Can financial incentives encourage disability program participants to work? Due to a lack of randomized experiments with well-defined treatment and control groups, there is little evidence on this question. This paper helps to fill the void by exploiting a policy change in the Norwegian disability system that approximates a well-controlled policy experiment. The results show that financial incentives induce many disability recipients to work, enough so that overall program costs fall in spite of the added financial incentives. The analysis points to the possibility that incorporating financial incentives into the U.S. disability system could achieve similar results.
The productivity impact of new technology: evidence from the US steel industry
The introduction of new production processes can have dramatic effects on aggregate productivity within an industry. This research explores the impact of the major technological innovation of the minimill on the US steel industry, analyzing detailed producer-level data on prices and production over a 40-year period. The study illustrates how technology can drive reallocation: the market share of plants using minimills rose significantly, but the older technology of vertically integrated production was not entirely displaced. Instead, less productive vertically integrated plants were driven out of the industry and output was reallocated to more efficient producers.
Impact of incentives on tax collectors and taxpayers
Tax collectors in developing countries collect far less tax revenue as a share of gross domestic product than tax collectors in higher income countries. In many of these developing countries, tax officials have discretion in assessing, enforcing, and auditing taxes. In addition, they earn relatively low wages with fewer rewards for good performance, allowing for the possibility of collusion with taxpayers. In the case of property taxes, officials may accept payments in exchange for leaving properties off the tax rolls, granting inappropriate exemptions, or assessing properties at a lower rate, all of which lead to lower revenues for the state.
Impoverished children with access to food stamps become healthier and wealthier adults
Adults who participated in the Food Stamp Program, renamed the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in 2008, as children are healthier and better off financially than poverty-stricken families who did not have access to the program, according to findings in joint work with Douglas Almond and Diane Schanzenbach (this paper and a companion paper Almond, et al. 2011).
Forced to upgrade? How consumer welfare is affected by technological innovation
When new technologies enter the market, older products are often removed from store shelves. This article asks whether such product elimination is socially efficient. It studies this question in the context of the American Home PC market between 2001 and 2004. Empirically, the paper documents consumer heterogeneity and then studies how the major innovation of the time—Intel’s Pentium M™ processor—contributed to social welfare.
A choice of auction type allows for corruption to persist in Chinese land sales
Urban land development in China is occurring on a massive scale and corruption is prevalent in the real estate sector through side deals between buyers and city officials. A recent study by Cai, Henderson, and Zhang (2013, RAND Journal of Economics) provides indirect evidence of this corruption through the use of two different types of auctions. The authors argue that the practices of city officials overseeing land sales amount to losses in city revenue in the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Designing tax policy in high-evasion economies
Developing economies are typically characterized by low tax revenue and widespread tax evasion. This research shows that in such environments, it can be better to tax firms based on turnover rather than profits: while turnover taxes are known to distort production decisions, they are more difficult to evade than profit taxes. Analyzing administrative tax records from Pakistan, the study shows that the use of production-inefficient turnover taxes sharply reduces tax evasion and increases tax revenue.
Did welfare reform lead some American families to work less?
The landmark US welfare reform of 1996 provided strong incentives for poor women to work while receiving assistance – but it also provided incentives for some women to reduce their earnings to qualify for benefits. This research develops a new approach to detecting this ‘welfare opt-in’ effect and uses it to analyze data from a large randomized evaluation of welfare reform in Connecticut: the “Jobs First” program.
The productivity effects of importing inputs: evidence from Hungary
Improved access to foreign inputs has increased firms’ productivity in a number of countries. Analysing data for Hungary, this research explores the channels through which imported inputs boost productivity and finds that the positive effects are particularly strong for foreign-owned firms.
Does the medical residency match lower salaries for residents?
What’s the best way to match new doctors to medical residency programs? The medical residency matching problem is solved by a centralized coordination system that pairs market participants according to their preferences. This paper examines the evidence for the claim that the matching system depresses salaries and finds that an alternative explanation – low salaries represent an implicit tuition fee for medical training – is more promising.
