Search Results
Showing results 1 to 4 of approximately 4.
(refine search)
Working Paper
Weathering an Unexpected Financial Shock: The Role of Cash Grants on Household Finance and Business Survival
We estimate the causal effect of cash grants on household finance and business survival following a natural disaster. Disaster-affected individuals in high damage blocks with access to cash grants have 17% less credit card debt following the disaster than those without access to cash grants. Grants do not reduce negative financial outcomes, but do decrease migration. The grants play a role in mitigating the effects of the shock to businesses; resulting in 18% more establishments and 29% more employees post-disaster in disaster-affected neighborhoods where residents receive grants, relative to ...
Working Paper
Employer Wage Subsidy Caps and Part-Time Work
Hiring credits and employer wage subsidies are tools that policymakers have available to attempt to improve labor market conditions for workers. This study explores how capped-wage subsidies affect firms’ labor market decisions, in particular, their reliance on part-time and low-skill workers. We focus on the federal Empowerment Zone program, which offers firms in targeted areas a 20 percent wage subsidy (capped at $3,000 per year) for each employee who also resides in the Empowerment Zone. Results using different methods of identification suggest that firms respond to capped-wage subsidies ...
Working Paper
Dynamic Sales Tax Competition: Evidence from Panel Data at the Border
We examine both vertical and horizontal tax competition over time by studying the strategic response of county sales taxation to state sales taxes and to cross-border neighboring municipalities’ combined (state and county) taxes. Using county and state sales tax data from 2003 through 2009, we employ both static and dynamic panel analysis as well as an instrumental variables approach in combination with a border analysis. Our results confirm the presence of tax competition in the cross section, as previous studies have found. Results from the fixed-effects and dynamic panel analysis also ...
Working Paper
The effect of state and local sales taxes on employment at state borders
This paper estimates the effect of sales taxes on employment at state borders using county-level quarterly data and a newly developed data set of local tax rates. Sales tax increases, relative to cross-border neighbors, lead to losses of employment, as well as payroll and hiring, but these effects are only found in counties with large shares of residents working in another state. The effects also represent an upper-bound, largely driven by employment shifting across the state border. We also find that employment in food and beverage stores is negatively affected when cross-border neighbors ...