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Working Paper
Do self-insurance and disability insurance prevent consumption loss on disability?
In this paper we show the extent to which public insurance and self-insurance mitigate the cost of health shocks that limit the ability to work. We use consumption data from the UK to estimate the insurance provided by the government disability programme and account for the effectiveness of alternative self-insurance mechanisms. Individuals with a work-limiting health condition, but in receipt of disability insurance, have 7 percent lower consumption than those without such a condition. Self-insurance through savings and a working partner each provide some insurance benefit, improving ...
Working Paper
Marriage, Labor Supply, and the Dynamics of the Social Safety Net
The 1996 U.S. welfare reform introduced time limits on welfare receipt. We use quasi-experimental evidence and a rich life cycle model to understand the impact of time limits on different margins of behavior and well-being. We stress the impact of marital status and marital transitions on mitigating the cost and impact of time limits. Time limits cause women to defer claiming in anticipation of future needs and to work more, effects that depend on the probabilities of marriage and divorce. They also cause an increase in employment among single mothers and reduce divorce, but their ...
Working Paper
Fertility and Family Labor Supply
We study how fertility decisions interact with labor supply and human capital accumulation of men and women. First, we use longitudinal Danish register data and tax reforms to show that increases in wages of women decrease fertility while increases in wages of men increase fertility. Second, we estimate a life-cycle model to quantify the importance of fertility adjustments for labor supply and long-run gender inequality. Wage elasticities of women are more than 10% lower if fertility cannot be adjusted. Finally, we show that the long-term consequences of human capital depreciation around ...
Working Paper
Joint Child Custody and Interstate Migration
Joint custody following divorce is widespread, yet the implementation of joint custody is costly when individuals live in different states, so it affects interstate mobility. Migration of divorced fathers has fallen significantly more than that of married fathers. We show the causal effect of joint custody using two strategies. First, we survey divorced parents to elicit beliefs about the likelihood of interstate moves. Second, we use the staggered adoption of joint custody laws across U.S. states, and show a reduction in actual migration of 11 percentage points for fathers. For mothers, ...