly varied whether their wages from a public workfare program were directly deposited into...

We investigate the role of training in reducing the gender wage gap using the UK-BHPS which contains detailed records of training. Using policy changes over an 18 year period we identify the impact of training and work experience on wages, earnings and employment. Based on a lifecycle model and...

We investigate the role of training in reducing the gender wage gap using the UK-BHPS which contains detailed records of training. Using policy changes over an 18 year period we identify the impact of training and work experience on wages, earnings and employment. Based on a lifecycle model and...

Zum Ehegattensplitting des deutschen Einkommensteuerrechts mehren sich die Stimmen, die darin eine Diskriminierung sehen. Dieser Beitrag stellt dieser Vermutung eine Gegendarstellung gegenüber. Zum einen folgt danach, dass diese Diskriminierung selbstselektionsbedingt und somit keineswegs eine...

In the United States, both taxes and old age Social Security benefits depend on one's marital status and tend to discourage the labor supply of the secondary earner. To what extent are these provisions holding back female labor supply? We estimate a rich life cycle model of labor supply and...

We assess the effect of the minimum wage on labor market outcomes such as employment, unemployment, and labor force participation for most workers affected by the policy. We apply modern machine learning tools to construct demographically-based treatment groups capturing around 75% of all...

We investigate whether child tax benefits reduce child poverty and labor force participation among single mothers within the context of the 2015 expansion of the Canadian Universal Child Care Benefit (UCCB) and the 2016 introduction of the Canada Child Benefit (CCB). We compare single mothers to...

We examine how much of the overall decline in employment between the beginning of 2020 and 2021 can be explained by excess job loss among parents of young children, and mothers specifically. Using data from the Current Population Survey (CPS), we confirm that, in general, mothers with young...

Interactions between redistributive policies can confront low-income households with complicated choices. We study one such interaction, namely the relationship between Medicaid eligibility thresholds and the minimum wage. A minimum wage increase reduces the number of hours a low-skilled...

We develop a theory that focuses on the general equilibrium and long-run macroeconomic consequences of trends in job utility--the process benefits and costs of work. Given secular increases in job utility, work hours per population can remain approximately constant over time even if the income...

We examine the labor market consequences of an exogenous increase in the supply of skilled labor in several cities in Norway, resulting from the construction of new colleges in the 1970s. We find that skilled wages increased as a response, suggesting that along with an increase in the supply...